Software & AI Engineering Concepts
Find the concepts behind reliable software and LLM applications.
Browse 45 categories covering databases, distributed systems, architecture, prompts, RAG, agent loops, and technical leadership. Use the directory to spot gaps in your knowledge, prepare for interviews, or plan what to study next.
Open concepts.saad.run · Browse on GitHub · Find a term A–Z
Pick a starting point
| What you’re working on |
Start here |
| APIs under heavy traffic |
Rate limiting, caching, performance |
| Data that stays correct |
Transactions, distributed systems, Redis and distributed KV stores |
| LLMs that use your knowledge base |
Knowledge bases, retrieval and RAG, context engineering |
| Agents that take actions |
Tools and MCP, agent loops, action safety |
| AI applications in production |
Evaluation, observability, security |
| Architecture and team decisions |
Technical strategy, organizational engineering |
Explore all topics
Read more: Software engineering (25 topics)
- [Algorithms and data structures](/docs/software/algorithms.html)
- [Languages and runtimes](/docs/software/languages-and-runtimes.html)
- [Operating systems and hardware](/docs/software/operating-systems.html)
- [Concurrency and parallelism](/docs/software/concurrency.html)
- [Networking and protocols](/docs/software/networking.html)
- [Code design and maintainability](/docs/software/code-design.html)
- [Architecture and domain modeling](/docs/software/architecture.html)
- [APIs and integrations](/docs/software/api-design.html)
- [Rate limiting and admission control](/docs/software/rate-limiting.html)
- [Caching](/docs/software/caching.html)
- [Relational databases and SQL](/docs/software/relational-databases.html)
- [Transactions and concurrency control](/docs/software/transactions.html)
- [Nonrelational databases and search](/docs/software/nonrelational-and-search.html)
- [Distributed systems](/docs/software/distributed-systems.html)
- [Messaging and durable workflows](/docs/software/messaging.html)
- [Data engineering](/docs/software/data-engineering.html)
- [Reliability and resilience](/docs/software/reliability.html)
- [Observability and debugging](/docs/software/observability.html)
- [Performance and capacity](/docs/software/performance.html)
- [Security and privacy](/docs/software/security.html)
- [Infrastructure and cloud](/docs/software/infrastructure.html)
- [Testing and delivery](/docs/software/testing-and-delivery.html)
- [Frontend and client engineering](/docs/software/frontend.html)
- [SaaS and business workflows](/docs/software/saas-workflows.html)
- [Distributed key-value stores and Redis](/docs/software/distributed-key-value-stores.html)
Read more: LLM applications (17 topics)
- [Model behavior and API integration](/docs/ai/model-integration.html)
- [Prompt engineering](/docs/ai/prompt-engineering.html)
- [Context engineering](/docs/ai/context-engineering.html)
- [Knowledge-base ingestion](/docs/ai/knowledge-bases.html)
- [Retrieval and RAG](/docs/ai/rag-and-retrieval.html)
- [Tools, function calling, and MCP](/docs/ai/tools-and-mcp.html)
- [Agent loop engineering](/docs/ai/loop-engineering.html)
- [Agent harness and orchestration](/docs/ai/harness-and-orchestration.html)
- [Memory engineering](/docs/ai/memory-engineering.html)
- [Planning, reasoning, and verification](/docs/ai/planning-and-verification.html)
- [Actions and side-effect safety](/docs/ai/action-safety.html)
- [Evaluation engineering](/docs/ai/evaluation.html)
- [LLM observability and debugging](/docs/ai/observability.html)
- [LLM application security](/docs/ai/security.html)
- [LLM performance and cost](/docs/ai/performance-and-cost.html)
- [LLM application UX](/docs/ai/application-ux.html)
- [Multimodal application integration](/docs/ai/multimodal-applications.html)
Read more: Architecture and technical leadership (3 topics)
- [Technical strategy and architecture judgment](/docs/principal/technical-strategy.html)
- [Organizational engineering](/docs/principal/organizational-engineering.html)
- [Principal-level applied AI judgment](/docs/principal/applied-ai-strategy.html)
What’s inside
- Software engineering: fundamentals, system design, storage, networking, security, testing, and operations.
- LLM applications: prompts, context, retrieval, tools, memory, orchestration, and evaluations.
- Architecture and technical leadership: tradeoffs, ownership, migrations, and engineering strategy.
The directory currently lists concept names, with reference links for each category. Choose a topic relevant to your work and use its terms as a study checklist. The AI section focuses on building applications with LLMs.
About
Created and maintained by Saad Ahmed. The directory covers software systems and building applications with LLMs.
AI-readable index · Download the concept list
Suggest a missing concept
Found a gap or a confusing name? Open an issue or send a pull request.
Changelog · Releases · MIT license