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No jargon, no synergy

Developer terms in plain English.

Every word you'll bump into commissioning software in Australia, explained the way a mate would explain it. 84 terms across 8 categories.

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01 · Web & Frontend

Web & Frontend

13 terms · everything you'll trip over in this area.

HTML, CSS, JavaScript #
The three core building blocks of every web page. HTML is the structure ("a heading goes here"), CSS is the look ("the heading is dark blue, big, in this font"), JavaScript is the behaviour ("when this button is clicked, do that"). Every site you've ever visited uses all three.
Frontend #
Everything you see and click on a website or app. The frontend developer is the one who makes the visual side feel polished, fast, and on-brand.
Backend #
The bit you don't see. Servers, databases, API endpoints, business rules. The backend developer makes sure your data is saved correctly, your payments go through, and your customer's booking actually creates a booking.
Full-stack #
A developer who works across both frontend and backend. Most great solo developers are full-stack, but for a complex build, separate frontend and backend specialists usually produce better work.
Responsive design #
The site looks and works just as well on a phone as it does on a desktop. In 2026 this is non-negotiable. If a developer doesn't mention it in their quote, it's probably not their strength.
Static site #
A website built from pre-generated HTML files served straight from a CDN. Fast, cheap to host, perfect for marketing sites and blogs that don't change every minute. Tools like Astro, Hugo, and Eleventy fall in this category.
CMS (Content Management System) #
The tool you (the business owner) use to edit your site without calling the developer back every time. WordPress is the most common; Webflow, Sanity, Contentful, and Storyblok are the modern alternatives.
Headless CMS #
A CMS that just stores content and pipes it to the website via an API. The website itself is built separately. More flexible than traditional WordPress but more developer effort upfront.
SPA (Single-Page Application) #
A site that loads once and rewrites the page as you click around, instead of fetching a fresh page each time. Smoother feel; sometimes worse for SEO. React, Vue, and Svelte are common SPA frameworks.
SSR / SSG #
Server-Side Rendering vs Static Site Generation. Two ways of pre-building HTML so search engines and slow devices see content fast. Next.js, Nuxt, Astro, and SvelteKit all do both, in different shapes.
React, Vue, Svelte #
The three most common JavaScript frameworks for building modern interactive websites. Picking one is a developer call; the difference rarely matters to the business.
Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro #
Frameworks built on top of React / Vue / Svelte that handle the boring parts (routing, image optimisation, hosting). Most modern Australian web builds use one of these in 2026.
WCAG 2.1 AA #
The accessibility standard most Australian businesses target. It covers things like colour contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text, and screen-reader support. Not having it can be a legal risk under the Disability Discrimination Act.
02 · E-commerce

E-commerce

11 terms · everything you'll trip over in this area.

Shopify #
Australia's default e-commerce platform for small-to-mid stores. It handles cart, checkout, inventory, taxes, and shipping out of the box. Pay monthly, no installation. The right answer for ~80% of new AU stores.
Shopify Plus #
Shopify's enterprise tier. Adds multi-store, multi-currency at checkout, B2B features, custom checkout, and direct support. Worth it once you're past ~$2M AUD revenue.
Liquid #
Shopify's templating language. If a developer mentions "Liquid customisation" they mean writing logic inside Shopify themes. Important for custom storefronts.
Custom theme #
A Shopify storefront designed from scratch (or heavily modified from a starter) to match your brand. Costs more than a paid theme but produces a noticeably better result.
WooCommerce #
The e-commerce plugin for WordPress. More flexible than Shopify, more responsibility (you host it, you maintain it). Often the right answer if you already have a heavy WordPress content site.
Headless commerce #
A storefront that uses Shopify (or BigCommerce or Commerce Cloud) only for the cart and checkout, while the rest of the site is built custom. Faster, more brand control, more developer effort.
Payment gateway #
The third party that actually processes the customer's card. Stripe, Square, Braintree, and PayPal are the common ones in Australia. Shopify Payments is a wrapper around Stripe.
Klaviyo #
The e-commerce email platform of choice in 2026. Handles abandoned carts, post-purchase flows, and segmented campaigns. Plan on $30–$300 USD/month at small list sizes.
SKU #
Stock-Keeping Unit. The unique code for each variant of a product (small black t-shirt, medium black t-shirt). Inventory management lives or dies on having clean SKUs.
Subscription / recurring #
Customers paying every week, month, or quarter. Apps like Recharge or Shopify's native subscription module handle the billing logic. Adds 2–4 weeks to a build but unlocks recurring revenue.
AU Post integration #
Live shipping rates and label generation for Australia Post. Most paid Shopify themes include it via an app; custom theme work usually requires the developer to wire it up.
03 · Mobile apps

Mobile apps

9 terms · everything you'll trip over in this area.

