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ROADMAPS · PICK A LADDER, NOT A GRID

AI learning roadmaps.

31 ordered roadmaps that take you from beginner to production-grade. They are arranged as ladders: each one is an ordered run of roles, so there is always a next roadmap rather than a wall of them. Mark stations as you go — the ladder remembers.

31Roadmaps
10Ladders
558Stations
100%Free · no sign-up
31 roadmaps

Software engineering

The roles that turn a spec into software other people depend on.

Foundations

The two every other ladder assumes: complexity you can reason about, and architecture you can defend in a review.

0 / 36 stations
  1. Data Structures & Algorithms Start here Big-O and arrays through hashing, sorting, and trees to graphs, Dijkstra, A*, and dynamic programming.18 stations~13h
  2. System DesignFeaturedFrom APIs, databases, caching, and load balancing through sharding, queues, consistent hashing, and consensus to end-to-end desig…18 stations~16h

Product engineering

Server, screen, phone and device — plus the tests that keep all four honest.

0 / 108 stations
  1. Backend Engineer Start here From HTTP APIs, SQL, NoSQL, caching, and auth through API design, message queues, testing, and observability to Kubernetes, CI/CD…18 stations~16h
  2. Frontend EngineerFeaturedFrom HTML, CSS, layout, and JavaScript through TypeScript, React, state, and data fetching to bundlers, rendering, Core Web Vital…18 stations~17h
  3. Design EngineerFrom visual and interaction fundamentals, design systems and prototyping through HTML/CSS, component UI, design tokens, motion an…18 stations~16h
  4. Mobile EngineerFrom native vs cross-platform, a language, UI, state and navigation through storage, concurrency, platform APIs, testing and offl…18 stations~17h
  5. Embedded EngineerFrom embedded constraints, C and microcontrollers through memory, peripherals, RTOS, interrupts, low-power and OTA to on-device m…18 stations~17h
  6. QA / SDETFrom the test pyramid, unit and integration testing and test design through UI and API automation, frameworks, CI pipelines and f…18 stations~16h

AI engineering

From your first prompt to a model you are on call for.

LLM engineering

From your first prompt to an agent you can put in front of customers.

0 / 90 stations
  1. Prompt Engineering Start here Tokens and CRISP through chain-of-thought, RAG, and agent prompting to production monitoring.18 stations~15h
  2. AI EngineerFeaturedFrom how LLMs work through embeddings, RAG, agents, and fine-tuning to evals, guardrails, inference serving, and observability.18 stations~16h
  3. Generative AIFrom how text and images are generated through diffusion, multimodal, sampling, and fine-tuning to evaluating, securing, and ship…18 stations~17h
  4. Agentic AI EngineerFeaturedFrom what an agent actually is, the agent loop, tool use, MCP and memory through planning, multi-agent orchestration, control pla…18 stations~18h
  5. AI HarnessFeaturedFrom the messages API, tokens, and structured output through tool calling, the agent loop, context management, memory, and sandbo…18 stations~16h

Data

Ask the question, build the pipeline that can answer it, then model what it says.

0 / 54 stations
  1. Data Analyst Start here From asking the right question, SQL and data cleaning through exploratory analysis, visualization, dashboards, experiments and me…18 stations~16h
  2. Data EngineerFrom SQL, Python, and data modeling through Spark, Kafka, Airflow, and dbt to data quality, governance, partitioning, and CDC.18 stations~18h
  3. Data ScientistFrom statistics, Python, SQL and EDA through supervised and unsupervised ML, feature engineering, gradient boosting and deep lear…18 stations~18h

Machine learning

Train the model, push on the research, then keep it alive once real traffic hits it.

0 / 54 stations
  1. Machine Learning Start here From math and feature engineering through regression, trees, neural networks, CNNs, and transformers to experiment tracking, MLOp…18 stations~19h
  2. ML Research EngineerFrom the math and PyTorch, deep-learning fundamentals and reading papers through data pipelines, training dynamics, distributed t…18 stations~18h
  3. MLOpsFrom reproducibility, data versioning, and experiment tracking through training pipelines and model serving to monitoring, drift,…18 stations~17h

AI safety & red teaming

Break your own system on purpose, before someone else does it for you.

