What's actually inside a tech company
Most people picture a tech company as a room full of programmers. It isn't. A product reaches you because 17 different teams each did a different job - and plenty of them never write a line of code.Here is every one of them: what they do on an ordinary Tuesday, which ones will hire you with no experience, and what to learn for each.
Look up a job title- 17
- teams in a normal company
- 10
- that hire people with no experience
- 5
- where you never write code
- 217
- job titles explained below
Start here: how one feature travels through a company
Every job below exists because the work has stages. Read this once, top to bottom, and the rest of the page stops looking like an arbitrary list of titles.
- 1
Someone asks for it
Should we build this at all?
A customer complains, a rival ships something, or a metric dips. Product and leadership pick what is worth doing next - and, mostly, what is not.
Who does this: - 2
It gets drawn
What should it look like and feel like?
Before any code, someone sketches the screens and the wrong turns a user might take. Changing a drawing costs minutes; changing shipped software costs weeks.
Who does this: - 3
It gets built
How do we actually make it work?
Frontend builds what you touch, backend builds the part that stores and calculates, mobile builds the phone version. They agree on how the pieces talk to each other.
Who does this: - 4
Someone tries to break it
What did we get wrong?
QA hunts for the case nobody thought about. Security asks how an attacker would abuse it. Both are cheaper before release than after.
Who does this: - 5
It goes live
How does it reach real users safely?
Platform engineers move the code onto servers, usually to a few percent of users first, with a way to undo it in one click if the graphs turn red.
Who does this: - 6
It has to keep working
Is it still up at 3am?
Something will break at an inconvenient hour. Someone is on call, gets woken by an alert, and fixes it. This never stops - which is why it is a permanent job.
Who does this: - 7
People find out and get help
Does anyone know it exists, and can they use it?
Marketing explains it, sales sells it, support answers the person who is stuck. Their notes become the complaint that starts the next loop.
Who does this:
The teams
Open as many as you like - they stay open so you can compare two side by side.
Showing 17 of 17 teams
What they actually do
- Talk to customers about what is annoying them, then work out which complaint is worth engineering time
- Write down what a feature must do before anyone builds it, so five people do not each imagine a different thing
- Say no to most requests, and explain the no to the person who asked
- Check afterwards whether the shipped thing actually moved the number it promised to move
A real Tuesday
Three teams want the same engineer next sprint. You look at the numbers, pick one, and go explain to the other two why they are waiting.
You'd like this if
You like deciding with incomplete information and are comfortable being the person who says no.
Getting in
Associate Product Manager
Rarely a first job straight out of school - most arrive from support, QA, design or engineering after a year or two of seeing how the product really behaves.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Draw the screens and the paths between them, including what happens when things go wrong
- Sit a real person in front of a prototype and watch where they get stuck without helping them
- Keep a shared kit of buttons, colours and spacing so the product does not look like six different apps
- Make it usable with a screen reader, one hand, or a bad connection
A real Tuesday
You watch five people use your new checkout. Four of them miss the same button. You redraw it before a single line of code exists.
You'd like this if
You notice when something is subtly annoying and cannot leave it alone, and you take criticism of your drawings without taking it personally.
Getting in
Junior Product Designer
Reachable with a portfolio rather than a degree - but the portfolio has to show your reasoning, not just pretty screens.
The ladder here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Turn a design into a working screen that behaves the same on a laptop and a five-year-old phone
- Fetch data from the backend and decide what to show while it is loading, or when it fails
- Fight the page weight down so the site opens quickly on a slow connection
- Make it keyboard-navigable and screen-reader friendly
A real Tuesday
A page takes four seconds to open. You find one oversized image and one library nobody needed, and get it to under one second.
You'd like this if
You want to see your work immediately, and you care that the thing feels right, not just that it technically works.
Getting in
Junior Frontend Engineer
One of the two most common ways in. A handful of real projects you can explain matters more than the certificate.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Build the endpoints the app and website call, and decide what each one is allowed to return
- Design how data is stored so it can still be found quickly when there is a thousand times more of it
- Make sure two people clicking at the same instant cannot corrupt the same record
- Keep an eye on which queries are getting slower as the company grows
A real Tuesday
Orders are occasionally double-charging. You trace it to two requests racing each other, and fix it with a lock and a retry rule.
You'd like this if
You enjoy problems where the answer is invisible from the outside, and you like thinking about what happens at ten times the scale.
Getting in
Junior Backend Engineer
The other most common way in. Expect questions about databases and data structures in the interview.
The ladder here
What they actually do
- Build screens that work on a phone that is offline in a lift, then reconnects
- Handle the things only phones have: notifications, cameras, battery limits, permissions
- Get releases through Apple and Google review, knowing users may never update
- Keep the app working on the old cheap phone a lot of the world actually owns
A real Tuesday
A crash only happens on Android 11 on one manufacturer's phones. You reproduce it, and it turns out to be a permission dialog appearing twice.
You'd like this if
You want the thing you built to sit on someone's home screen, and you have patience for app store rules.
Getting in
Junior Mobile Developer
A published app - even a small one nobody uses - moves you past most other applicants.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Move data from the places it is created into one place it can be asked questions
- Answer things like 'do people who use this feature stay longer?' without fooling yourself
- Build the dashboards other teams check every morning
- Notice when a number moves and work out whether it is real or a broken pipeline
A real Tuesday
Signups appear to have doubled overnight. Before anyone celebrates, you find that a tracking change is counting each signup twice.
You'd like this if
You are suspicious of numbers by instinct and enjoy the moment a messy dataset finally answers a question.
Getting in
Junior Data Analyst
SQL plus one spreadsheet-heavy internship gets you in the door; the analyst seat is a common route into engineering later.
The ladder here
What they actually do
- Train and evaluate models - recommendations, search ranking, fraud detection, assistants
- Work out whether the model is genuinely better or just memorised the test set
- Get a model off a laptop and into production where it must answer in milliseconds
- Watch for the model quietly getting worse as the world changes around it
A real Tuesday
Your fraud model scores 99% accurate. You check, and it gets that by calling everything legitimate - because only 1% of transactions are fraud.
You'd like this if
You are comfortable with maths and statistics, and with being wrong in ways that are hard to see.
Getting in
ML Engineer / Junior Data Scientist
Usually not a first job. Most people arrive via data or backend engineering after learning the fundamentals properly.
The ladder here
What they actually do
- Try the things nobody planned for: empty forms, huge inputs, the back button at the worst moment
- Write automated tests that re-check the whole product on every change
- Reproduce a vague bug report reliably enough that an engineer can fix it
- Decide whether a known bug is bad enough to stop a release
A real Tuesday
You find that a name with an apostrophe breaks the sign-up form - something no one on the team happens to have.
You'd like this if
You are the person who instinctively pokes at things to see what happens, and you are patient about detail.
Getting in
QA Engineer
One of the most accessible technical entry points, and a very common stepping stone into development or product.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Build the pipeline that tests and releases code automatically, many times a day
- Run the servers, containers and networks everything else sits on
- Set up alerts so a human learns about a problem before customers tweet about it
- Take the on-call phone, and write up honestly what broke afterwards
A real Tuesday
An alert wakes you at 03:12. A disk is full because logs were never rotated. You clear it, then spend the morning making it impossible to happen again.
You'd like this if
You would rather automate a task than repeat it, and you stay calm when something is on fire.
Getting in
Junior DevOps / Cloud Engineer
Usually a second role - most arrive from IT support or development, because you need to understand what you are deploying.
The ladder here
What they actually do
- Attack your own company's systems on purpose, and report what worked
- Review new features for the ways they could be abused
- Handle the incident when something does get through, and limit the damage
- Prove to auditors and customers that the controls you claim to have exist
A real Tuesday
You notice an internal page that returns any user's invoice if you change the number in the URL. You have it closed within the hour.
You'd like this if
You think about how things fail rather than how they work, and you can raise alarms without crying wolf.
Getting in
Security Analyst (SOC)
Analyst roles in a monitoring team are the usual door in; most security engineers came from development or systems administration first.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Set up and lock down the laptops and accounts every new joiner needs on day one
- Run the internal tools: email, chat, single sign-on, VPN
- Remove access the same day someone leaves
- Be the first person asked when anything internal stops working
A real Tuesday
Four people start on Monday. Their laptops, accounts and permissions all have to exist and work before 9am.
You'd like this if
You like helping people directly and want a way into tech that does not require years of study first.
Getting in
IT Support Technician
The most open technical entry point of all - frequently a first job, and a well-trodden route into DevOps or security.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Answer customers who are confused, stuck, or angry - often all three
- Work out whether it is a misunderstanding or a genuine bug, and pass on the real ones
- Spot that thirty people reported the same thing this week and escalate it as a pattern
- Help big customers get value out of what they bought so they renew
A real Tuesday
You realise the last twenty tickets are all the same confusing error message. Your write-up turns into next month's fix.
You'd like this if
You are patient with frustrated people and good at explaining technical things simply.
Getting in
Support Specialist
Genuinely open to beginners with no degree, and one of the best places to learn the product deeply - many PMs and QA engineers started here.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Explain a technical product in words a buyer understands
- Write the site copy, the launch posts, the documentation people find on Google
- Run campaigns and measure which ones brought people who stayed
- Look after how the company is perceived when something goes wrong
A real Tuesday
Two versions of a landing page run against each other. The uglier one wins, and you have to accept the data over your taste.
You'd like this if
You can write clearly and are happy for a number to prove you wrong.
Getting in
Marketing Associate / Content Writer
Open to beginners. Technical writing and developer marketing pay noticeably better if you understand the product.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Find and qualify companies that plausibly need the product
- Demonstrate it, and answer the awkward questions honestly
- Negotiate price and terms, with legal and finance involved
- Bring back the reason deals were lost, which is often a missing feature
A real Tuesday
A prospect asks whether the product meets a compliance standard. You bring in a solutions engineer rather than guess.
You'd like this if
You are comfortable being told no repeatedly, and you like your results being unambiguous.
Getting in
Sales Development Representative
Very open to beginners with no technical background. 'Solutions engineer' is the technical branch of this team and pays like engineering.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Source candidates, run the hiring process, and make offers
- Handle onboarding, pay, benefits and progression
- Deal with disputes and performance problems
- Try to keep the culture intact as headcount doubles
A real Tuesday
You are the first person a candidate meets. Whether they accept the offer often depends on how that call went.
