Because nothing says “I deserve my corner office” like casually dropping “Byzantine fault tolerance” in conversations about the office printer
Welcome back to TechOnion‘s “Urban TechBros Dictionary,” where we continue our anthropological study of the strange verbal rituals of technology professionals. Today, we’re exploring terms beginning with “B” – the second letter tech bros learn after securing their first funding round based entirely on Google slides featuring the words “disruptive innovation,” and “AI-powered.”
B is for Backend (Tech Factor: 7)
TechOnion Definition: The mysterious realm where tech bros claim all the “real engineering” happens, despite it mostly consisting of copying Stack Overflow answers about database queries.
How Tech Bros Use It: “I’m a backend specialist focused on distributed systems architecture.” (Translation: “I write CRUD APIs and blame the frontend team when things break.”)
Seen in the Wild: After loudly proclaiming at three consecutive happy hours that frontend development is “basically just arts and crafts,” senior backend engineer Trevor spent four hours trying to center a div for his personal website before hiring someone on Fiverr.
B is for Bandwidth (Tech Factor: 5)
TechOnion Definition: Originally a measure of data transmission capacity, now exclusively used as a metaphor by product managers who want to sound technical while explaining why they can’t do their job.
How Tech Bros Use It: “I don’t have the bandwidth to review your code right now.” (Translation: “I’ll be playing Elden Ring until 2 AM and have no intention of reading your pull request.”)
Seen in the Wild: Despite claiming “bandwidth constraints” when asked to join the on-call rotation, VP of Engineering Mason somehow found sufficient bandwidth to attend every single Warriors home game and maintain five separate Discord servers dedicated to cryptocurrency speculation.
B is for Beta (Tech Factor: 6)
TechOnion Definition: A label tech companies slap on products to excuse catastrophic bugs while simultaneously charging full price. Historically a development phase; now a legal liability shield.
How Tech Bros Use It: “We’re launching in perpetual beta to iterate based on real-world user feedback.” (Translation: “We’re using paying customers as unpaid QA testers.”)
Seen in the Wild: Despite being “in beta” for seven years, collecting $140 million in revenue, and going public on the NYSE, social media platform Chatterly still cited its beta status when congressional investigators asked about its role in three separate geopolitical crises.
B is for Big Data (Tech Factor: 9)
TechOnion Definition: Regular data that put on weight during the holidays. The art of collecting so much information that nobody knows what to do with it, but everyone is terrified to delete it.
How Tech Bros Use It: “Our big data lake enables synergistic insight extraction through advanced pattern recognition algorithms.” (Translation: “We have 10,000 CSV files nobody has opened in three years.”)
Seen in the Wild: After spending $7 million on a big data infrastructure, analytics startup DataMaxx discovered their most valuable insight was that employees primarily use their dashboard to check if it’s down so they can justify not doing their weekly reports.
B is for Blockchain (Tech Factor: ∞)
TechOnion Definition: A distributed database technology that transforms normally rational investors into cult members and regular words into instant venture capital by adding “on the blockchain” to them.
How Tech Bros Use It: “We’re leveraging blockchain-enabled trust architectures to revolutionize the pet food supply chain.” (Translation: “Our funding ran out and we’re pivoting to whatever will get us more money.”)
Seen in the Wild: After failing to gain traction with his app that rates public restrooms, founder Skyler rebranded it as “ChainPotty: Decentralized Bathroom Verification Protocol,” raised $24 million, bought a Lamborghini, and still has not shipped a product three years later.
B is for Bootcamp (Tech Factor: 2)
TechOnion Definition: A 12-week program that transforms ex-Starbucks baristas into “full-stack developers” through the magical process of watching YouTube tutorials at 2x speed and implementing a to-do list app six different ways.
How Tech Bros Use It: “I’m self-taught through an intensive bootcamp educational experience.” (Translation: “I paid $15,000 to learn what’s available for free online and still don’t understand closures.”)
Seen in the Wild: Despite constantly belittling bootcamp graduates as “not real engineers,” senior developer Brandon was caught frantically Googling “how to reverse a string” during a live coding interview while a bootcamp grad in the same interview implemented a balanced binary tree from memory.
B is for Bootstrap (Tech Factor: 5)
TechOnion Definition: 1. A CSS framework that makes every website on the internet look identical. 2. The act of building a company without external funding, usually mentioned by founders who received $200K in “friends and family” money from their hedge fund manager parents.
How Tech Bros Use It: “We’re bootstrapping our venture to maintain our founder vision.” (Translation: “VCs laughed us out of their offices, but my trust fund should cover expenses until my Stanford roommate becomes a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.”)
