🌳 Software Engineering — Tree of Knowledge
A comprehensive map of every major concept area in software engineering. Use this as your home base. Each link leads to a deeper branch of the tree.
🧱 1. Foundations
The roots — CS fundamentals everything else is built on.
- 01 - Foundations MOC
- Data Structures — Arrays, Linked Lists, Trees, Graphs, Hash Maps, Heaps, Tries
- Algorithms — Sorting, Searching, Graph Algorithms, Dynamic Programming, Greedy, Backtracking
- Computational Complexity — Big-O, P vs NP, Space Complexity, Amortized Analysis
- Mathematics for CS — Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, Probability, Statistics, Information Theory, Queueing Theory
💻 2. Programming Languages & Paradigms
How we express computation — the tools of thought.
- 02 - Programming Languages and Paradigms MOC
- Programming Paradigms — Imperative, OOP, Functional, Logic, Concurrent
- Concurrency — Threads, Locks, Await, Actor Model, CSP, Lock-Free Programming
- Type Systems — Static vs Dynamic, Strong vs Weak, Type Inference, Generics, Algebraic Types
- Language Implementation — Compilers, Interpreters, JIT, ASTs, Parsing, Bytecode
- Memory Models — Stack vs Heap, Garbage Collection, Reference Counting, Ownership (Rust), Manual Management
🗄️ 3. Data Management
Storing, retrieving, and moving data — the lifeblood of applications.
- 03 - Data Management MOC
- Relational Databases — SQL, Normalization, Joins, Indexing, Query Optimization, Transactions
- NoSQL Databases — Document, Key-Value, Column-Family, Graph, Time-Series
- Database Selection Guide — Decision Factors, Tradeoffs, Polyglot Persistence Patterns
- Data Modeling — ER Diagrams, Schema Design, Denormalization, Migrations
- Caching — Strategies, Redis, Memcached, CDN Caching, Cache Invalidation
- Data Pipelines — ELT, Streaming vs Batch, Kafka, Spark, Beam, Trino, Data Lakes, Data Warehouses
- Database Operations — Connection Pooling, Query Analysis, Maintenance, Backups, Schema Migrations
- Search Systems — Inverted Indexes, Text Analysis, Ranking, Full-Text Search, Vector Search
- Data Serialization Formats — JSON, Protobuf, Avro, Parquet, Arrow, Schema Registries
⚙️ 4. Systems & Infrastructure
The machines, networks, and platforms that run our software.
- 04 - Systems and Infrastructure MOC
- Operating Systems — Processes, Threads, Memory Management, File Systems, I/O, Scheduling
- Networking — TCP/IP, HTTP, DNS, TLS, Load Balancing, CDNs, WebSockets
- Distributed Systems — Consensus, CAP Theorem, Replication, Sharding, Message Queues
- Cloud and Containers — Docker, Kubernetes, Serverless, IaC
🏗️ 5. Software Design & Architecture
Structuring code and systems to be maintainable, scalable, and elegant.
- 05 - Software Design and Architecture MOC
- OOP and SOLID Principles — Encapsulation, Inheritance, Polymorphism, SOLID, Composition vs Inheritance
- Design Patterns — Creational, Structural, Behavioral (Gang of Four + Modern)
- Architectural Patterns — Monolith, Microservices, Event-Driven, Layered, Hexagonal, CQRS
- API Design — REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSockets, API Versioning, Rate Limiting
- Domain-Driven Design — Bounded Contexts, Aggregates, Entities, Value Objects, Ubiquitous Language
- System Design Tradeoffs — Consistency vs Availability, SQL vs NoSQL, Monolith vs Microservices, Build vs Buy
🔧 6. Development Process
The practices and tooling that make teams effective.
- 06 - Development Process MOC
- Version Control — Git Internals, Branching Strategies, Monorepos vs Polyrepos
- Testing — Unit, Integration, E2E, Property-Based, TDD, Mocking, Fuzzing
- CI-CD — Pipelines, Deployment Strategies, Feature Flags, Environments
- Methodologies — Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, Shape Up
- Code Quality — Code Review, Linting, Static Analysis, Refactoring, Technical Debt
🛡️ 7. Reliability & Operations
Keeping systems running — the art of not being paged at 3am.
- 07 - Reliability and Operations MOC
- Observability — Logging, Metrics, Tracing, Dashboards, Alerting
- Incident Management — On-Call, Runbooks, Post-Mortems, Blameless Culture
- Site Reliability Engineering — SLAs, SLOs, SLIs, Error Budgets, Toil Reduction, Production Readiness
- Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity — Restore, Failover, DR Tiers, RPO/RTO
- Traffic Management — Traffic Shifting, Load Shedding, Dynamic Configuration
- Performance Engineering — Profiling, Benchmarking, Load Testing, Capacity Planning, Chaos Engineering
- Cost Engineering / FinOps — Cloud Costs, Right-Sizing, Reserved Capacity, Spot Instances, Unit Economics
🔐 8. Security
Protecting systems, data, and users from harm.
- 08 - Security MOC
- Cryptography — Hashing, Symmetric/Asymmetric Encryption, TLS, Digital Signatures, PKI
- Authentication and Authorization — OAuth 2.0, OIDC, JWT, RBAC, ABAC, SSO, MFA
- Application Security — OWASP Top 10, Input Validation, XSS, CSRF, SQL Injection, SSRF
- Infrastructure Security — Network Security, Secrets Management, Zero Trust, Container Security
- Supply Chain Security — SLSA, SBOM, Dependency Scanning, Artifact Signing
- Compliance and Privacy — GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, Privacy Engineering
- Security Operations — Vulnerability Management, SIEM, Penetration Testing, Blue Team
🤖 9. Machine Learning & AI
Teaching machines to learn — increasingly core to engineering.