You'd like this if
You are interested in people and can be discreet about things you learn.
Getting in
Technical Recruiter / People Coordinator
Recruiting is one of the easiest non-technical routes into a tech company, and you learn the whole job market fast.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Track what comes in and goes out, and forecast when the money runs out
- Set budgets, including how many engineers each team may hire
- Review contracts and keep the company on the right side of privacy law
- Handle the paperwork behind fundraising or acquisition
A real Tuesday
The cloud bill jumped 40% in a month. You and the platform team trace it to one test environment nobody switched off.
You'd like this if
You are precise, comfortable with rules, and unbothered by being the one who asks what it costs.
Getting in
Financial Analyst / Legal Associate
Usually needs a relevant degree or qualification, unlike most other doors into a tech company.
The ladder here
Works with daily
What they actually do
- Decide the direction and which bets to fund
- Hire the directors and VPs who run each function
- Answer to investors and the board for results
- Make the unpleasant calls - cuts, pivots, shutting a product down
A real Tuesday
Two departments both need the same budget. Only one gets it, and you own the consequence either way.
You'd like this if
Worth understanding early, but nobody starts here - these are roles reached after 10–20 years in one of the functions above.
Getting in
Not an entry point
Every one of these people started somewhere in the teams above. The CTO was almost always an engineer first.
The ladder here
Learn this here
Works with daily
Heard a title you don't recognise?
Titles in tech are not standardised. The same job is a “Software Engineer” here, an “SDE” there and a “Developer” somewhere else - while two different jobs both shorten to TPM. Look one up.
217 titles and 131 other names for them.
About the pay bands: Bands compare roles with each other, not with a payslip. Actual pay swings by a factor of five or more between countries and company sizes, and a senior engineer at a large firm can out-earn a director at a small one.
Product Management
PM can also mean Project Manager or Program Manager in conversation - ask which.
What the work actually is
Interviews customers, writes the spec, argues priorities with engineering, then checks the metric afterwards to see whether the bet paid off.
What to learn
- Customer interviewing
- Writing clear specs
- Metrics and A/B testing
- SQL for self-serve answers
- Roadmapping
- Saying no gracefully
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Rarely a first job. Most arrive from support, QA, design or engineering after a year or two of seeing how the product really behaves.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Owns one small surface end to end under a senior PM - writes the tickets, chases the answers, watches the numbers.
What to learn
- Writing user stories
- Basic SQL
- Analytics tools
- Presenting to stakeholders
- Agile ceremonies
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
One of the few genuine graduate routes into product. Big companies run APM programmes; small ones almost never hire at this level.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Runs a whole product area, sets its strategy for the next few quarters, and mentors the PMs around them.
What to learn
- Product strategy
- Pricing and packaging
- Stakeholder management
- Forecasting
- Hiring and interviewing
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Three to five years as a PM, usually with one launch you can point to that moved a real number.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Half product work, half managing product managers - reviewing their specs, unblocking them and covering the gaps.
What to learn
- Coaching
- Portfolio prioritisation
- Cross-team planning
- Performance conversations
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
The first management rung in product. Reached by being a senior PM whose judgement other PMs already borrow.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Sets direction for a product line, hires the PMs, and spends a lot of time aligning engineering, design and sales on the same plan.
What to learn
- Organisational design
- Budgeting
- Executive communication
- Market analysis
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Eight to twelve years in product, including several as a manager of managers.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Owns what the company builds. Answers to the CEO for whether the roadmap is the right one.
What to learn
- Company strategy
- Board communication
- Org building
- P&L ownership
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Twelve years plus, or an early employee who grew with the company.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
PM for products whose users are engineers - APIs, SDKs, internal platforms. Reads the docs, sometimes the code, and argues about interface design.
What to learn
- API design
- System design basics
- Reading code
- Developer experience
- Technical writing
Courses here
How people get in
Usually an engineer who liked the product side, or a PM who got deep enough technically to be trusted with a platform.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
A Scrum role. At many companies the Product Manager does this too.
What the work actually is
Keeps the backlog ordered and answers the team's questions during the sprint so nobody is blocked waiting on a decision.
What to learn
- Scrum
- Backlog refinement
- Acceptance criteria
- Estimation
- Jira or equivalent
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Common route in from business analysis or project coordination, especially at enterprises that run formal Scrum.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Sits between the business and engineering, turning 'we need better reporting' into requirements somebody can actually build.
What to learn
- Requirements gathering
- Process mapping
- SQL
- Excel modelling
- Stakeholder interviews
How people get in
Open to graduates with a business or IS degree, and a very common side door into product management.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Answers 'did that feature work?' - instruments events, builds the funnel, and tells the PM the uncomfortable answer.
What to learn
- SQL
- Product analytics tools
- Experiment design
- Statistics basics
- Dashboarding
Courses here
How people get in
Frequently a first job for a numerate graduate, and one of the fastest routes into either product or data science.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Keeps five teams pointed at one launch date: tracks dependencies, runs the status meeting, and escalates what is slipping.
What to learn
- Dependency mapping
- Risk management
- Cross-team communication
- Planning tools
- Running meetings that end
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
From project management, engineering or operations. Technical Program Manager pays more and requires reading architecture diagrams.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Owns the plan for one project - the timeline, the budget, who is blocked, and what the client is told on Friday.
What to learn
- Project planning
- Budget tracking
- Risk registers
- Agile and waterfall
- Client communication
Courses here
How people get in
Open to career changers; certifications like PMP or Prince2 carry real weight here, unlike in most technical roles.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Runs stand-up, retro and planning; spends the rest of the time removing whatever is blocking the team.
What to learn
- Scrum framework
- Facilitation
- Coaching
- Conflict resolution
- Agile metrics
How people get in
Often an internal move from QA, development or project coordination. Certification is cheap and widely expected.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Works across several teams on how they work rather than what they build - diagnosing why delivery keeps slipping.
What to learn
- Team dynamics
- Change management
- Coaching
- Lean and Kanban
- Organisational psychology
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Years as a Scrum Master or engineering lead, plus credibility with engineers who distrust process people.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
What the work actually is
Whatever the executive cannot get to - running a critical project, preparing the board deck, chasing a decision nobody owns.
What to learn
- Executive communication
- Strategic analysis
- Project management
- Discretion
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Consulting, product or operations backgrounds. Almost never a first job, and heavily dependent on trust.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Data & Analytics · Marketing
Design & User Experience
What the work actually is
Talks to users, sketches flows, builds a clickable prototype, then sits with engineers while it gets built and the edge cases surface.
What to learn
- Figma
- Interaction design
- User research basics
- Design systems
- Accessibility
- Prototyping
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Portfolio over degree - but it has to show your reasoning and the versions you rejected, not just finished screens.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Takes well-scoped screens, produces options, and gets them critiqued. Learns the design system by extending it.
What to learn
- Figma
- Typography and layout
- Design system usage
- Taking critique
- Basic HTML/CSS
How people get in
Bootcamps and self-taught portfolios both work. Three or four deep case studies beat twenty dribbble shots.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Maps the journey, finds where people get lost, and redesigns the flow - often without touching the visual style at all.
What to learn
- Journey mapping
- Usability testing
- Information architecture
- Wireframing
- Research synthesis
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Often from psychology, HCI or a related field; also from support, where you have watched people struggle all day.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Owns the visual layer - type scale, colour, spacing, iconography - and keeps it consistent across every screen.
What to learn
- Typography
- Colour theory
- Layout and grids
- Figma
- Design tokens
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Frequently from graphic design. The move to Product Designer means adding research and flow work.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Recruits participants, runs sessions, watches people fail at things the team thought were obvious, and writes up what it means.
What to learn
- Interview technique
- Usability testing
- Survey design
- Qualitative analysis
- Statistics basics
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Often a social science or psychology background. Small companies rarely hire dedicated researchers, so start where there is scale.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Designs what happens between states - the loading, the error, the transition, the thing that makes an interface feel considered.
What to learn
- Motion principles
- Prototyping tools
- State modelling
- Micro-interactions
- Figma
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
From product or visual design, by developing an eye for the moments most people skip.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Produces the polished surface: illustration, brand expression, marketing pages, the pieces that carry personality.
What to learn
- Illustration
- Brand systems
- Typography
- Adobe/Figma toolchain
- Composition
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Art and design backgrounds dominate. Moving into product design means learning flows and constraints.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Turns out the assets everyone needs - social posts, decks, event material, ads - usually to a deadline.
What to learn
- Layout
- Typography
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Brand guidelines
- Print and digital formats
Courses here
How people get in
The most accessible design entry point, and a common springboard into UI and then product design.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Maintains the shared component library, decides what deserves to be a component, and negotiates with every team that wants an exception.
What to learn
- Component API design
- Design tokens
- Accessibility standards
- Documentation
- Working with frontend engineers
How people get in
Several years of product design plus unusual patience for consistency. Needs real frontend literacy.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Designs and builds the animation - onboarding sequences, transitions, product videos.
What to learn
- After Effects
- Lottie
- Timing and easing
- Storyboarding
- Performance constraints
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
From visual design or video. A niche that few companies staff full time outside consumer products.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Writes the words in the interface and argues that a clearer error message would prevent half the support tickets.
What to learn
- Plain-language writing
- Content design
- Localisation basics
- Style guides
- Working in Figma
Courses here
How people get in
Journalism, copywriting and support backgrounds all work. Rare below mid-size companies.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Audits the product with a screen reader and a keyboard, files what fails, and teaches teams to stop reintroducing it.
What to learn
- WCAG
- Screen readers
- Keyboard navigation
- ARIA
- Assistive technology testing
- Auditing tools
How people get in
From frontend engineering, QA or design. Legal pressure means demand is growing faster than supply.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Sets the direction, runs critique, hires designers, and does less and less of the drawing.
What to learn
- Design strategy
- Hiring and critique
- Coaching
- Stakeholder negotiation
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Six to ten years designing, then a deliberate choice to trade craft time for leverage.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Takes the ambiguous, high-stakes flows, and spends as much time aligning people as drawing.