Seen in the Wild: After loudly proclaiming at TechCrunch Disrupt that he “bootstrapped” his startup “with nothing but grit and determination,” CEO Blake failed to mention the $1.2 million condo his parents bought him to live in rent-free or the family connections that landed him his first five enterprise clients.
B is for Bug (Tech Factor: 4)
TechOnion Definition: An error in software rebranded as a charming quirk of digital life rather than evidence of professional negligence. When created by junior developers, it’s a “critical defect”; when created by senior developers, it’s an “unexpected edge case.”
How Tech Bros Use It: “We’ve identified a previously undocumented feature interaction.” (Translation: “I broke production but am linguistically distancing myself from responsibility.”)
Seen in the Wild: After his authentication system accidentally granted admin privileges to anyone who typed their username in all caps, security engineer Xavier sent a company-wide email describing it as an “alternative authorization pathway that emerged from our dynamic security posture” rather than admitting he forgot to use case-insensitive comparison.
B is for Burn Rate (Tech Factor: 8)
TechOnion Definition: The speed at which a startup converts venture capital into free lunches, office ping pong tables, and branded hoodies, measured in “months until panic.”
How Tech Bros Use It: “We’re optimizing our burn rate to extend runway while maintaining growth velocity.” (Translation: “The snack wall now only gets restocked once a week and we’ve switched to one-ply toilet paper.”)
Seen in the Wild: Despite bragging about their “capital-efficient operation” with “industry-leading burn metrics,” CEO Tristan spent $3 million on a Super Bowl ad featuring dancing CGI gophers that never once mentioned what their product actually does.
B is for Boolean (Tech Factor: 6)
TechOnion Definition: A data type with only two possible values that tech bros unnecessarily incorporate into everyday conversation to sound technical when discussing binary choices like “lunch options.”
How Tech Bros Use It: “My boolean analysis of the situation indicates that Thai food is the optimal lunch selection.” (Translation: “I want Thai food.”)
Seen in the Wild: During a first date, software engineer Caleb explained his dating preferences as “a boolean evaluation framework with complex logical operators” before pulling out a whiteboard to draw what was essentially just a list of physical attributes he found attractive.
B is for Brownfield (Tech Factor: 8)
TechOnion Definition: An existing codebase that senior developers refer to with the same tone normally reserved for describing war crimes. The digital equivalent of a haunted house where previous developers buried their technical debt in shallow graves.
How Tech Bros Use It: “We’re implementing a strategic brownfield transformation initiative.” (Translation: “The last three teams quit rather than touch this code, and now it’s your problem.”)
Seen in the Wild: After discovering their mission-critical system was written in COBOL by a developer who retired in 1997 and left no documentation, CTO Derek reclassified the emergency maintenance project as an “archaeological computing experience” and offered the team “Indiana Jones” hats instead of overtime pay.
B is for Brute Force (Tech Factor: 7)
TechOnion Definition: The programming equivalent of solving a problem by hitting it repeatedly with increasingly large hammers. The go-to solution when elegance, efficiency, and basic computer science knowledge have all failed.
How Tech Bros Use It: “I implemented a hybrid brute force algorithm with optimized iteration patterns.” (Translation: “I used nested for-loops and ran it overnight hoping no one would notice.”)
Seen in the Wild: After boasting about his “sophisticated password recovery system,” security engineer Chad was discovered using a script that tried every possible four-digit PIN sequentially, causing the authentication server to catch fire during a demo to investors.
B is for Byte (Tech Factor: 6)
TechOnion Definition: The fundamental unit of digital information that tech bros mention to sound technical in conversations, despite not having thought about individual bytes since their first programming class.
How Tech Bros Use It: “Our proprietary compression algorithm reduces storage requirements by optimizing byte allocation across distributed data structures.” (Translation: “We’re using zip files.”)
Seen in the Wild: While explaining why the company website was down, DevOps engineer Trevor delivered a 20-minute presentation on “byte-level optimization challenges” before an intern pointed out that Trevor had simply forgotten to renew the domain name.
B is for Ballmer Peak (Tech Factor: 7)
TechOnion Definition: The theoretically optimal blood alcohol level at which programming ability is maximized, named after former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The scientific justification for “debugging beers.”
How Tech Bros Use It: “I’ve calibrated my system to maintain optimal Ballmer Peak conditions during critical development phases.” (Translation: “I keep whiskey in my desk drawer.”)
Seen in the Wild: After declaring himself a “Ballmer Peak optimization specialist,” senior developer Marcus arrived at the code review with bloodshot eyes and somehow managed to refactor the authentication system while simultaneously deleting the entire user database and ordering $400 worth of tacos to the office.
B is for Backlog (Tech Factor: 5)
TechOnion Definition: A graveyard of feature requests and bug reports where good ideas go to die a slow death. The digital equivalent of putting something in the freezer and forgetting about it until it’s covered in mysterious ice crystals years later.
