🛠️ Software Engineering Handbook

Read it online: https://maniebra.github.io/software-engineering-handbook/

Since I am studying software engineering, I encountered many concepts and ideas that every software engineer needs to know. Hence, I decided to compile them all into one repository that my peers and beginners can use.

📃 Table of Contents

• Assessments
  • Agile Foundations Quiz
  • Scrum Quiz
  • Flow: Kanban and Lean Quiz
  • Practices and Governance Quiz
• Methodologies
  • Choosing a Methodology
  • Process Models
    • Waterfall Model
    • V-Model
    • Incremental Model
    • Iterative Model
    • Unified Process Model (UP)
    • Other Process Models
  • Agile
    • The Definition of Agility
    • Agile Principles
    • User Stories
    • Estimation and Velocity
    • Agile Anti-patterns
  • Scrum
    • Scrum Principles
    • Roles in Scrum
    • Sprints
    • Scrum Events
    • Scrum Artifacts
    • Definition of Done
  • Extreme Programming
    • XP Practices in Detail
  • Kanban
    • WIP Limits and Flow Metrics
  • Lean Software Development
  • DSDM
    • MoSCoW Prioritization
    • DSDM Phases and Roles
  • Scaling Agile
  • Other Methodologies
  • Cynefin Framework
  • Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
• System Design
  • Client, Server, and DNS
  • Databases in System Design
  • Scaling
  • Stateful vs Stateless Architecture
  • Database Replication
  • Caching
  • CDN and GeoDNS
  • API Gateways
  • Object Storage
  • Observability and Automation
  • Worked Example - Video Platform
  • Feasibility Analysis
  • NPV Worked Example
  • Load Balancers
  • Message Queues
• Design Patterns
  • Creational
    • Singleton Pattern
    • Factory Pattern
    • Abstract Factory Pattern
    • Builder Pattern
    • Prototype Pattern
  • Structural
    • Adapter Pattern
    • Bridge Pattern
    • Composite Pattern
    • Decorator Pattern
    • Facade Pattern
    • Flyweight Pattern
    • Proxy Pattern
  • Behavioural
    • Chain of Responsibility Pattern
    • Command Pattern
    • Interpreter Pattern
    • Iterator Pattern
    • Mediator Pattern
    • Memento Pattern
    • Observer Pattern
    • State Pattern
    • Strategy Pattern
    • Template Method Pattern
    • Visitor Pattern
• Software Engineering
  • Programming Paradigms
  • Organizational Paradigms
• Quality Assurance
  • Quality Assurance
  • Methods of Testing
• Software Architecture
  • Architectural Patterns
    • Clean Architecture
    • Event Driven Architecture
    • Hexagonal
    • MVC
    • MVVM
    • Layered Architecture
    • Microservice Architecture
  • Rules of Software Architecture
• Principles
  • SOLID Principles
  • Design Principles
  • UI/UX Design Principles
  • Process Principles
  • Modeling Principles
    • Agile Modeling Principles
    • Design Modeling Principles
    • Requirements Modeling Principles
    • Living Modeling Principles
  • Communication Principles
  • Construction Principles
  • Contribution Principles
  • Deployment Principles
  • Planning Principles
  • Practice Principles
• Snippets and Cheatsheets
  • Process Models Use Cases
  • Dependency Injection Pattern

📚 Sources & References

General

1. System Analysis and Design, Alan Dennis, Barbara Haley Wixom, Roberta M. Roth
2. Head First Design Patterns: Building Extensible and Maintainable Object-Oriented Software
3. Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach, Roger S. Pressman

Methodologies

4. Manifesto for Agile Software Development, Beck et al., 2001
5. Principles behind the Agile Manifesto
6. The Scrum Guide, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland
7. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, Kent Beck
8. Test-Driven Development: By Example, Kent Beck
9. User Stories Applied, Mike Cohn
10. Agile Estimating and Planning, Mike Cohn
11. Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, Mary and Tom Poppendieck
12. Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business, David J. Anderson
13. Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability, Daniel S. Vacanti
14. The DSDM Agile Project Framework, Agile Business Consortium
15. Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), Craig Larman and Bas Vodde
16. Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
17. Shape Up, Ryan Singer, Basecamp
18. Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game, Alistair Cockburn
19. Accelerate, Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim

UI/UX

20. Universal Principles of Design, William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
21. Laws of UX, Jon Yablonski
22. 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, Jakob Nielsen
23. Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
24. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Quality Assurance & Testing

25. ISO/IEC 25010, Systems and software quality models, International Organization for Standardization
26. ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level Syllabus, International Software Testing Qualifications Board
27. ISTQB Standard Glossary of Terms Used in Software Testing
28. IEEE 829, Standard for Software and System Test Documentation
29. The Art of Software Testing, Glenford J. Myers, Corey Sandler and Tom Badgett
30. Introduction to Software Testing, Paul Ammann and Jeff Offutt
31. Lessons Learned in Software Testing, Cem Kaner, James Bach and Bret Pettichord
32. Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams, Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory
33. More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team, Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin
34. Exploratory Testing Explained, James Bach
35. Session-Based Test Management, Jonathan Bach
36. xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code, Gerard Meszaros
37. Mocks Aren't Stubs, Martin Fowler
38. The Practical Test Pyramid, Ham Vocke
39. Succeeding with Agile, Mike Cohn, source of the test automation pyramid
40. Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests, Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce
41. Working Effectively with Legacy Code, Michael C. Feathers
42. Clean Code, Robert C. Martin, source of the FIRST principles
43. Continuous Delivery, Jez Humble and David Farley
44. Testing Strategies in a Microservice Architecture, Toby Clemson
45. Consumer-Driven Contracts, Ian Robinson
46. Pact, contract testing documentation
47. Practical Combinatorial Testing, D. Richard Kuhn, Raghu N. Kacker and Yu Lei, NIST SP 800-142
48. What is Property Based Testing?, David R. MacIver, Hypothesis
49. A Survey on Metamorphic Testing, Sergio Segura et al., IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2016
50. An Analysis and Survey of the Development of Mutation Testing, Yue Jia and Mark Harman, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2011
51. OWASP Top 10, Open Worldwide Application Security Project
52. OWASP Web Security Testing Guide
53. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, W3C
54. Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users, Jakob Nielsen
55. Site Reliability Engineering, Google
56. Chaos Engineering: Principles
57. Testing in Production, the Safe Way, Cindy Sridharan
58. Eradicating Non-Determinism in Tests, Martin Fowler

🤝 Contributing

Since I created this repository in hopes of becoming one of the most outstanding software engineering guides one day, your contributions will be much appreciated. To contribute to this project, you have to follow these steps:

3. Fork the repository.
4. Clone the forked repository to your local device.
5. Add your contents or modify the contents you see fit to alter.
6. Create a pull request.
7. Wait until your pull request is reviewed.
8. If all is good, your contribution will be merged into this repository!

⚖️ License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Copyright © 2026 Mani Ebrahimi

You are free to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sub-license, and/or sell copies of this software, subject to the following conditions:

9. The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
10. The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and noninfringement.

For more details, refer to the LICENSE file.