What to learn
- Design strategy
- Facilitating workshops
- Systems thinking
- Mentoring
- Prototyping
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Five years plus of product design with a couple of genuinely hard problems behind you.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Designs the research programme, mixes qualitative and quantitative methods, and stops the company acting on one loud customer.
What to learn
- Mixed-methods research
- Statistics
- Research operations
- Influencing without authority
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Several years of research practice, often with a postgraduate background.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Owns the product's voice, the terminology, and the writers producing it.
What to learn
- Content strategy
- Voice and tone systems
- Team leadership
- Localisation
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
From UX writing, after several years.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Runs design through managers - headcount, craft standards and the org's relationship with product.
What to learn
- Organisational design
- Budgeting
- Executive communication
- Hiring at scale
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Years as a design manager at a company large enough to need a layer above.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Owns design at company level and argues for it in rooms where it is the first thing cut.
What to learn
- Design leadership
- Board communication
- Org strategy
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Fifteen years plus across design and design management.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Customer Support & Success
Frontend Engineering
What the work actually is
Turns designs into working screens, wires them to APIs, and handles the loading, empty and error states nobody drew.
What to learn
- HTML and CSS properly
- JavaScript and TypeScript
- React or equivalent
- Browser dev tools
- Accessibility
- Web performance
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
One of the two most common ways into the industry. A handful of real projects you can explain beats a certificate.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Builds components from designs, fixes bugs, and gets everything reviewed. Most of the learning is reading the existing codebase.
What to learn
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript
- One framework
- Git
- Reading code
- Writing tests
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Self-taught, bootcamp or degree all work here. Ship three things publicly and be able to explain every decision in them.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Owns the architecture of a product area, reviews everyone's code, and is the person asked why the page is slow.
What to learn
- State management at scale
- Performance profiling
- Testing strategy
- Design systems
- Mentoring
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Five years plus of frontend work, including at least one project you took from nothing to production.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Lives in the component layer - builds the library, matches the design pixel for pixel, and keeps it accessible.
What to learn
- CSS architecture
- Component design
- Animation
- Accessibility
- Storybook
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
From frontend engineering or from design if you learned to code properly.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Builds and maintains websites end to end - often marketing sites, CMS integrations and forms rather than complex applications.
What to learn
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript
- A CMS
- Hosting and DNS
- Basic SEO
- Responsive design
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
The most forgiving entry point in the industry, especially via freelance and agency work.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
Spans frontend and backend. Common at small companies where you cannot afford to specialise.
What the work actually is
Builds a feature all the way down - screen, API, database migration - because the team is too small to hand off.
What to learn
- Frontend framework
- A backend language
- SQL and schema design
- REST or GraphQL
- Deployment basics
Courses here
How people get in
Usually reached by starting on one side and being forced across. Very common at startups.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Frontend work in a React codebase - components, hooks, state, and the endless question of which library to use.
What to learn
- React
- TypeScript
- State management
- Testing library
- Next.js or similar
Courses here
How people get in
The framework is the hiring filter, not the career. Learn the underlying web platform or you will be re-learning every three years.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Frontend work in Angular - modules, services, RxJS streams. Common in enterprises and internal tools.
What to learn
- TypeScript
- Angular
- RxJS
- Dependency injection
- Testing
How people get in
Enterprise-heavy. Steadier demand than fashion suggests, especially in finance and healthcare.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Frontend work in Vue - single-file components, composition API, and a smaller but loyal ecosystem.
What to learn
- Vue
- TypeScript
- Pinia or Vuex
- Nuxt
- Testing
How people get in
Popular in Europe and Asia and among smaller teams. The transferable part is the web platform underneath.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
A catch-all title covering frontend, Node backends or both, depending entirely on the company.
What to learn
- JavaScript deeply
- TypeScript
- Node.js
- One frontend framework
- Async patterns
Courses here
How people get in
Ask what the job actually involves before accepting - this title hides several different roles.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Builds the design system in code, prototypes interactions that are too subtle to mock up, and translates between design and engineering.
What to learn
- Advanced CSS
- Component architecture
- Animation
- Figma literacy
- Accessibility
How people get in
From frontend engineering with unusual design sensibility, or from design with real coding ability. A small, well-paid niche.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Profiles real page loads, hunts down the 400 KB script nobody needed, and defends a performance budget against everyone shipping features.
What to learn
- Core Web Vitals
- Browser rendering
- Bundling and code splitting
- Caching and CDNs
- Profiling tools
Courses here
How people get in
A specialism grown from senior frontend work, usually at companies where load time is tied to revenue.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Builds and customises WordPress sites - themes, plugins, migrations, and the occasional emergency when one breaks.
What to learn
- PHP
- WordPress theming
- Plugin development
- MySQL
- Hosting and backups
Courses here
How people get in
The classic freelance starting point. Enormous demand, low barrier, and a genuine path into wider web work if you keep learning.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Owns features end to end and makes the calls about where logic should live.
What to learn
- System design
- Both stacks properly
- Performance profiling
- Mentoring
- Deployment
Courses here
How people get in
Five years plus of building on both sides, usually at smaller companies where you had no choice.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Product Management · Quality & Testing
Backend Engineering
What the work actually is
Picks up a ticket, reads enough of the codebase to be dangerous, writes the change and the tests, gets it reviewed and ships it.
What to learn
- One language deeply
- Data structures and algorithms
- SQL
- Git
- Testing
- Reading other people's code
Courses here
How people get in
Degree, bootcamp or self-taught all work. Interviews test data structures and system design far more than framework knowledge.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Identical to Software Engineer. The numeral tells you the level: I is junior, II mid, III senior.
What to learn
- Data structures and algorithms
- System design
- One language deeply
- Distributed systems basics
Courses here
How people get in
Amazon and companies that copied its ladder. Expect a heavily structured interview loop.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Designs the endpoint, models the data, worries about what happens when two requests arrive at once, and watches the query times.
What to learn
- A backend language
- SQL and indexing
- API design
- Caching
- Concurrency
- Observability
Courses here
How people get in
The other most common way in. Expect database and data-structure questions at interview.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Implements well-defined endpoints and fixes bugs, with every change reviewed. Learns the domain by tracing requests through it.
What to learn
- One backend language
- SQL
- HTTP and REST
- Git
- Unit testing
Courses here
How people get in
Build something with a real database and deploy it publicly. That single project answers most interview questions for you.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Owns a service: its schema, its failure modes, its on-call pager and the design reviews of anyone changing it.
What to learn
- System design
- Distributed systems
- Performance tuning
- Schema migration strategy
- Mentoring
Courses here
How people get in
Five years plus, including having been woken up by something you built and fixing it properly afterwards.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Designs the contract other teams and customers code against, then lives with it - because breaking an API is expensive.
What to learn
- REST and GraphQL
- Versioning strategy
- OpenAPI
- Auth and rate limiting
- Documentation
Courses here
How people get in
Backend engineering with a taste for interface design. Often overlaps with platform work.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Backend services, data plumbing or automation in Python, depending on the company.
What to learn
- Python
- Django or FastAPI
- SQL
- Testing with pytest
- Async Python
- Packaging
Courses here
How people get in
Python is the most forgiving first language and opens data and AI routes as well as backend ones.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Enterprise backend work - Spring services, JVM tuning, and codebases that have been alive for a decade.
What to learn
- Java
- Spring Boot
- JVM basics
- SQL
- Maven or Gradle
- JUnit
Courses here
How people get in
Huge and stable demand in banking, insurance and government. Less fashionable, very well paid, rarely short of jobs.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Infrastructure-adjacent backend work - services, CLIs and networking code where predictable performance matters.
What to learn
- Go
- Concurrency and channels
- gRPC
- Docker
- Profiling
Courses here
How people get in
Rarely a first language. Most Go developers arrived from another backend language into infrastructure work.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Backend and internal applications in C# - often alongside SQL Server and Azure.
What to learn
- C#
- ASP.NET Core
- Entity Framework
- SQL Server
- Azure basics
Courses here
How people get in
Strong in enterprise, healthcare and government. Microsoft certifications carry more weight here than elsewhere.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Maintains and extends web backends - Laravel or Symfony at the modern end, older codebases everywhere else.
What to learn
- PHP
- Laravel or Symfony
- MySQL
- Composer
- Testing
Courses here
How people get in
Still runs a very large share of the web. Undervalued, plentiful, and an easy entry to backend work.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Rails work - building product features quickly on a framework designed for exactly that.
What to learn
- Ruby
- Rails
- ActiveRecord
- RSpec
- Background jobs
Courses here
How people get in
Concentrated in startups and scale-ups. A smaller market than it was, but the jobs pay well.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Server-side JavaScript - APIs, real-time services and the glue between frontend and everything else.
What to learn
- Node.js
- TypeScript
- Express or Nest
- Async patterns
- SQL or MongoDB
Courses here
How people get in
Natural next step for a frontend developer, which makes it one of the shortest routes to full-stack work.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Tunes queries, plans capacity, tests the restore (not just the backup), and is the person called when the database is the problem.
What to learn
- SQL deeply
- Indexing and query plans
- Replication
- Backup and recovery
- One RDBMS in depth
Courses here
How people get in
From IT operations or backend development. A shrinking title but the skills moved into platform and data engineering.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Designs how data is stored across the company - sharding, partitioning, migrations that cannot take the site down.
What to learn
- Distributed databases
- Schema design
- Query optimisation
- Replication and consistency
- Migration strategy
Courses here
How people get in
Senior backend or DBA experience plus real scale. Rare and well paid.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Reasons about what happens when a machine dies mid-write, and builds systems that stay correct anyway.
What to learn
- Consensus algorithms
- CAP and consistency models
- Message queues
- Failure testing
- Observability
Courses here
How people get in
One of the harder specialisms. Usually reached after years of backend work at a company with genuine scale.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Connects your system to somebody else's - their auth, their rate limits, their outages, their undocumented behaviour.
What to learn
- REST and webhooks
- Auth protocols
- Message queues
- Error handling and retries
- Debugging network traffic
Courses here
How people get in
From backend or support engineering. Common in B2B companies where every customer wants a different connector.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Decides how systems fit together across teams, writes the design docs, and spends a lot of time in review meetings.
What to learn
- System design
- Architecture patterns
- Trade-off analysis
- Technical writing
- Cost modelling
Courses here
How people get in
Ten years plus of building things, and the scars to know which clever ideas do not survive production.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
Often a pre-sales, cloud-vendor role - not the same as Software Architect.
