Skip to content
← Insights

Career moves · 231,145 postings · 163 markets · 2026-07-16

Where can your career go next?

Search the role you're in. We count what employers ask for across 231,145 active postings, then show you the markets one step away: how big each one is, and exactly which skills you'd need to add.

What this is and isn't

Markets sit close together when employers on both sides ask for the same skills, measured across 350 normalized skills. This is not a record of people moving between them. That would need career histories we don't have. A close market also isn't automatically a good move. Skills counted are the ones postings list explicitly, so every figure is a floor.

Popular

You are here

Backend Engineer

535 open jobs·297 employers

10 markets are one step away

These are the 10 careers with the highest skill overlap with Backend Engineer. Bigger circles mean more openings; careers closer to the center require fewer new skills.

Among nearby careers, Software Engineer has the most openings (7,054), while Backend Software Engineer requires the fewest new skills.

Skill transition

How much each market's required skills differ from your
current role.

  • Very close10

Larger circles = more open jobs, from 114 to 7,054 here.

Tap a market to put it at the center.

The 10 markets closest to Backend Engineer, ranked by how much their skills overlap with your current role. Distance from the center shows how different the required skills are, closer is a smaller change. Color is the transition band; circle size is open jobs.
  • Backend Software Engineer

    from Backend Engineer

    Excellent match

    Very close

    Among the 10 closest moves from Backend Engineer.

    114

    openings in Backend Software Engineer

    6

    skills you already have

    3

    skills to learn

    0

    skills to strengthen

    You already have

    Backend EngineerBackend Software Engineershare of postings

    observability

    38%37%

    distributed systems

    41%34%

    postgres

    36%28%

    nodejs

    38%26%

    postgresql

    27%19%

    microservices

    25%19%

    You'll need to learn

    • bank reconciliationasked for in 18% of Backend Software Engineer postings
    • data qualityasked for in 17% of Backend Software Engineer postings
    • transactionsasked for in 18% of Backend Software Engineer postings

    How much work is out there

    Backend Engineer
    535
    Backend Software Engineer
    114

    This market has 4.7x fewer postings than yours.

    Smaller than the market you're in, but 6 of the skills it asks for are ones you already have.

    What to do next

    1. 1 · Learn

      bank reconciliation

      Asked for in 18% of Backend Software Engineer postings, and 2 other new skills.

    2. 2 · Look at the work

      114 Backend Software Engineer postings

      Observed active in this snapshot.

    535 Backend Engineer postings · 114 Backend Software Engineer postings · 350 normalized skills · snapshot 2026-07-16

Methodology

What is this based on?

231,145 live job postings from 28,870 employers across 163 markets, captured 2026-07-16. Skills come from each posting's stated requirements.

How is distance calculated?

Each market becomes a profile of the skills its postings request, and markets are compared by how much those profiles overlap (an IDF-weighted cosine similarity, so skills that appear in almost every role count for less). The closest markets sit nearest the center, grouped into five bands from Very close to Different field.

What do the skill lists mean?

Shared skills are the ones both roles commonly ask for. Skills to learn are the ones the target market asks for that your current role doesn't, ranked by how much more often they come up.

What isn't included?

Years of experience, seniority, salary, portfolio or certification requirements, or how competitive a role is to land. Skill overlap is one axis of a move, not the whole picture.

Read how graphic and product design split into two markets →