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Career roadmaps
Common progressions, the skills each stage tends to ask for, and project ideas to prove them. These are typical paths, not guarantees — check the live listings to see what employers want today.
Frontend → Full Stack → AI Product Engineer
- Frontend Developer
- Full Stack Engineer
- AI Product Engineer
Skills
JavaScriptTypeScriptReactNode.jsPostgreSQLREST APIsLLM APIs & RAG
Project ideas
- • A full-stack app with auth and a database
- • A chat UI over your own documents using RAG
- • An evaluation harness comparing prompts
Possible next roles
- • Staff Engineer
- • Engineering Manager
- • Founding Engineer
Data Analyst → Data Scientist → ML Engineer
- Data Analyst
- Data Scientist
- ML Engineer
Skills
SQLExcelPythonPandasStatisticsscikit-learnMLOpsDocker
Project ideas
- • A dashboard answering a real business question
- • A predictive model with proper validation
- • Deploy a model behind an API with monitoring
Possible next roles
- • Senior ML Engineer
- • Applied Scientist
- • Data Lead
Support → Customer Success → Solutions / Product
- Support Specialist
- Customer Success Manager
- Solutions Engineer or Product Manager
Skills
CommunicationZendeskSQL basicsProduct knowledgeAPIs basics
Project ideas
- • Write a public help-centre article set
- • Build a churn-risk spreadsheet
- • Shadow and document a customer integration
Possible next roles
- • Support Lead
- • Solutions Engineer
- • Product Operations
Backend → Platform / DevOps → Staff Engineer
- Backend Developer
- Platform / DevOps Engineer
- Staff Engineer
Skills
Python or GoPostgreSQLDockerKubernetesTerraformAWSSystem design
Project ideas
- • A service with CI/CD and observability
- • Infrastructure as code for a small app
- • A write-up on a scaling bottleneck you solved
Possible next roles
- • Principal Engineer
- • Engineering Manager
- • SRE Lead
Designer → Product Designer → Design Lead
- UI Designer
- Product Designer
- Design Lead
Skills
FigmaUX researchPrototypingDesign systemsCommunication
Project ideas
- • A case study with research and outcomes
- • A small design system
- • Redesign a flow with measurable goals
Possible next roles
- • Design Manager
- • Head of Design