What the work actually is
Sits with a customer, works out how the product fits their environment, and produces the diagram that unblocks the deal.
What to learn
- Cloud platforms
- System design
- Networking
- Presenting to non-engineers
- Cost estimation
Courses here
How people get in
From engineering, usually via solutions engineering. Cloud vendor certifications genuinely matter for this one.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
Usually still writes code - unlike an Engineering Manager.
What the work actually is
Still writes code, but also breaks work down, reviews the important changes and owns the team's technical decisions.
What to learn
- System design
- Code review at scale
- Estimation
- Mentoring
- Running technical discussions
Courses here
How people get in
Promotion from senior engineer. Reversible - many people move between tech lead and IC roles more than once.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Works on the problems that cross team boundaries - the migration nobody owns, the pattern three teams keep getting wrong.
What to learn
- Cross-team influence
- Architecture
- Technical strategy
- Writing design docs people read
- Mentoring seniors
Courses here
How people get in
The alternative to management. Requires impact beyond your own team, which usually means writing and persuading.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Sets technical direction across the engineering organisation and is the final word on the decisions that are expensive to reverse.
What to learn
- Organisational strategy
- Deep domain expertise
- Executive communication
- Long-range planning
How people get in
Twelve years plus. Very few seats exist, and they are usually filled from within.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
One-to-ones, hiring, performance, unblocking, and defending the team's time. Coding drops to almost nothing.
What to learn
- Coaching
- Difficult conversations
- Hiring and interviewing
- Planning
- Delegation
Courses here
How people get in
A change of job, not a promotion from senior engineer. Try it before committing - many people move back.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Runs a function through managers - headcount, budget, delivery, and the org chart.
What to learn
- Organisational design
- Budgeting
- Executive communication
- Managing managers
How people get in
Several years as an engineering manager, then a step up when the org grows enough to need one.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Owns engineering delivery for the company - can we build it, how fast, and with whom.
What to learn
- Org building
- Board communication
- Vendor and budget negotiation
- Strategy
Courses here
How people get in
Twelve years plus, or an early engineer who scaled with the company.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Writes code that runs on constrained hardware - no garbage collector, limited memory, and a debugger attached to a physical board.
What to learn
- C and C++
- Microcontrollers
- RTOS concepts
- Hardware interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART)
- Debugging with an oscilloscope
Courses here
How people get in
Electronics or computer engineering degrees dominate. Hobby projects with an Arduino or STM32 count for a lot.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Writes the low-level software that makes a device work at all - boot, drivers, power management, over-the-air updates.
What to learn
- C
- Assembly basics
- Device drivers
- Memory-constrained programming
- Hardware datasheets
How people get in
Closely related to embedded work. Demand is steady in automotive, medical devices and consumer hardware.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Builds gameplay systems, tunes feel, and fights the frame budget. Often long hours around release.
What to learn
- C++ or C#
- Unity or Unreal
- 3D maths
- Graphics basics
- Performance profiling
Courses here
How people get in
Portfolio-driven: finish and ship small games. Famously competitive and, relative to other engineering, underpaid.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Writes smart contracts and the services around them, where a bug can be unfixable and expensive.
What to learn
- Solidity
- EVM mechanics
- Cryptography basics
- Security auditing
- Web3 libraries
Courses here
How people get in
A volatile market - pay is high when the sector is up and hiring stops when it is not. Treat it as a specialism, not a foundation.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Works on parsers, optimisers and code generation - the tools every other engineer depends on without noticing.
What to learn
- Compiler theory
- LLVM
- C++
- Type systems
- Performance analysis
How people get in
One of the few areas where a CS degree is close to required. Small field, deep expertise, well paid.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Owns an engine or gameplay system, profiles the frame budget, and mentors the junior developers.
What to learn
- Engine architecture
- Advanced C++
- Graphics programming
- Profiling
- Mentoring
Courses here
How people get in
Several shipped titles.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Data & Analytics · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Quality & Testing
Mobile Engineering
What the work actually is
Builds app features, handles offline and permission edge cases, and shepherds releases through store review.
What to learn
- Swift or Kotlin
- Mobile UI frameworks
- Offline storage
- Push notifications
- App store process
Courses here (for this team)
How people get in
Publish something, even small. A live app answers most of what an interviewer wants to know.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Quality & Testing · Product Management
What the work actually is
Builds the iPhone app in Swift, fights Xcode, and plans around an annual OS release that changes the rules.
What to learn
- Swift
- SwiftUI and UIKit
- Xcode
- Core Data
- App Store submission
- Instruments profiling
How people get in
Needs a Mac. Ship one app to the store - it is the single strongest signal for junior iOS roles.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Quality & Testing · Product Management
What the work actually is
Builds the Android app in Kotlin and tests across a bewildering range of devices, OS versions and manufacturer quirks.
What to learn
- Kotlin
- Jetpack Compose
- Android Studio
- Room
- Play Store release process
- Coroutines
How people get in
Cheaper to start than iOS - any computer will do, and publishing to Play is quick.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Quality & Testing · Product Management
What the work actually is
Builds both apps from one JavaScript codebase, then writes native modules for the parts that do not fit.
What to learn
- React
- React Native
- TypeScript
- Native module basics
- Mobile debugging
Courses here
How people get in
The shortest bridge from web development into mobile.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Quality & Testing · Product Management
What the work actually is
Builds both apps from one Dart codebase with a widget system that renders its own UI rather than using native controls.
What to learn
- Dart
- Flutter widgets
- State management
- Platform channels
- Release tooling
How people get in
Growing quickly, especially outside the US and in agencies building for both platforms on one budget.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Quality & Testing · Product Management
What the work actually is
Owns app architecture, the release process and the crash-rate dashboard, and mentors the rest of the mobile team.
What to learn
- Mobile architecture patterns
- CI for mobile
- Crash reporting
- Performance profiling
- Mentoring
Courses here
How people get in
Five years plus of shipping apps, including at least one you owned through several store releases.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Quality & Testing · Product Management
What the work actually is
Owns app architecture and the release train, and is accountable for the crash-free rate.
What to learn
- Mobile architecture
- Release management
- Team leadership
- Performance
Courses here
How people get in
Senior mobile engineering plus responsibility for the whole app rather than a feature.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Design & User Experience · Backend Engineering · Quality & Testing · Product Management
Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Writes SQL against the warehouse, builds the dashboard, and explains to a non-technical stakeholder why the number moved.
What to learn
- SQL
- Excel or Sheets to a high level
- A BI tool (Tableau, Looker, Power BI)
- Statistics basics
- Data storytelling
Courses here
How people get in
One of the most open technical doors: SQL plus one portfolio analysis is often enough. A very common first step into data or product.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Builds and maintains the reporting layer the company checks every morning, and fields requests for one more column.
What to learn
- SQL
- Data modelling
- Power BI or Looker
- ETL basics
- Requirements gathering
Courses here
How people get in
From analysis or reporting roles. Strong demand in large, non-tech companies.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Turns raw warehouse tables into clean, documented, tested models that analysts can trust without asking questions.
What to learn
- Advanced SQL
- dbt
- Dimensional modelling
- Git and code review
- Data testing
Courses here
How people get in
The natural step up from data analyst, and the fastest way for an analyst to start earning like an engineer.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Builds and babysits the pipelines that move data from a dozen systems into one place, and gets paged when they fail overnight.
What to learn
- Python
- SQL
- Airflow or similar
- Spark
- Cloud data warehouses
- Data modelling
Courses here
How people get in
From software engineering or from analytics. More engineering than analysis - expect to be judged on code quality.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Owns the data platform: its cost, its reliability, its schema contracts with every team producing data.
What to learn
- Distributed processing
- Streaming (Kafka, Flink)
- Cost optimisation
- Data governance
- Mentoring
Courses here
How people get in
Five years plus of pipeline work, including having fixed one properly rather than patching it.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Frames a business question as a statistical one, builds a model or an experiment, and communicates the uncertainty honestly.
What to learn
- Python and pandas
- Statistics and probability
- Machine learning fundamentals
- Experiment design
- SQL
- Communicating results
Courses here
How people get in
Usually needs a quantitative degree or equivalent self-study. Analyst-to-scientist is the most common internal path.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Leads the analysis on decisions the company is betting real money on, and pushes back when the data cannot answer the question.
What to learn
- Causal inference
- Advanced modelling
- Experiment platforms
- Stakeholder influence
- Mentoring
Courses here
How people get in
Several years of applied work plus a track record of analyses that changed a decision.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Designs how data is organised company-wide - the warehouse layout, the governance rules, the naming nobody else wants to decide.
What to learn
- Data modelling
- Governance and lineage
- Cloud platforms
- Security and privacy
- Cost management
Courses here
How people get in
Long experience in data engineering or DBA work, plus the patience for standards.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Builds extract-transform-load jobs, most often in an enterprise tool rather than code, and fixes them when a source system changes.
What to learn
- SQL
- An ETL tool (Informatica, SSIS, Talend)
- Scheduling
- Data quality checks
Courses here
How people get in
Common in large enterprises. The modern equivalent is data engineering - learn Python and Airflow to move across.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Data engineering at a scale where ordinary tools stop working - distributed processing, partitioning, and cluster costs.
What to learn
- Spark
- Hadoop ecosystem
- Scala or Python
- Cluster tuning
- Streaming
Courses here
How people get in
From data engineering, at a company with genuine volume. The label is less used now that cloud warehouses handle most scale.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Builds mathematical models of markets and risk, and defends every assumption in them.
What to learn
- Advanced statistics
- Stochastic calculus
- Python or C++
- Time series analysis
- Financial markets
Courses here
How people get in
Usually a maths, physics or engineering PhD. Finance rather than tech, and paid accordingly.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Produces the recurring reports the business runs on, and automates them until they stop taking all week.
What to learn
- SQL
- Excel
- A BI tool
- Report automation
- Business domain knowledge
How people get in
Very accessible, often from an operations or finance role. A natural stepping stone into analysis.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Works across teams on the analytical problems nobody owns, and sets methodological standards.
What to learn
- Causal inference
- Experimentation platforms
- Cross-team influence
- Technical writing
Courses here
How people get in
The individual-contributor track above senior data scientist.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Runs data engineering, analytics and science as one organisation, and owns the company's data strategy.
