Orthogonal - Engineers are always talking about things being orthogonal to each other. The first time I heard the term, I thought it meant something like “11-sided.” It doesn’t. I’ve read the definition many times. I still don’t really get it, which didn’t stop me from casually dropping it into conversations with engineers. “Oh, yeah, that press release is totally orthogonal to the ads we’re running on Yahoo.”
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Non-trivial - It means impossible. Since no engineer is going to admit something is impossible, they use this word instead. When an engineer says something is “non-trivial,” it’s the equivalent of an airline pilot calmly telling you that you might encounter “just a bit of turbulence” as he flies you into a cat 5 hurricane.