- 09 - Machine Learning and AI MOC
- ML Fundamentals — Supervised, Unsupervised, Reinforcement Learning, Bias-Variance, Evaluation
- Deep Learning — Neural Networks, CNNs, RNNs, Transformers, GANs, Diffusion Models
- Natural Language Processing — Tokenization, Embeddings, LLMs, RAG, Fine-Tuning, Prompt Engineering
- MLOps — Model Serving, Feature Stores, Experiment Tracking, Model Monitoring, Data Versioning
- ML System Design — Batch vs Real-Time, Recommendation Systems, Search Ranking, Responsible AI
👥 10. Human & Organizational
Software is a team sport — the people side of engineering.
- 10 - Human and Organizational MOC
- Technical Communication — Documentation, ADRs, RFCs, Diagramming, Writing for Engineers
- Engineering Management — Team Topologies, Tech Lead vs Manager, Hiring, 1-on-1s, Planning
- Engineering at Scale — Platform Engineering, Technical Governance, Staff Archetypes, Org Antipatterns
- Career Development — IC vs Management Track, System Design Interviews, Open Source, Google Interview Prep
☁️ 11. Cloud Providers & Proprietary Systems
Vendor-specific services and internal platforms — proprietary instances of the concepts above.
- 11 - Cloud Providers and Proprietary Systems MOC
- AWS Services Guide — Compute, Storage, Databases, Networking, Messaging, ML, Security
- GCP Services Guide — Compute, Storage, Databases, Networking, Data Analytics, ML, Security
- AWS vs GCP Service Mapping — Side-by-side service equivalents
- Google Internal Technologies — Borg, Spanner, Bigtable, Dremel, Stubby, Zanzibar, BeyondCorp
- Google Internal to External Mapping — Internal ↔ Open Source ↔ GCP equivalents
🌐 12. Web & Mobile Development
Building user-facing applications — the most visible layer of our work.
- 12 - Web and Mobile Development MOC
- Web Fundamentals — HTML, CSS, DOM, Browser Rendering Pipeline, Critical Rendering Path
- JavaScript & the Browser — Event Loop, Web APIs, Web Workers, Service Workers, Module Systems
- Frontend Frameworks — React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, Signals, State Management, SSR/CSR/SSG
- Web Performance — Core Web Vitals, Lighthouse, Code Splitting, Image Optimization, Tree Shaking
- Build Tooling — Webpack, Vite, esbuild, Turbopack, Babel, SWC, PostCSS, Tailwind, Monorepo Tools
- Accessibility — WCAG, ARIA, Semantic HTML, Screen Readers, Keyboard Navigation
- Browser APIs & PWAs — Service Workers, Cache API, Web Push, Offline-First, WebSockets, WebRTC
- Frontend Testing — Testing Library, Visual Regression, Playwright, Cypress, Storybook
- Mobile Development — iOS (Swift, SwiftUI), Android (Kotlin, Compose), React Native, Flutter, App Distribution
- Internationalization — Unicode, ICU Message Format, Locale-Aware Formatting, RTL, Time Zones
🛠️ 13. Developer Tooling & Productivity
The tools that multiply developer effectiveness — mastering them is a career-long leverage multiplier.
- 13 - Developer Tooling and Productivity MOC
- Editors & IDEs — VS Code, JetBrains, Vim/Neovim, Emacs, LSP, DAP
- Shell & Terminal — Bash/Zsh, Shell Scripting, Dotfiles, tmux, Modern CLI Tools
- Debugging — Interactive Debuggers, Memory Debuggers, Profilers, Log-Based Debugging
- Package Managers — npm/yarn/pnpm, pip/uv/poetry, Cargo, Go Modules, Maven/Gradle
- Containers for Development — Dev Containers, Docker Compose, Testcontainers
- AI-Assisted Development — Code Completion, Chat-Based Coding, AI Code Review, Limitations
🗺️ How to Use This Vault
- Start here — Browse the tree to find what interests you
- Go deep — Each MOC links to detailed topic notes
- Build connections — Add your own notes and link them with
[[wiki-links]] - Track progress — Use tags like
#learned,#in-progress,#to-study - Use Graph View — Obsidian’s graph view will visualize your knowledge tree
💡 This vault is a starting scaffold. The real value comes when you fill in the notes with your own understanding, examples, and connections.
🧬 Ontology
This vault organizes knowledge at four levels of specificity. Each MOC follows this hierarchy:
| Level | Term | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Domain | Broadest subject area. Each numbered section is a domain. | Data Structures |
| 2 | Category | A grouping within a domain. Represented as H2/H3 headings in MOCs. | Linear Structures |
| 3 | Concept | A specific, nameable thing. The bolded terms in bullet points. | Arrays |
| 4 | Sub-Concept | A variant, detail, or sub-topic within a concept. The descriptions after the em dash. | contiguous memory, O(1) random access, B-Trees, DAGs |
Domain → Category → Concept → Sub-Concept
This terminology comes from ontology (knowledge representation). Alternate terms you may encounter:
- Domain = field, discipline
- Category = class, subclass, subdivision
- Concept = topic, entity
- Sub-Concept = variant, detail, attribute, facet