What to learn
- Org design
- Data governance
- Budgeting
- Executive communication
Courses here
How people get in
Years of data leadership across more than one of the three disciplines.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · AI & Machine Learning · Backend Engineering · Marketing · Leadership (the C-Suite)
AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Trains and evaluates models, then does the harder part - getting one into production where it must answer fast and keep working.
What to learn
- Python
- PyTorch or TensorFlow
- ML fundamentals
- Feature engineering
- Model deployment
- Evaluation and metrics
Courses here
How people get in
Rarely a first job. Most arrive from software or data engineering after learning the maths properly.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Builds product features on top of models - increasingly someone else's model, wired up with retrieval, prompts and guardrails.
What to learn
- Python
- LLM APIs
- Retrieval-augmented generation
- Evaluation harnesses
- Prompt design
- Cost and latency management
Courses here
How people get in
The most accessible AI role right now - closer to software engineering than to research.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Reads papers, forms a hypothesis, runs experiments that mostly fail, and occasionally publishes something that changes the field.
What to learn
- Deep learning theory
- Mathematics
- Research methodology
- Paper writing
- Large-scale experimentation
Courses here
How people get in
Almost always requires a PhD and a publication record.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Takes methods from research and makes them work on the company's messy real problem and real latency budget.
What to learn
- ML fundamentals
- Experimental design
- Production engineering
- Domain modelling
- Python
Courses here
How people get in
Masters or PhD is common but not universal; strong applied portfolios do get through.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Designs and trains neural networks, and spends much of the time on data quality and training infrastructure rather than architecture.
What to learn
- PyTorch
- Neural architectures
- GPU training
- Distributed training
- Regularisation and tuning
Courses here
How people get in
From ML engineering or research. Needs comfort with linear algebra and calculus.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Builds systems that work with language - search, classification, extraction, and increasingly LLM pipelines.
What to learn
- Transformers
- Tokenisation
- Embeddings and vector search
- Evaluation for language tasks
- Python
Courses here
How people get in
From ML engineering, often with a linguistics or CS background.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Builds systems that interpret images and video - detection, segmentation, tracking - and fights lighting, angles and edge cases.
What to learn
- OpenCV
- CNNs and vision transformers
- Image preprocessing
- Annotation pipelines
- Model optimisation
Courses here
How people get in
From ML engineering. Strong demand in robotics, automotive, medical imaging and manufacturing.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Runs the machinery around models - training pipelines, model registries, deployment, and the monitoring that catches silent decay.
What to learn
- Docker and Kubernetes
- CI/CD
- Model serving
- Feature stores
- Monitoring and drift detection
- Python
Courses here
How people get in
From DevOps or ML engineering. One of the easier ways into AI work if you already know infrastructure.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Designs and systematically evaluates the instructions given to a model, and builds the test sets that prove a change helped.
What to learn
- Prompt patterns
- Evaluation design
- LLM behaviour and limits
- Python scripting
- Statistics basics
Courses here
How people get in
A young and unstable title - often folded into AI or product engineering. Treat it as a skill more than a career.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Runs product for features whose behaviour is learned, which means specifying acceptable failure rather than exact behaviour.
What to learn
- ML fundamentals
- Evaluation metrics
- Risk and safety framing
- Product strategy
- Data literacy
Courses here
How people get in
From product management plus real ML literacy, or from ML plus product instinct.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Owns a production model end to end - training pipeline, serving, evaluation and the monitoring that catches drift.
What to learn
- ML systems design
- Distributed training
- Model monitoring
- MLOps
- Mentoring
Courses here
How people get in
Several years of ML engineering including at least one model that survived contact with real traffic.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
What the work actually is
Decides which AI bets are worth the compute and the headcount, and answers for the results.
What to learn
- AI strategy
- Research management
- Budgeting
- Risk and safety governance
Courses here
How people get in
Senior ML or research leadership.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Data & Analytics · Backend Engineering · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Product Management
Quality & Testing
What the work actually is
Plans what needs testing, tries the cases nobody thought of, files reproducible bugs, and decides whether a release is safe.
What to learn
- Test design techniques
- Bug reporting
- One automation framework
- SQL for data checks
- API testing
Courses here
How people get in
One of the most accessible technical entry points and a very common stepping stone into development or product.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Product Management · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Works through test cases and explores the product deliberately trying to break it, on real devices and browsers.
What to learn
- Test case design
- Exploratory testing
- Bug reporting
- Cross-browser testing
- Basic SQL
How people get in
The single most open door into a technical team - no coding required. Learn automation early or the role stalls.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Product Management · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Plans test coverage, tracks defect trends and reports on quality to people making the ship decision.
What to learn
- Test planning
- Defect metrics
- Requirements analysis
- Test management tools
How people get in
From manual testing or business analysis.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Product Management · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Writes and maintains the automated suite, and spends real effort on the flaky tests that erode everyone's trust in it.
What to learn
- Playwright, Cypress or Selenium
- One programming language
- CI pipelines
- Page object patterns
- Test data management
Courses here
How people get in
The standard next step from manual QA, and the point at which QA pay starts matching development pay.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Product Management · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Builds the testing infrastructure itself - frameworks, harnesses, environments - as a full software engineering job.
What to learn
- Strong programming
- Test architecture
- CI/CD
- Performance and load testing
- Mocking and test doubles
Courses here
How people get in
From automation engineering or from development. Paid as an engineer because it is one.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Product Management · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Models realistic load, runs it at the system, and finds the bottleneck before real traffic does.
What to learn
- JMeter, k6 or Gatling
- Performance profiling
- System design basics
- Monitoring
- Statistics for latency
Courses here
How people get in
From QA automation or backend engineering. A niche with consistently short supply.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Product Management · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Owns the quality bar, plans coverage across the team, and is in the room when someone wants to ship with a known bug.
What to learn
- Test strategy
- Risk assessment
- Team leadership
- Release management
- Metrics
Courses here
How people get in
Several years in QA plus the judgement to say no to a release without being obstructive.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Product Management · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Owns quality strategy across all product teams and the tooling that supports it.
What to learn
- Quality strategy
- Org design
- Risk management
- Metrics
How people get in
From QA leadership at a company large enough to centralise quality.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Frontend Engineering · Backend Engineering · Mobile Engineering · Product Management · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Builds and fixes the pipeline that tests and releases code, automates the manual step someone is still doing, and gets pulled into incidents.
What to learn
- Linux
- Docker
- CI/CD (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI)
- Terraform
- One cloud platform
- Bash and Python scripting
Courses here
How people get in
Usually a second role - from IT support or development, because you need to understand what you are deploying.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Sets error budgets, builds the alerting, carries the pager, and writes the blameless post-mortem after something breaks.
What to learn
- Linux internals
- Kubernetes
- Observability (metrics, logs, traces)
- Incident response
- Capacity planning
- Go or Python
Courses here
How people get in
From DevOps or backend engineering. Google's SRE books are the standard free curriculum.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Builds the internal tooling other engineers deploy onto - golden paths, templates, self-service infrastructure. Their users are colleagues.
What to learn
- Kubernetes
- Terraform
- Internal developer platforms
- Go
- API design
- Documentation
Courses here
How people get in
From DevOps or backend engineering, at companies big enough that every team reinventing deployment became a problem.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Builds and runs infrastructure on AWS, Azure or GCP, and watches the bill as closely as the uptime.
What to learn
- One cloud deeply
- Terraform
- Networking (VPC, DNS, load balancing)
- IAM and security
- Cost management
Courses here
How people get in
Cloud certifications genuinely help here, unlike most engineering roles. Common move from IT or sysadmin work.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Runs the servers, networks and container platforms everything else depends on, and plans capacity before it runs out.
What to learn
- Linux
- Networking
- Virtualisation
- Configuration management
- Monitoring
Courses here
How people get in
From systems administration or DevOps.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Keeps servers patched, backed up and running; handles accounts, storage and the things that break at inconvenient times.
What to learn
- Linux administration
- Bash scripting
- Networking basics
- Backup and recovery
- Monitoring
How people get in
Frequently a first technical job, often after IT support. Learn automation to avoid being replaced by it.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Designs and troubleshoots the networks connecting offices, data centres and cloud regions - routing, firewalls, VPNs.
What to learn
- TCP/IP deeply
- Routing and switching
- Firewalls
- VPNs
- Network troubleshooting
- Cloud networking
Courses here
How people get in
Certifications (CCNA and up) carry real weight. Steady demand, especially in enterprise and telecoms.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Owns the pipeline that compiles, packages and releases the software, and makes builds fast enough that people stop avoiding them.
What to learn
- CI/CD systems
- Build tools (Bazel, Gradle, Make)
- Caching strategies
- Artefact management
- Scripting
Courses here
How people get in
From DevOps or development. Increasingly folded into platform engineering.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Designs the company's cloud footprint - regions, accounts, networking, security boundaries - and justifies what it costs.
What to learn
- Cloud architecture patterns
- Well-architected frameworks
- Security and compliance
- Cost modelling
- Multi-region design
Courses here
How people get in
Years of cloud engineering plus the ability to explain a trade-off to a finance director.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Builds the metrics, logging and tracing that turn 'the site feels slow' into a specific service and a specific query.
What to learn
- Prometheus and Grafana
- OpenTelemetry
- Log aggregation
- Distributed tracing
- Alert design
Courses here
How people get in
From SRE or platform work. A growing specialism as systems get more distributed.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Runs clusters - scheduling, networking, storage, upgrades - and helps teams package workloads that behave well on them.
What to learn
- Kubernetes deeply
- Helm
- Container networking
- Operators
- Cluster security
- Go
Courses here
How people get in
From DevOps. The CKA certification is one of the few that hiring managers actually respect.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Runs the infrastructure organisation - headcount, cloud spend, reliability targets and vendor relationships.
What to learn
- Organisational design
- Budget ownership
- Vendor negotiation
- Reliability strategy
Courses here
How people get in
Long experience in infrastructure plus several years managing.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Owns reliability for major systems, designs the alerting, and leads incident response and the reviews afterwards.