0 / 36 stations
  1. AI Safety Engineer Start here From alignment, evaluation, interpretability and threat modeling through prompt injection, guardrails, data poisoning, adversaria…18 stations~17h
  2. AI Red-TeamerFeaturedFrom the AI attack surface, threat modeling and red-team tooling through prompt injection, jailbreaks, data poisoning, model extr…18 stations~17h

Production, security & leadership

What happens after the code is written: running it, defending it, leading it.

Platform & reliability

Where code stops being a repo and starts being a system with a pager attached.

0 / 72 stations
  1. Cloud / AWS Start here From EC2, S3, VPC, and IAM through serverless, containers, IaC, and messaging to Well-Architected, multi-region, cost optimizatio…18 stations~18h
  2. DevOpsFrom Linux, networking, Git, and Docker through CI/CD, Terraform, Kubernetes, and secrets to observability, SRE, GitOps, and cost.18 stations~18h
  3. Platform EngineerFrom Linux, networking, containers and cloud through Kubernetes, infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD, GitOps and observability to SRE,…18 stations~18h
  4. SREFeaturedFrom Linux, networking and distributed systems through SLOs, error budgets, alerting, incident response and postmortems to reliab…18 stations~17h

Security operations

Harden the system you just shipped, then watch it around the clock.

0 / 36 stations
  1. Security Engineer Start here From the security mindset, cryptography, identity and web vulnerabilities through threat modeling, offensive security, cloud and…18 stations~17h
  2. SOC AnalystFrom what a SOC does, networking for defenders and the attacker playbook (MITRE ATT&CK) through logs, SIEM, alert triage, investi…18 stations~16h

Customer-facing engineering

Engineering in the room with the customer — integrate it, deploy it, defend the design.

0 / 36 stations
  1. Forward-Deployed Engineer Start here From rapid prototyping, enterprise RAG and integration glue through discovery, customer data wrangling, VPC deployment, security…18 stations~17h
  2. Solutions ArchitectFrom cloud fundamentals, networking and data through the Well-Architected pillars, scalability, resilience, cost and integration…18 stations~17h

Past senior

The two forks after senior: scope without a title, or the people who hold it.

0 / 36 stations
  1. Staff Engineer Start here From what staff actually means, scope and leverage and the archetypes through technical strategy, architecture at scale, driving…18 stations~15h
  2. Engineering ManagerFrom the IC-to-manager shift, 1:1s, feedback and delegation through performance management, growth, difficult conversations and c…18 stations~16h

Roadmaps — frequently asked questions

What is a developer learning roadmap?

A learning roadmap is an ordered path through a topic — a numbered ladder of "stations" that takes you from the fundamentals to advanced, production-level skills in a sensible order, so you always know what to learn next instead of hunting through scattered tutorials.

Which roadmap should I start with?

Pick the ladder that matches where you want to end up, then open its first rung — every ladder is ordered, so rung 1 assumes nothing and each one after it builds on the last. If you are aiming at AI engineering, start with the prompt engineering roadmap; if you are aiming at backend or platform work, start with data structures and algorithms.

Are the roadmaps free and interactive?

Yes. Each roadmap is completely free, needs no sign-up, and is fully interactive — you can explore stations at your own pace and follow the tracks in whatever order suits you.

Who are these roadmaps for?

They are built for engineers, AI builders and anyone who wants a structured path through a topic rather than scattered tutorials — useful whether you are starting from scratch or filling gaps before an interview.

How long does a roadmap take to complete?

Each roadmap shows an estimated time and station count on its rung (for example, the prompt engineering roadmap is 18 stations, roughly 15 hours). They are designed to be worked through over multiple sessions at whatever pace fits your schedule, and the catalog remembers how many stations you have ticked.