How Tech Bros Use It: “We’ve added it to our prioritized backlog for future sprint planning consideration.” (Translation: “We will never do this, but saying no directly might make you sad.”)
Seen in the Wild: During a company archaeological dig into their JIRA backlog, product manager Emily discovered tickets from 2012 still marked as “high priority,” including one requesting compatibility with Internet Explorer 6 and another asking to optimize the website for BlackBerry devices.
B is for Brogrammer (Tech Factor: 3)
TechOnion Definition: A developer who approaches coding with the same enthusiasm usually reserved for discussing protein shakes and upper body workouts. Identifiable by their tendency to high-five after successful code compilation.
How Tech Bros Use It: “I’m not a brogrammer; I just happen to code in between CrossFit sessions while drinking protein-infused cold brew from my shaker bottle.” (Translation: “I am the dictionary definition of a brogrammer.”)
Seen in the Wild: After completing a simple bug fix, senior developer Jason performed a choreographed celebration dance with his “code bros,” chugged a Monster Energy drink, and loudly proclaimed that he would “crush leg day harder than I crushed that null pointer exception.”
B is for Buffer Overflow (Tech Factor: 9)
TechOnion Definition: A security vulnerability that continues to plague systems worldwide because developers can’t be bothered to check if there’s enough room in the digital bucket before pouring in data. The root cause of security engineers’ stress-induced hair loss.
How Tech Bros Use It: “We experienced an unexpected buffer boundary transgression event.” (Translation: “Our entire customer database was stolen because I didn’t validate input length.”)
Seen in the Wild: After their system was compromised through a buffer overflow attack, security engineer Tyler sent a company-wide email explaining that it wasn’t a coding error but rather “a strategic data capacity exploration initiative that external entities leveraged for unauthorized access.”
B is for Blue Screen of Death (Tech Factor: 4)
TechOnion Definition: Microsoft Windows’ way of saying “I give up” through a calming blue screen with cryptic error codes. Tech support’s version of “have you tried turning it off and on again” but with more panic.
How Tech Bros Use It: “The system experienced an unexpected Windows stop error due to hardware-software interaction anomalies.” (Translation: “My laptop died during the demo because I installed sketchy cryptocurrency mining software.”)
Seen in the Wild: During a critical presentation to the board of directors, CTO Brandon experienced a blue screen, stared at it for ten seconds, then calmly closed his laptop and continued presenting by drawing stick figures on a whiteboard while insisting this was his “analog backup strategy” rather than admitting he had no backup plan.
B is for Black Hat (Tech Factor: 8)
TechOnion Definition: A hacker with malicious intent, or more commonly, what ordinary developers claim to have been “in a past life” to sound dangerous and edgy during cybersecurity job interviews.
How Tech Bros Use It: “Before joining the corporate world, I had some experience with black hat methodologies.” (Translation: “I once downloaded a torrented movie and felt very badass about it.”)
Seen in the Wild: Despite constantly hinting at his “dark web past” and “black hat skills,” security engineer Marcus’s most rebellious act was using his neighbor’s unsecured WiFi to watch Netflix, and he once called IT in a panic after accidentally enabling dark mode in his code editor.
B is for Botnet (Tech Factor: 8)
TechOnion Definition: A network of compromised computers controlled remotely, which security engineers discuss with the same tone normally reserved for horror movies, despite their company’s IoT devices having security weaker than a screen door on a submarine.
How Tech Bros Use It: “We’ve identified potential botnet signatures in our network telemetry.” (Translation: “The office smart fridge is sending suspicious amounts of data to servers in countries I can’t pronounce.”)
Seen in the Wild: After proudly launching their internet-connected smart coffee mug with “zero-day shipping,” IoT startup HydrateAI discovered their entire product line had been incorporated into a botnet that was mining cryptocurrency, causing the mugs to overheat and brewing what customers described as “technically coffee but emotionally disappointing.”
B is for Bikeshedding (Tech Factor: 10)
TechOnion Definition: The art of spending six hours in a meeting debating the color of a button while ignoring the fact that the entire authentication system doesn’t work. Named after Parkinson’s Law of Triviality, but tech bros don’t know that because they skimmed the Wikipedia article.
How Tech Bros Use It: “Let’s not waste time bikeshedding these minor UI details.” (Translation: “I don’t care about your opinion on this, even though I’ll spend three hours tomorrow arguing about semicolon placement in code reviews.”)
Seen in the Wild: During a critical architecture meeting to address system failures that were costing $40,000 per minute, the entire engineering leadership spent 45 minutes debating whether their error logging should use the term “failure” or “exception” because CTO Jason felt “failure” had “negative energy,” while the production environment continued to actively burn.
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