What to learn
- Advanced Kubernetes
- Capacity planning
- Chaos engineering
- Incident command
- Mentoring
Courses here
How people get in
Several years of SRE or infrastructure work with real production scars.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Runs the platform team and decides what the internal developer experience should be.
What to learn
- Platform strategy
- Team leadership
- Developer experience
- Roadmapping
Courses here
How people get in
Senior platform or SRE work plus the product instinct to treat engineers as customers.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
What the work actually is
Owns infrastructure, reliability and cloud spend at company level.
What to learn
- Org building
- Vendor negotiation
- Reliability strategy
- Budget ownership
Courses here
How people get in
Long infrastructure leadership experience.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Backend Engineering · Security · Quality & Testing · AI & Machine Learning
Security
What the work actually is
Watches the alert queue, triages what is real, investigates it, and escalates the incidents that matter.
What to learn
- Networking and TCP/IP
- SIEM tools
- Log analysis
- Common attack patterns
- Incident triage
- Linux
Courses here
How people get in
The usual door into security, and open to people without a development background. Security+ is the common starting certification.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Builds and runs the defences - access control, scanning, hardening - and reviews designs for how they could be abused.
What to learn
- Application security
- Cryptography basics
- Cloud security
- Threat modelling
- Automation and scripting
- Linux
Courses here
How people get in
From development, systems administration or SOC analysis. Development experience makes you markedly more effective.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Attacks systems with permission, documents exactly how far you got, and writes it up so it can be fixed.
What to learn
- Web application attacks (OWASP Top 10)
- Network exploitation
- Burp Suite
- Scripting
- Report writing
- Linux
Courses here
How people get in
CTFs and home labs are the standard training. OSCP is the certification that opens doors. Always get authorisation in writing.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Reviews the company's own code and designs for vulnerabilities, and builds the tooling that catches them before merge.
What to learn
- Secure coding
- SAST and DAST tooling
- Threat modelling
- OWASP Top 10
- One language deeply
- CI integration
Courses here
How people get in
Usually from software engineering. Being an engineer first is what makes the advice credible.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Puts security checks into the pipeline - dependency scanning, secrets detection, policy as code - without stopping delivery.
What to learn
- CI/CD
- Container security
- Secrets management
- Policy as code
- Vulnerability management
- Kubernetes
Courses here
How people get in
From DevOps or security engineering. Sits exactly between the two and is paid well for it.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Designs how security works across the whole estate - identity, segmentation, key management, and the standards everyone follows.
What to learn
- Security architecture patterns
- Identity and access management
- Zero trust
- Compliance frameworks
- Risk analysis
Courses here
How people get in
Ten years plus across security and infrastructure. CISSP is common at this level.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
When something is actively wrong, contains it, works out what happened and how far it went, and preserves the evidence.
What to learn
- Digital forensics
- Malware basics
- Log and memory analysis
- Incident command
- Calm under pressure
How people get in
From SOC analysis. Expect on-call, and expect the worst incidents to arrive at the worst times.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Tracks who is attacking organisations like yours and how, and turns that into detections your team can actually use.
What to learn
- Threat frameworks (MITRE ATT&CK)
- OSINT
- Malware families
- Analytical writing
- Detection engineering
How people get in
From SOC analysis, or from an intelligence or research background.
Roughly what it pays
Middle
A competent engineer, designer or manager who can be left alone with a feature. The bulk of a company sits here.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Maps controls to frameworks, gathers evidence, runs the audit, and chases teams for the document they promised last week.
What to learn
- SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR
- Risk assessment
- Policy writing
- Audit evidence
- Vendor security review
How people get in
One of the very few security roles genuinely open without a technical background. Detail and persistence matter more than code.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Designs and reviews cryptographic schemes and protocols, and proves things about them rather than testing them.
What to learn
- Number theory
- Cryptographic protocols
- Formal proofs
- Implementation pitfalls
- Applied cryptography
How people get in
Almost always a PhD. Very small field. Note that using cryptography well is a normal engineering skill - designing it is not.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Owns security risk for the company, sets the strategy, and is the person who answers to the board after a breach.
What to learn
- Risk management
- Regulatory landscape
- Board communication
- Budget and vendor strategy
- Crisis leadership
How people get in
Fifteen years plus across security. CISSP or CISM is close to expected.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Owns a security domain and the tooling behind it, and reviews the designs that carry the most risk.
What to learn
- Advanced threat modelling
- Cloud security
- Detection engineering
- Secure architecture
- Mentoring
Courses here
How people get in
Several years of security engineering, usually with a development background underneath.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Plans and runs full-scope attacks against the company, then works with defenders on what to fix first.
What to learn
- Advanced exploitation
- Adversary emulation
- Operational security
- Report writing
- Team leadership
How people get in
Years of penetration testing plus the judgement to run engagements safely.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Owns the audit calendar, the evidence and the certifications the sales team keeps promising customers.
What to learn
- ISO 27001 and SOC 2
- Audit management
- Policy frameworks
- Stakeholder chasing
How people get in
From GRC analysis. A non-coding route to senior security pay.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Platform, DevOps & Reliability · Backend Engineering · IT & Internal Systems · Leadership (the C-Suite)
IT & Internal Systems
What the work actually is
Fixes laptops, resets accounts, sets up new starters, and is the first person asked when any internal tool stops working.
What to learn
- Windows and macOS administration
- Active Directory or Google Workspace
- Networking basics
- Ticketing systems
- Hardware troubleshooting
- Patience
How people get in
The most open technical door in the whole company - frequently a genuine first job with no degree. CompTIA A+ helps.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Security · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · People & Recruiting
What the work actually is
Runs the internal estate - accounts, devices, licences, SaaS tools - and automates the joiner/leaver process.
What to learn
- Identity providers (Okta, Entra)
- Device management (MDM)
- Scripting
- SaaS administration
- Security basics
How people get in
The natural step up from helpdesk.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Security · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · People & Recruiting
What the work actually is
Keeps office and company networks running - switches, wifi, VPN access, and the occasional cable in a ceiling.
What to learn
- TCP/IP
- Switching and routing
- Wireless
- Firewalls
- Monitoring tools
How people get in
From IT support, usually with a networking certification.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Security · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · People & Recruiting
What the work actually is
Controls who can access what, runs access reviews, and makes sure leavers actually lose their permissions on the day.
What to learn
- Identity providers
- SSO and SAML/OIDC
- Role-based access control
- Access review processes
- Compliance basics
How people get in
From IT administration or GRC. A steady route into security proper.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Security · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · People & Recruiting
What the work actually is
Runs the internal IT function - the team, the budget, the vendor contracts and the tooling decisions.
What to learn
- Team management
- Budgeting
- Vendor management
- IT strategy
- Compliance
How people get in
Years in IT administration plus willingness to manage people and spreadsheets.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Security · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · People & Recruiting
What the work actually is
Runs internal technology and the team supporting every employee, plus the vendor and licensing strategy.
What to learn
- IT strategy
- Vendor management
- Budgeting
- Security governance
How people get in
From IT management at a company large enough to need a director.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Security · Platform, DevOps & Reliability · People & Recruiting
Customer Support & Success
What the work actually is
Answers tickets and chats from people who are stuck, works out whether it is a misunderstanding or a bug, and escalates the real ones.
What to learn
- The product, deeply
- Written communication
- Ticketing tools
- Basic SQL or log reading
- De-escalation
How people get in
Genuinely open to beginners with no degree, and the best place in the company to learn what the product actually does.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Quality & Testing · Sales · Frontend Engineering
What the work actually is
Takes the escalated tickets - reads logs, reproduces the bug, and writes the report the engineering team can act on.
What to learn
- Log analysis
- SQL
- APIs and HTTP
- Debugging technique
- Scripting
- Clear written explanation
Courses here
How people get in
From support, or from a technical background that suits explaining things. A very common bridge into engineering.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Quality & Testing · Sales · Frontend Engineering
What the work actually is
Owns a set of accounts - onboarding them, checking they are getting value, and spotting churn risk before renewal.
What to learn
- Account management
- Product expertise
- Commercial basics
- Data-driven health scoring
- Difficult conversations
How people get in
From support, sales or account management. Open to non-technical people at technical companies.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Quality & Testing · Sales · Frontend Engineering
What the work actually is
Gets a new customer live - configuration, data migration, training their team, and unblocking whatever is odd about their setup.
What to learn
- Product configuration
- Data migration
- Project coordination
- Training delivery
- APIs
Courses here
How people get in
From support or consulting. Heavy in B2B software.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Quality & Testing · Sales · Frontend Engineering
What the work actually is
Looks after the users who talk to each other - forums, Discord, social - and carries their complaints back inside.
What to learn
- Community platforms
- Written voice
- Moderation policy
- Event running
- Content basics
Courses here
How people get in
Open to beginners, often from support or marketing.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Quality & Testing · Sales · Frontend Engineering
What the work actually is
Runs the support team - staffing the queue, owning response targets, and improving the things that generate tickets.
What to learn
- Team management
- Support metrics
- Process design
- Escalation management
- Hiring
How people get in
Several years in support plus the instinct to fix causes rather than clear queues.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Quality & Testing · Sales · Frontend Engineering
What the work actually is
Owns support at company level - staffing, targets, tooling and the escalation path into engineering.
What to learn
- Support strategy
- Workforce planning
- Org design
- Customer analytics
How people get in
Years of support leadership.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Quality & Testing · Sales · Frontend Engineering
Marketing
What the work actually is
Runs the day-to-day of campaigns - scheduling, copy, reporting - across whichever channels the company uses.
What to learn
- Copywriting
- Analytics
- Email tools
- Social platforms
- Basic design
Courses here
How people get in
A common non-technical first job. Broad exposure makes it a good place to find which part of marketing you like.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Researches and writes the blog posts, guides and landing pages that bring people in from search and social.
What to learn
- Writing clearly
- SEO fundamentals
- Research
- Editing
- CMS tools
Courses here
How people get in
Portfolio-driven and open to career changers. Technical writing pays noticeably more if you can learn the product.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
Sits with engineering at many companies rather than marketing.
What the work actually is
Writes and maintains the documentation developers actually use - quickstarts, references, guides - and tests the instructions themselves.