Native app #
An app built specifically for iOS (in Swift) and / or Android (in Kotlin). Best performance, best access to phone features, but you're paying to build it twice if you want both.
Cross-platform #
A single codebase that ships to iOS and Android. React Native and Flutter are the two big ones. Roughly 60–70% of the cost of building native twice, with a small performance trade-off most users never notice.
React Native #
Meta's cross-platform framework. Uses JavaScript / TypeScript. Strong choice when you also have a web app, the team can share knowledge.
Flutter #
Google's cross-platform framework. Uses Dart. Strong choice when the design is highly custom and pixel-precise.
PWA (Progressive Web App) #
A website that installs to a phone home screen and behaves a bit like an app. Cheaper to build than a native app, but doesn't feel quite as polished. Fine for content; not great for offline-heavy or hardware-heavy use cases.
App Store / Play Store #
Apple and Google's app marketplaces. Submission has its own rules, fees, and review timelines, budget for it. Apple charges $99 USD/year for a developer account; Google charges $25 USD once.
Push notifications #
The ability to send messages to a user's phone from your app. Cheap to build, valuable when used sparingly, hated when overused. Always require explicit user opt-in.
MVP #
Minimum Viable Product. The smallest, ugliest version of your idea that real users can actually use. The point of an MVP is to learn, not to launch publicly to a parade.
04 · Custom software & SaaS

Custom software & SaaS

13 terms · everything you'll trip over in this area.

SaaS (Software as a Service) #
Software you rent monthly and access in a browser. Xero, Notion, Slack, Atlassian, all SaaS. Building a SaaS means building the product AND the billing AND the multi-tenant data model.
Multi-tenant #
One application, many customers, isolated data. The standard architecture for SaaS. Done right, every customer thinks the system is theirs alone.
Auth / authentication #
How users log in. Email + password, magic link, social login (Google / Apple), SSO, MFA. The choice has real cost and security implications, pin it down before building.
SSO (Single Sign-On) #
Logging in once and being automatically logged into multiple systems. Big enterprise customers will demand this. Adds 1–3 weeks to a build depending on the protocol (SAML, OIDC).
MFA / 2FA #
Multi-factor authentication. The user enters their password AND a second factor (a code from an app, a text, a hardware key). In 2026, expected on anything containing customer data.
API (Application Programming Interface) #
A defined way for two pieces of software to talk to each other. Your Shopify store has an API, your Xero has an API, your CRM has an API. APIs are how integrations get built.
REST, GraphQL, gRPC #
Three styles of API. REST is the most common. GraphQL is flexible but heavier. gRPC is fast but harder to debug. Pick one and stick with it for a project.
Webhook #
A way for one system to notify another that something happened. "When a customer pays, send a webhook to my CRM so it creates a contact." Cheaper than constant polling and much faster.
Database #
Where your application's data is stored. PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, DynamoDB are common ones. Don't let a developer pick a niche database without a strong reason.
CRUD #
Create, Read, Update, Delete, the four basic operations almost every app needs. If a developer says "the admin panel is just CRUD," they mean it's standard, not exciting.
CI/CD #
Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment. The pipeline that automatically tests and ships code when developers push it. Non-negotiable for a real production SaaS.
Observability #
Logs, metrics, traces. The tooling that lets you see what your software is actually doing in production. Without it, debugging is guessing.
SOC 2 #
A security and compliance framework that big customers (especially in finance and health) will ask about. Becoming SOC 2 compliant adds time and money, surface it before signing the brief.
05 · AI & automation

AI & automation

10 terms · everything you'll trip over in this area.

LLM (Large Language Model) #
The kind of AI behind ChatGPT, Claude, and similar. They take text in and produce text out. Useful for summarisation, drafting, translation, classification, agentic workflows.
Prompt #
The text instruction you give an LLM. "Prompt engineering" is the craft of writing prompts that produce reliable results. It's much closer to writing a good brief than to traditional coding.
Anthropic, OpenAI, Google #
The three major providers of frontier LLMs in 2026. Claude (Anthropic), GPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google). All are paid by token; pricing has come down 5–10× since 2023.
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) #
A technique where you give an LLM access to your own documents at query time. Lets you build a chatbot on your knowledge base without retraining anything.
Vector database #
A database that stores AI embeddings so you can find "similar" things instead of "matching" things. Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector are common. Required for most RAG setups.
Embedding #
A numerical representation of text (or images, or audio) that AI can compare. Search for "blue jacket" and embeddings let you find "navy windbreaker" in your catalog.
Fine-tuning #
Adjusting a pre-trained AI model on your own data. Expensive and rarely necessary in 2026, modern frontier models with good prompting and RAG handle most use cases.
Agent / agentic #
An AI system that takes goals (instead of single questions) and uses tools (search, code, APIs) to achieve them. Powerful, harder to make reliable, and where most 2026 AI work is heading.
Tool calling / function calling #
The mechanism that lets an AI model trigger external code. "If the user asks about an order, call this function to look it up in the database." This is what turns a chatbot into an agent.
Make / n8n / Zapier #
No-code automation tools. Cheap, flexible, fast to build. The right answer when you're wiring together existing apps without much custom logic.
06 · Hosting & infrastructure

Hosting & infrastructure

9 terms · everything you'll trip over in this area.

