Career paths
How careers actually develop: what separates one level from the next, which lateral moves exist, and which skills support them.
| Path | Area | Steps | Published |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backend engineering From implementing services to deciding how the company’s systems talk to each other. | Technology | 5 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
| DevOps and site reliability From automating deployments to answering for whether the system stays up. | Technology | 5 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
| Frontend engineering From building screens to defining how the whole company builds interfaces. | Technology | 6 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
| Infrastructure and networks The foundation everything else runs on. | Technology | 4 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
| Internal IT support From answering tickets to designing how the whole company works with its tools. | Technology | 5 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
| Mobile engineering Building and sustaining applications that live on somebody else’s phone. | Technology | 4 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
| Product management From executing a plan to deciding what gets built and what does not. | Technology | 5 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
| Quality assurance From finding defects to designing how they are prevented. | Technology | 4 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
| Solutions architecture Turning a business problem into a system somebody can build and keep running. | Technology | 3 | Aug 16, 2026v1.0 |
How a path is built
- 1Initial draft, which may be proposed by AI and is always labeled as such
- 2Community review
- 3Industry review
- 4Academic review
- 5Approval and publication with version, evidence date and contributors
A ladder and a path are not the same
- A ladder and a path are not the same
- Career ladder: progression within one family and track.
- Career path: the broader graph, including lateral and adjacent transitions.