What to learn
- Technical writing
- Docs-as-code (Git, Markdown)
- Reading code
- API documentation
- Information architecture
Courses here
How people get in
From writing plus technical curiosity, or from engineering plus a liking for prose. Consistently under-supplied.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Works out what people search for, gets the site structured so search engines can read it, and tracks rankings and traffic.
What to learn
- Keyword research
- Technical SEO
- Analytics
- Content strategy
- Core Web Vitals
Courses here
How people get in
Largely self-taught. Technical SEO - site speed, rendering, structured data - is where the pay is.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Runs experiments across the funnel - landing pages, onboarding, pricing pages - and lets the data settle the arguments.
What to learn
- Experiment design
- Analytics and SQL
- Paid acquisition
- Conversion rate optimisation
- Lifecycle messaging
Courses here
How people get in
From marketing or analysis. Numerate marketers are scarce and paid accordingly.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Works out how to explain and position the product - messaging, launches, competitive analysis, and arming the sales team.
What to learn
- Positioning and messaging
- Competitive research
- Launch planning
- Sales enablement
- Customer interviewing
How people get in
From marketing, product or sales. Sits closer to product than the title suggests.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Builds demos, writes guides, speaks at events, and brings developer frustration back to the product team.
What to learn
- Real engineering ability
- Public speaking
- Technical writing
- Community building
- Demo craft
Courses here
How people get in
Engineers who like explaining. Requires genuine technical credibility - developers detect the absence instantly.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Runs the company's public accounts - planning, writing, responding, and handling the occasional bad day publicly.
What to learn
- Platform mechanics
- Copywriting
- Content scheduling
- Analytics
- Crisis tone
Courses here
How people get in
Open to beginners with a portfolio of accounts you have grown.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Owns how the company looks and sounds everywhere, and polices consistency across teams that all want an exception.
What to learn
- Brand strategy
- Visual identity
- Messaging frameworks
- Agency management
- Market research
How people get in
From marketing or design, usually with several years behind you.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Runs the paid and outbound programmes that fill the pipeline, and reports on cost per qualified lead.
What to learn
- Paid advertising
- Marketing automation
- Attribution modelling
- Budget management
- Analytics
How people get in
From performance marketing. Heavily numbers-driven and well paid in B2B.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Owns marketing for the company - the brand, the budget, the pipeline number and the team that delivers it.
What to learn
- Marketing strategy
- Budget ownership
- Board communication
- Org building
Courses here
How people get in
Fifteen years plus across marketing disciplines.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Owns a channel or a segment - plans the campaigns, briefs the work, and reports what it produced.
What to learn
- Campaign planning
- Analytics
- Budget management
- Copywriting
- Channel expertise
Courses here
How people get in
A few years in marketing execution.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Owns the content strategy and the writers, and decides what is worth publishing at all.
What to learn
- Content strategy
- Editorial management
- SEO
- Team leadership
How people get in
From content writing or technical writing, after several years.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Runs marketing through managers and owns what the function contributes to pipeline.
What to learn
- Marketing strategy
- Budget ownership
- Org design
- Attribution
Courses here
How people get in
Years of marketing management across more than one channel.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Runs the DevRel team and owns how the company shows up to developers - docs, talks, community and feedback loops.
What to learn
- Developer experience strategy
- Community building
- Team leadership
- Technical credibility
Courses here
How people get in
From developer advocacy, with real engineering behind it.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Sales · Design & User Experience · Data & Analytics
Sales
What the work actually is
Researches accounts, sends the outreach, makes the calls, and books qualified meetings for an account executive.
What to learn
- Prospecting
- Cold outreach writing
- CRM hygiene
- Qualification frameworks
- Handling rejection
Courses here
How people get in
Very open to beginners with no technical background and no degree. Hard on morale, but a fast route into a well-paid career.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Runs deals from first demo to signature - discovery, proposals, negotiation, and forecasting what will close.
What to learn
- Discovery questioning
- Demo delivery
- Negotiation
- Forecasting
- Commercial terms
How people get in
Almost always promoted from SDR. Compensation is heavily commission-based, so good months and bad months differ wildly.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
Pays like engineering and is a common move for engineers who like talking to people.
What the work actually is
The technical half of the sales call - runs the deep demo, answers the architecture questions, builds the proof of concept.
What to learn
- The product technically
- System design basics
- Cloud and integrations
- Demo storytelling
- Security questionnaires
Courses here
How people get in
From engineering or support. Pays like engineering, often with commission on top, and suits engineers who like people.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Looks after existing customers - renewals, upsells, and being the person they call when something commercial is wrong.
What to learn
- Relationship management
- Commercial negotiation
- Product knowledge
- Forecasting
Courses here
How people get in
From sales or customer success.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Builds commercial relationships with other companies - integrations, resellers, co-marketing - and makes them actually produce revenue.
What to learn
- Partnership structuring
- Negotiation
- Ecosystem strategy
- Contract basics
- Cross-company project management
How people get in
From sales, business development or product.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Runs the systems and reporting the go-to-market teams work inside - CRM, data hygiene, quota models, forecasting.
What to learn
- CRM administration
- SQL
- Sales analytics
- Process design
- Automation tools
Courses here
How people get in
From sales operations or analysis. A quietly technical role inside a commercial team.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Manages a team of sellers - coaching calls, reviewing pipeline, forecasting, and carrying the team's number.
What to learn
- Coaching
- Pipeline management
- Forecasting
- Hiring
- Territory planning
How people get in
Promoted from consistently strong account executives.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Owns the revenue number, the sales org and the go-to-market motion.
What to learn
- Go-to-market strategy
- Org building
- Board reporting
- Compensation design
Courses here
How people get in
Fifteen years plus in sales, including several managing managers.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Runs the largest and most complex deals, usually with many stakeholders and a long cycle.
What to learn
- Enterprise sales methodology
- Multi-threading deals
- Commercial negotiation
- Forecasting
How people get in
Consistent quota attainment as an account executive.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Runs sales through managers and owns a region or segment number.
What to learn
- Sales strategy
- Org design
- Compensation planning
- Forecasting at scale
Courses here
How people get in
Years of sales management.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Marketing · Customer Support & Success · Product Management · Finance & Legal
People & Recruiting
What the work actually is
Sources candidates, screens them, coordinates interview loops, and closes offers - while keeping candidates warm throughout.
What to learn
- Sourcing techniques
- Technical literacy (enough to screen)
- Interview coordination
- Offer negotiation
- ATS tools
Courses here
How people get in
One of the easiest routes into a tech company for a non-technical person, and you learn the whole job market fast.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Finds candidates who are not applying - searching, mapping companies, and writing the first message that gets a reply.
What to learn
- Boolean search
- LinkedIn Recruiter
- Market mapping
- Outreach writing
Courses here
How people get in
An entry point into recruiting with no prior experience needed.
Roughly what it pays
Entry
The bottom rung of a tech company. Usually the lowest-paid roles on site, and usually the easiest to get.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Owns hiring end to end for a function - the process, the hiring managers, the data, and the candidate experience.
What to learn
- Structured interviewing
- Employer branding
- Hiring analytics
- Stakeholder management
- Compensation basics
How people get in
From recruiting, after a few years.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Runs the mechanics of employment - onboarding, payroll, benefits, policies - and fixes the process when it fails someone.
What to learn
- HR systems
- Employment basics
- Payroll and benefits
- Policy writing
- Confidentiality
Courses here
How people get in
Open to graduates and career changers; strong administration matters more than an HR degree.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
The people advisor attached to a department - performance issues, restructures, promotions and the difficult conversations.
What to learn
- Employment law basics
- Performance management
- Coaching
- Organisational design
- Mediation
How people get in
Several years in HR, plus the judgement to advise a director and be believed.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Designs and runs training and career frameworks, and works out what people actually need rather than what is fashionable.
What to learn
- Instructional design
- Competency frameworks
- Facilitation
- Programme evaluation
How people get in
From HR, teaching or internal training roles.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Benchmarks roles against the market, models salary bands, and keeps pay internally fair as the company grows.
What to learn
- Compensation benchmarking
- Excel modelling
- Equity basics
- Pay equity analysis
- Data analysis
How people get in
From HR or finance analysis. Quietly influential and reliably in demand.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Owns people strategy for the company - culture, structure, compensation philosophy and the hardest personnel decisions.
What to learn
- Organisational strategy
- Employment law
- Executive coaching
- Change management
How people get in
Fifteen years plus across HR functions.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Manages the people team and the processes it runs - hiring, onboarding, performance cycles.
What to learn
- Team leadership
- Process design
- Employment basics
- Coaching
How people get in
From HR business partnering or people operations.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Owns hiring, culture and the employment experience across the company.
What to learn
- Org design
- Compensation strategy
- Employment law
- Executive advising
How people get in
Years of people leadership.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · IT & Internal Systems · Finance & Legal
Finance & Legal
What the work actually is
Builds the forecast, tracks spend against plan, and explains the variance to the people who own the budget.
What to learn
- Financial modelling
- Excel to a high level
- Accounting basics
- SQL
- Business partnering
How people get in
Usually a finance, economics or accounting degree - one of the few roles here where the degree is close to required.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Keeps the books correct, closes the month, and prepares the filings that have to be right and on time.
What to learn
- Accounting standards
- Bookkeeping systems
- Tax basics
- Reconciliation
- Audit preparation
How people get in
Requires a professional qualification (ACA, ACCA, CPA or local equivalent).
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Owns accounting and reporting - the close process, the controls, and the numbers the board sees.
What to learn
- Financial reporting
- Internal controls
- Team management
- Systems implementation
Courses here
How people get in
A qualified accountant with several years of increasing responsibility.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Makes sure everyone is paid the right amount on the right day, across whatever countries the company operates in.
What to learn
- Payroll systems
- Tax and statutory deductions
- Multi-country payroll
- Accuracy under deadline
How people get in
Open without a degree; qualifications exist and help. Unglamorous and absolutely essential.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Reviews contracts, advises on risk, handles disputes, and tells the company when the clever plan is not allowed.
What to learn
- Contract law
- Commercial negotiation
- Data protection law
- IP basics
- Risk communication
How people get in
A law degree and qualification. In-house roles usually come after private practice.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Runs the paperwork behind every customer and vendor agreement - redlines, approvals, renewals and where things are stored.