Hosting #
Where your website actually lives, a computer somewhere with your files on it. Shared hosting, VPS, cloud, serverless are all flavours.
SiteGround, Cloudways, WP Engine #
Common Australian-friendly hosts for WordPress and standard PHP sites. Reliable, supported, $30–$120 AUD/month for typical SMB use.
Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages #
Modern hosts for Next.js / Astro / SvelteKit / static sites. Super fast, near-zero config, generous free tiers. Default for new builds in 2026.
AWS / GCP / Azure #
The three big cloud platforms. Powerful, complex, expensive if mismanaged. A small business almost never needs to touch them directly, usually a managed layer (Vercel, Render, Fly.io) sits on top.
Serverless #
A way of running code where you don't manage servers, the platform spins them up on demand. Cheap at low traffic, surprisingly expensive at high traffic if not architected well.
CDN (Content Delivery Network) #
A global network of servers that cache your site close to your users. Cloudflare and Fastly are common. In 2026, every public site uses one.
SSL / TLS #
The bit of internet plumbing that turns http into https. Free now (via Let's Encrypt) and required by every browser, search engine, and Australian Privacy Principle.
DNS #
Domain Name System, the phone book that turns finddevs.com.au into a server IP address. Sits with your domain registrar (or Cloudflare).
Domain registrar #
Where you buy and renew your .com.au or .com domain. CrazyDomains, VentraIP, Cloudflare Registrar are popular in AU. Make sure ownership is in YOUR business's name, not your developer's.
07 · Pricing, contracts & roles

Pricing, contracts & roles

10 terms · everything you'll trip over in this area.

Fixed price #
You and the developer agree on a specific scope and a specific price. Predictable, but every change is a change request. Best for tightly-defined briefs.
Time and materials #
You pay for hours worked. More flexible than fixed price but harder to budget. Use with people you trust, or pair with a clear estimate ceiling.
Retainer #
A monthly recurring fee that buys you a set number of hours or capacity. Common for ongoing support and incremental development.
Day rate #
A flat fee per day of developer time. Common for fractional CTO and senior consulting work. AU senior day rates run $1,400 – $2,600 ex GST in 2026.
Statement of Work (SOW) #
A document that nails down scope, deliverables, timeline, payment schedule, and assumptions. Sign one before any real money changes hands, your future self will thank you.
IP assignment #
The clause in your contract that says the code, designs, and deliverables become your property at handover. If a developer can't produce one, walk.
Discovery / scoping #
A short paid engagement (5–10% of estimated build cost) where the developer figures out what you actually need. Saves money on real projects over $30k. Always worth it.
Junior / mid / senior developer #
Roughly 1–3 years / 3–6 / 6+ years of full-time experience. Senior is not a title. It's a track record of shipping production software solo.
Fractional CTO #
A senior technical leader you hire for one or two days a week. Strategy, hiring, vendor selection, code review. Common for growing AU SMBs that aren't ready for a full-time CTO.
Agency vs studio vs freelancer #
Agency = sales floor, account managers, dedicated PM, full team (most expensive). Studio = small team, hands-on senior leadership (mid). Freelancer = solo (cheapest, depends entirely on the person).
08 · Process & quality

Process & quality

9 terms · everything you'll trip over in this area.

Brief #
A short written description of what you want built. Doesn't need to be technical. The two-minute brief on FindDevs is one of these.
Scope #
The list of features and behaviours included in the price. Scope creep, adding features mid-build, is the single biggest reason projects blow out.
Wireframe / mockup #
A rough layout of the app or site, done before any code is written. Wireframes are grey boxes; mockups are full-colour designs. Cheap to change at this stage; expensive once code is shipped.
Sprint #
A short fixed-length development cycle, usually 1 or 2 weeks. At the end of each sprint, the developer ships something for you to look at.
Staging #
A copy of the live site that only you and the developer can see. Used to test changes before they go live.
QA (Quality Assurance) #
Testing the software before it ships. Manual QA is a person clicking around; automated QA is code that does it. A real project needs both.
Bug #
A defect in the software. Bugs come in three flavours: critical (it's broken), major (it's annoying), minor (a little off). Fix critical, schedule major, batch minor.
Handover #
The point at which a developer finishes and gives you everything: code, accounts, credentials, documentation. A clean handover is one of the strongest signs of a good developer.
Maintenance / support #
Ongoing work after launch, bug fixes, security patches, small tweaks. Plan on 15–25% of build cost per year for any serious project.
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