Where could you specialize?

“IT” is a dozen different jobs — and AI added a few more. Click a path to see what the work is like and which languages it needs — or click a language to see every path it opens. The ones marked course you can start learning here today.

Not sure? Take the 4-question compass ↓Every language in use today ↓Create a free account

Click a specialization or a language core helpful

specialization · Infrastructure

Cloud Engineering

Cloud engineers turn "we need a database, a network and some servers" into infrastructure that is secure, cheap and reproducible. Almost all of it is written down as code and applied, not clicked together.

Languages you need

A typical day

Write Terraform for VPCs, databases, queues and IAM
Review a plan before it hits production
Chase a cost spike or a permissions bug
Script a migration in Python

Tools you will meet

AWS / GCP / AzureDockerIAM & networkingCost dashboards

Roadmap

Linux + networking basics
One cloud provider, hands-on
Terraform: plan, apply, state, modules
Containers and a CI pipeline
Cloud certification (Associate level)

Start with the Terraform course →

not sure? four questions

Find your direction

Question 1 of 4

What would you rather build?

Question 2 of 4

Which problem sounds most fun?

Question 3 of 4

Pick the tool you’d enjoy staring at all day

Question 4 of 4

How close to the people using it do you want to be?

answer to see matches

Pick an answer above and the map lights up with what fits.

reference · 55 languages & formats

Every language in use today

Grouped by where you meet them. You will never need all of these — most careers run on two or three. The ones on the map above are marked; click them to see the paths they open.

Systems & performance

on the mapcourse →
Operating systems, embedded devices, the runtime under almost everything.
Security
on the mapcourse →
Game engines, browsers, trading systems, PyTorch and TensorFlow internals.
ML EngSecurity
on the mapcourse →
Memory safety without a garbage collector; CLIs, inference servers, browsers, Linux kernel modules.
BackendAI Eng
Zigcourse →
Small, explicit C alternative gaining ground in tooling (Bun is written in it).
on the mapcourse →
NVIDIA GPU kernels — the code that makes training and inference fast.
ML EngMLOps
Assemblycourse →
Read more than written: reverse engineering, exploits, hot loops.
Security

Backend & general purpose

on the mapcourse →
The most-used language today: automation, backends (Django, FastAPI), data, ML, AI.
CloudSREBackendData EngData SciML EngAI EngMLOpsFDESecurity
on the mapcourse →
Cloud-native services and tooling: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Prometheus are Go.
CloudDevOpsSREBackendAI EngMLOpsSecurity
on the mapcourse →
Enterprise backends, Android (with Kotlin), big-data engines like Spark and Kafka.
BackendMobile
on the mapcourse →
Modern JVM language; the default for Android and popular for Spring backends.
BackendMobile
C#course →
.NET backends, Windows apps, Unity games.
Backend
on the mapcourse →
JavaScript on the server; Next.js, Express, most AI product backends.
BackendAI EngFDE
Rubycourse →
Rails; still runs Shopify, GitHub and many startups.
Backend
PHPcourse →
WordPress, Laravel, Magento — a huge share of the web.
Backend
Scalacourse →
JVM functional language; Spark’s native tongue and large backends.
Data EngBackend
Elixircourse →
Erlang VM with Phoenix; real-time, fault-tolerant systems.
Backend

Web & frontend

on the mapcourse →
The only language browsers run natively; everywhere on the web.
FrontendMobileAI Eng
on the mapcourse →
JavaScript with types; the default for serious frontends and full-stack apps.
FrontendBackendAI EngFDE
HTML + CSSmarkupcourse →
Structure and style of every page; not programming languages, but non-negotiable.
Frontend
WebAssemblycourse →
Compile Rust/C++/Go to run in the browser at near-native speed.
Frontend

Mobile

on the mapcourse →
iOS, iPadOS, macOS apps.
Mobile
Objective-Ccourse →
Legacy Apple codebases you will still meet.
Mobile
Dart (Flutter)course →
One codebase for iOS, Android, web and desktop.
Mobile