What to learn
- Contract structures
- Negotiation basics
- Contract lifecycle tools
- Attention to detail
Courses here
How people get in
From legal support, procurement or sales operations. Does not require a law degree.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Makes sure personal data is handled lawfully - mapping what is held, reviewing new features, and handling data requests.
What to learn
- GDPR and equivalents
- Data mapping
- Privacy impact assessments
- Security basics
- Policy writing
How people get in
From legal, compliance or security. A statutory requirement for many organisations, so demand is stable.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Buys the tools and services the company runs on, negotiates the renewals, and questions the licence count nobody checked.
What to learn
- Vendor negotiation
- Contract review
- Spend analysis
- Supplier management
Courses here
How people get in
From finance, operations or administration.
Roughly what it pays
Lower–middle
Junior technical work, or non-technical roles with a couple of years behind them.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Owns the company's finances - the forecast, the runway, the investor relationship and the answer to 'can we afford this?'
What to learn
- Corporate finance
- Fundraising
- Board and investor relations
- Strategic planning
Courses here
How people get in
A qualified accountant or finance leader with fifteen years plus.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Runs the reporting cycle and day-to-day finance operations, and partners with department heads on their budgets.
What to learn
- Management accounting
- Budgeting
- Financial systems
- Business partnering
How people get in
A qualified accountant or experienced analyst.
Roughly what it pays
Upper
Senior specialists and people managers. Roughly where compensation stops tracking years and starts tracking scope.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
Owns financial planning and the finance team, and prepares what the board sees.
What to learn
- FP&A leadership
- Board reporting
- Org design
- Strategic planning
Courses here
How people get in
Years of finance leadership.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
What the work actually is
The company's most senior lawyer - accountable for legal risk, and the person who signs off the things that could end the company.
What to learn
- Corporate law
- Regulatory strategy
- Board advising
- Team leadership
How people get in
A qualified lawyer with substantial in-house or partner experience.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Leadership (the C-Suite) · Sales · People & Recruiting · Platform, DevOps & Reliability
Leadership (the C-Suite)
What the work actually is
Chooses the few things the company will do, hires the executives, raises the money, and owns every outcome.
What to learn
- Strategy
- Fundraising
- Executive hiring
- Board management
- Communication under pressure
How people get in
Founding a company, or twenty years of increasing responsibility. Not a job anyone is hired into early.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Owns technology strategy - what to build versus buy, the architecture direction, and the engineering organisation's shape.
What to learn
- Technical strategy
- Org design
- Vendor and build/buy analysis
- Board communication
Courses here
How people get in
Almost always an engineer first. Either a founding engineer or fifteen years of engineering leadership.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Owns the product organisation and answers for whether the company is building the right things.
What to learn
- Product strategy
- Org building
- Portfolio management
- Board communication
Courses here
How people get in
Fifteen years plus in product.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Runs day-to-day execution across functions so the CEO can look outward.
What to learn
- Operations management
- Process design
- Cross-functional leadership
- Financial literacy
Courses here
How people get in
From operations, finance or general management.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Owns the company's internal technology - the systems employees use, as opposed to the product customers buy.
What to learn
- Enterprise architecture
- Vendor strategy
- IT governance
- Budget ownership
How people get in
From IT leadership. Distinct from CTO, and the two coexist at larger companies.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Owns how the company collects, governs and uses data, including the privacy and quality standards behind it.
What to learn
- Data strategy
- Governance frameworks
- Privacy regulation
- Org building
Courses here
How people get in
From data leadership or analytics.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Whatever is most broken this week - selling, hiring, writing code, raising money, often on the same day.
What to learn
- Customer discovery
- Fundraising
- Enough of every function to hire for it
- Resilience
Courses here
How people get in
Start something. The main qualification is having done it, and most attempts do not work.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Runs one business line as if it were its own company - its revenue, its team and its strategy.
What to learn
- P&L ownership
- Cross-functional leadership
- Market strategy
- Org design
Courses here
How people get in
From product, sales or operations leadership.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
What the work actually is
Runs engineering at a company too small to separate the CTO and VP roles - hiring, delivery and architecture at once.
What to learn
- Org building
- Technical strategy
- Hiring
- Prioritisation
Courses here
How people get in
A senior or staff engineer at a growing startup who took the management path.
Roughly what it pays
Top
Staff and principal engineers, directors, VPs and the C-suite. Often heavily weighted towards equity rather than salary.
Where it leads next
Sits on
Works with daily
Product Management · Finance & Legal · People & Recruiting · Data & Analytics
How to read a title you've never seen
Almost every title is three slots filled in. Once you can see the slots, an unfamiliar title stops being a new job and becomes a combination you already know.
Level
How much scope you are trusted with. No word at all usually means mid-level - the default.
Area
Which part of the work. Often missing, in which case the team you join decides it.
Craft
The kind of work. This is the part that rarely lies.
- Senior Backend Engineer
- Senior · Backend · Engineer - experienced, server-side, writes code.
- SDE II
- Amazon's ladder. SDE = Software Development Engineer; II = mid-level. Same job as 'Software Engineer'.
- Staff ML Engineer
- Staff (very senior, still hands-on) · Machine Learning · Engineer.
- Head of Design
- Head of (runs the function) · Design · - a manager, not a designer who draws all day.
Levels are company-specific. Google's L5, Amazon's SDE III and Meta's E5 are roughly the same seniority as a plain "Senior Engineer" elsewhere. Never assume a number means the same thing at two companies.
Titles people mix up
These sound interchangeable and are not. Getting them the wrong way round is the most common way to apply for a job you did not mean to.
Data Analyst, Data Scientist, Data Engineer, Analytics Engineer?
- Data Analyst
- Answers questions with existing data. SQL and dashboards. The most common way in.
- Analytics Engineer
- Builds the clean, trusted tables the analysts query. Sits between engineer and analyst.
- Data Engineer
- Builds the pipelines that move data into the warehouse. Mostly software engineering.
- Data Scientist
- Uses statistics and models to predict or explain, not just report. Heavier maths.
DevOps, SRE, Platform Engineer, SysAdmin?
- SysAdmin
- The older title. Keeps servers and internal systems running, often by hand.
- DevOps Engineer
- Automates build, test and release so developers can ship themselves.
- SRE
- Site Reliability Engineer. Treats uptime as an engineering problem, with error budgets and on-call.
- Platform Engineer
- Builds the internal tooling other engineers deploy onto. Their customer is the dev team.
Product Manager, Project Manager, Program Manager, Product Owner?
- Product Manager
- Decides what gets built and why. Owns the outcome.
- Product Owner
- A Scrum role: keeps the backlog ordered. At many companies the same person as the PM.
- Project Manager
- Owns dates, scope and dependencies for one project. Cares that it lands on time.
- Program Manager
- Coordinates several related projects across teams. TPgM if it is technical.
Software Engineer, Developer, Programmer, SDE?
- Software Engineer
- The standard title. SWE.
- SDE
- Software Development Engineer. Amazon's name for exactly the same job.
- Developer
- Same job. More common in Europe, agencies and smaller firms.
- Programmer
- Same job, older word. Rare in job ads now, common in conversation.
UI Designer, UX Designer, Product Designer, UX Engineer?
- UI Designer
- How it looks: layout, colour, type, the visual system.
- UX Designer
- How it works: flows, structure, what happens when the user goes wrong.
- Product Designer
- Both of the above, plus a say in what gets built. The most common modern title.
- UX Engineer
- Writes the front-end code for the design system. An engineer, not a designer.
QA Engineer, Tester, SDET, Automation Engineer?
- Manual Tester
- Uses the product deliberately trying to break it. No code required.
- QA Engineer
- Owns quality for a product area - plans what to test and why.
- Automation Engineer
- Writes scripts that re-run the tests on every change.
- SDET
- Software Development Engineer in Test. A full software engineer whose product is the test system.
Software Architect, Solutions Architect, Solutions Engineer?
- Software Architect
- Designs how the internal system is structured. Internal-facing.
- Solutions Architect
- Designs how the product fits a specific customer's setup. Often pre-sales, often cloud.
- Solutions Engineer
- Sits in sales calls and proves the product works. Also called Sales Engineer or pre-sales.
Security Analyst, Security Engineer, Penetration Tester?
- Security Analyst
- Watches alerts and investigates them. Usually in a SOC. The usual way in.
- Security Engineer
- Builds the defences - access control, scanning, hardening.
- Penetration Tester
- Attacks the company's own systems on purpose and writes up what worked.
- GRC Analyst
- Governance, Risk and Compliance. Proves to auditors the controls exist. Little to no code.
Technical Writer, Content Writer, UX Writer?
- Technical Writer
- Writes the documentation developers read. Needs to understand the product deeply.
- Content Writer
- Writes marketing material - blog posts, landing pages, case studies.
- UX Writer
- Writes the words inside the product: buttons, errors, empty states. Sits with design.
Staff Engineer or Engineering Manager - which is the promotion?
- Senior Engineer
- The point where the ladder forks. Most companies stop expecting you to climb further.
- Staff / Principal Engineer
- The technical track. More scope, still hands-on, no direct reports. Pays like management.
- Engineering Manager
- The management track. A different job - people, priorities and hiring, little coding.
And then there's seniority
Every team above has the same ladder running through it. It is one idea, not a hundred job titles: the work stays similar, but the size of the decision you are trusted with grows.
- Step 1
Intern / Trainee
0 yrsGiven a well-defined task and someone to ask.
- Step 2
Junior
0–2 yrsDoes tickets that are already broken down. Expected to ask questions constantly.
- Step 3
Mid-level
2–5 yrsTakes a feature and delivers it without supervision.
- Step 4
Senior
5+ yrsOwns a system, makes design decisions, and grows the people around them.
- Step 5
Staff / Principal
8+ yrsSolves problems that cross several teams. Still hands-on - this is the alternative to managing.
- Step 6
Manager
A different job, not a promotion from senior: the work becomes people and priorities.
- Step 7
Director / VP
Runs a whole function through other managers. Rarely writes code.
- Step 8
C-level
15+ yrsAccountable for the entire company to the board.
Worth knowing early: becoming a manager is a change of job, not a reward for being a good engineer. Most companies have a parallel track - Staff, Principal - that pays the same and stays hands-on.
Found one that sounds like you?
Pick the team, then take the courses attached to it. If you would rather be told the order to do things in, the learning paths lay it out week by week.