ITプロフェッショナルのための英語
日々のスタンドアップからアーキテクチャレビューまで、ITプロフェッショナルはグローバルに協力するために正確な英語が必要です。ここでは領域別に整理した48の専門用語を、明確な定義とリアルな例文とともに紹介します。
48 terms · 6 topics
"refactor"
Restructure existing code without changing its external behaviour.
""We need to refactor this function — it's 300 lines long.""
"boilerplate"
Repetitive setup code required by a framework or language.
""The boilerplate for a new React component is already in the template.""
"edge case"
An unusual or extreme input condition that may cause unexpected behaviour.
""Don't forget to handle the edge case where the array is empty.""
"deprecated"
An older feature still available but scheduled for removal.
""The docs warn that this API is deprecated; use the new one instead.""
"monkey-patching"
Dynamically modifying code at runtime, often as a temporary fix.
""We're monkey-patching the library until the upstream fix lands.""
"magic number"
A hard-coded numeric literal with no explanation of its meaning.
""Replace that magic number 86400 with a named constant SECONDS_PER_DAY.""
"code smell"
A surface-level indication of deeper design problems in code.
""Deeply nested conditionals are a classic code smell.""
"dead code"
Code that is written but never executed or called.
""The linter flagged several dead code blocks from the old feature.""
"pipeline"
An automated sequence of stages that builds, tests, and deploys code.
""The CI/CD pipeline failed at the integration-test stage.""
"rollback"
Reverting a deployment to a previous stable version.
""We triggered a rollback after the release caused a spike in errors.""
"container orchestration"
Automated management of containerised workloads across a cluster.
""Kubernetes handles container orchestration for our microservices.""
"blue-green deployment"
Running two identical environments and switching traffic between them.
""Blue-green deployment lets us switch back instantly if something breaks.""
"idempotent"
An operation that produces the same result no matter how many times it runs.
""Make sure your provisioning script is idempotent before running it in prod.""
"infrastructure as code"
Managing and provisioning infrastructure through machine-readable config files.
""All our AWS resources are defined via infrastructure as code with Terraform.""
"canary release"
Gradually rolling out a change to a small subset of users first.
""We're doing a canary release to 5 % of traffic before the full deploy.""
"observability"
The ability to understand a system's internal state from its external outputs.
""Good observability means you can diagnose issues without adding new logs.""
"schema migration"
A versioned change to a database's structure, applied incrementally.
""We're running a schema migration to add the user_preferences table.""
"query optimisation"
The process of rewriting queries or adding indexes to improve performance.
""Query optimisation cut our average response time from 800 ms to 40 ms.""
"sharding"
Horizontally partitioning a database across multiple servers.
""We shard by user_id to keep each shard below 500 GB.""
"ACID compliance"
Database guarantee of Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability.
""We chose PostgreSQL because our payment flows require ACID compliance.""
"eventual consistency"
A model where replicas will converge to the same value given enough time.
""DynamoDB uses eventual consistency by default; strong consistency costs more reads.""
"data pipeline"
A series of processing steps that move data from source to destination.
""Our data pipeline ingests events from Kafka and loads them into Snowflake.""
"indexing"
Creating a data structure that speeds up retrieval of records in a table.
""Adding an index on email reduced login queries by an order of magnitude.""
"ORM"
Object-Relational Mapper: a library that maps database rows to code objects.
""The ORM abstracts raw SQL, but we drop down to raw queries for heavy reports.""
"zero-trust"
A security model that trusts no user or device by default, inside or outside the network.
""Our zero-trust policy requires MFA even for requests on the internal VPN.""
"TLS handshake"
The negotiation process that establishes an encrypted connection between client and server.
""Profiling showed the TLS handshake added 120 ms of latency.""
"rate limiting"
Restricting the number of requests a client can make in a given time window.
""Rate limiting prevents a single bad actor from bringing down the API.""
"SQL injection"
An attack that inserts malicious SQL into an input field to manipulate the database.
""Parameterised queries are the primary defence against SQL injection.""
"OAuth flow"
The sequence of redirects and token exchanges used in OAuth 2.0 authorisation.
""Walk me through the OAuth flow for our third-party login integration.""
"DDoS mitigation"
Techniques to absorb or deflect a distributed denial-of-service attack.
""Our CDN provider handles DDoS mitigation at the edge.""
"penetration testing"
Authorised simulated attacks on a system to find security vulnerabilities.
""We run penetration testing before every major product launch.""
"encryption at rest"
Encrypting data stored on disk so it is unreadable without the decryption key.
