Glossary
Engineering Manager Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential engineering manager terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key engineering manager vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in engineering manager training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- ABET
- Engineering program accreditor.
- CAD
- Computer-aided design.
- Cross-functional
- Across departments.
- Design review
- Formal check of a design.
- FE exam
- Fundamentals of Engineering exam.
- KPI
- Key performance indicator.
- PE license
- Professional Engineer license.
- Requirements
- What a product must do.
- Resource plan
- Staffing plan.
- Risk register
- List of risks.
- Roadmap
- Long-term plan.
- Root cause analysis
- Finding why failures happen.
- Specification
- Detailed requirements.
- Stage-gate
- Phased project approvals.
- Technical debt
- Shortcuts that need fixing.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Engineering Manager practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Engineering Manager training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.