Data, analytics & AI

queryon the mapcourse →
Every database, warehouse and analytics tool; the most transferable skill in tech.
SREBackendData EngData SciML EngAI EngFDE
on the mapcourse →
Statistics, research, biostatistics; ggplot2 and the tidyverse.
Data Sci
Juliacourse →
Numerical computing with Python-like syntax and C-like speed; scientific ML.
ML EngData Sci
Mojocourse →
Emerging Python superset aimed at AI performance; watch, don’t bet on yet.
ML Eng
MATLABcourse →
Engineering and signal processing in industry and academia.
Data Sci

Infrastructure & configuration

configon the mapcourse →
Infrastructure as code across every cloud.
CloudDevOpsData EngMLOpsFDESecurity
configon the mapcourse →
Kubernetes, Helm, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Ansible, Kubeflow.
CloudDevOpsSREMLOps
Dockerfileconfigcourse →
How every container image is built.
DevOpsCloudMLOps
Bicep / CloudFormation / CDKconfigcourse →
Vendor-native infrastructure as code (Azure, AWS); CDK lets you use TypeScript or Python.
Cloud
Nixcourse →
Reproducible builds and environments; growing in platform teams.
DevOps
Groovy (Jenkins)course →
Jenkins pipelines and Gradle builds.
DevOps

Scripting & automation

on the mapcourse →
The glue of Linux servers, containers and CI.
CloudDevOpsSREFrontendData EngML EngMLOpsFDESecurity
PowerShellcourse →
Windows and Azure automation; cross-platform now.
CloudSecurity
Perlcourse →
Text processing and old sysadmin scripts that still run.
SRE
Luacourse →
Embedded scripting: Neovim, Redis, nginx/OpenResty, game engines.
Backend

Enterprise & long-lived

COBOLcourse →
Banks, insurers and governments still run trillions of dollars through it daily.
Backend
Fortrancourse →
Weather models, physics simulations, numerical libraries under NumPy.
Data Sci
ABAPcourse →
SAP’s language; enormous enterprise footprint.
Backend
Visual Basic .NETcourse →
Internal business apps, especially on Windows.
Backend
Delphi / Object Pascalcourse →
Desktop line-of-business software still maintained today.
Backend

Functional & specialist

Haskellcourse →
Pure functional; finance, compilers, correctness-critical tools.
Backend
Erlangcourse →
Telecoms and messaging (WhatsApp); the VM behind Elixir.
Backend
OCamlcourse →
Trading systems (Jane Street), compilers, formal tools.
Backend
F#course →
Functional programming on .NET; finance and data.
BackendData Sci
Clojurecourse →
Lisp on the JVM; data-heavy backends.
Backend
Soliditycourse →
Smart contracts on Ethereum-compatible chains.
BackendSecurity
Verilog / VHDLcourse →
Hardware description: chips and FPGAs, including AI accelerators.
GraphQLquerycourse →
Query language for APIs; common between frontends and backends.
FrontendBackend

Cloud & platforms

platformon the mapcourse →
Amazon’s cloud: IAM, S3, EC2 and the CLI that drives them — the same actions clicked or typed.
CloudDevOpsSREMLOps
Microsoft Azure (portal + az)platformcourse →
Microsoft’s cloud: subscriptions, resource groups, Entra ID, Blob Storage, VMs — clicked in the portal or typed with az.
CloudDevOpsSecurity
Google Cloud (console + gcloud)platformcourse →
Google’s cloud: projects, IAM, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine — the console or the gcloud CLI.
CloudDevOpsData EngMLOps
Cloudflare (dashboard + wrangler)platformcourse →
DNS, Workers, R2 and Pages at the edge — the dashboard or the wrangler CLI.
FrontendDevOpsBackend

Every path starts with one language.

Terraform, Python and Go cover the first step of most of the paths above — and each is six animated lessons away.

See the courses →