""Encryption at rest is mandatory for all databases that store PII.""
"sprint retrospective"
A meeting at the end of a sprint where the team reflects on what went well or poorly.
""Bring three improvements to the sprint retrospective on Friday.""
"acceptance criteria"
A set of conditions a feature must meet to be considered complete by the stakeholder.
""The acceptance criteria say the form must save a draft after 2 seconds of inactivity.""
"velocity"
A measure of how much work a team completes in a single sprint, in story points.
""Our velocity has stabilised at around 42 points per sprint.""
"technical debt"
Implied cost of future rework caused by choosing a quick solution now.
""We're allocating 20 % of each sprint to paying down technical debt.""
"blockers"
Issues that prevent a team member from progressing on their task.
""Any blockers? — Yes, I'm waiting on design approval for the modal.""
"stakeholder alignment"
Ensuring all key decision-makers share the same understanding and expectations.
""We need stakeholder alignment before we commit to the Q3 roadmap.""
"story points"
A unit used to estimate the effort or complexity of a user story.
""This ticket is a 5 — similar complexity to last sprint's authentication work.""
"definition of done"
A shared checklist of criteria that must be met before a task is marked complete.
""Our definition of done includes code review, tests, and updated documentation.""
"microservices"
An architectural style where an application is composed of small, independently deployable services.
""Splitting the monolith into microservices let each team deploy independently.""
"event-driven architecture"
A design pattern where components communicate by producing and consuming events.
""We switched to event-driven architecture to decouple the order and inventory services.""
"load balancing"
Distributing incoming requests across multiple servers to prevent overload.
""The load balancer routes traffic evenly across our three application servers.""
"fault tolerance"
The ability of a system to continue operating correctly despite component failures.
""We designed for fault tolerance so a single node failure doesn't cause downtime.""
"horizontal scaling"
Adding more machines to a system to handle increased load.
""Horizontal scaling let us double capacity overnight without changing code.""
"API gateway"
A server that acts as a single entry point for client requests to backend services.
""The API gateway handles authentication and rate limiting before routing requests.""
"service mesh"
A dedicated infrastructure layer for managing service-to-service communication.
""We use Istio as our service mesh to handle retries and circuit breaking.""
"CAP theorem"
The principle that a distributed system can guarantee only two of Consistency, Availability, and Partition tolerance.
""CAP theorem explains why we had to choose between consistency and availability during the network split.""
よくある質問
IT業界で英語がそれほど重要なのはなぜですか?
英語はプログラミングドキュメント、国際カンファレンス、オープンソースコミュニティ、そしてほとんどの大手テクノロジー企業の事実上の言語です。自信を持って英語でコミュニケーションできるプロは、より良いキャリア機会にアクセスでき、グローバルプロジェクトに貢献でき、キャリアの発展も早くなります。
IT英語に流暢になるにはどのくらいかかりますか?
一般英語が中級レベルの開発者のほとんどは、継続的な練習を3〜6ヶ月続けることで実用的なIT英語の流暢さに達します。鍵は、受動的なインプット(ドキュメント読書、技術トーク視聴)と能動的なアウトプット(GitHubコメント、英語スタンドアップへの参加)を組み合わせることです。
採用面接で最も役立つIT英語フレーズは何ですか?
面接官は明確さと正確さを重視します。「trade-off」「scalability」「I would approach this by...」「the bottleneck here is...」「given the constraints...」などのフレーズは上級レベルの思考力を示します。過去のプロジェクトをSTARフォーマット(状況・課題・行動・結果)で説明する練習をしましょう。
IT向けにはイギリス英語とアメリカ英語のどちらを学ぶべきですか?
アメリカ英語はITドキュメント、Stack Overflow、そしてほとんどの米国系テクノロジー企業で主流です。イギリス式スペリング(例: "optimise" vs "optimize")はヨーロッパ企業でよく見られます。どちらでも構いません — アクセントよりも一貫性と明確さに集中しましょう。
IT英語を文脈の中でどう練習すればいいですか?
英語の技術カンファレンストーク(Google I/O、PyCon、AWS re:Invent)を視聴し、公式ドキュメント(MDN、AWS docs)を読み、オープンソースのGitHub issueに貢献し、IDEやOSのインターフェースを英語に設定しましょう。自分の現在のレベルに合った受動的インプットが語彙を最も速く増やします。
本物の英語動画やトークを通じてIT英語を伸ばしましょう。
本物の技術コンテンツでリスニングを向上させる →