What employers are asking for
Share of job ads asking for each skill, by month.
Personalized career development for tech roles
From real job ads to your next tech role.
See what your target role asks for, learn what's missing, show your work, and apply with a CV and interview prep made for each job. Start wherever you are.
Free in early access. No credit card. See the four steps
The market moves. Your plan should too.
- 57,648 job ads processed
- 8,493 employers since 2021
- 12,675 skills tracked
- How we count
Moving this yearshare of job ads
Four steps, one target.
Go in order, or start wherever you are. Everything on the path is built from the job ads for the role you chose.
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Step 1Market
Every skill your role's job ads ask for, ranked by demand and checked against your CV.
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Step 2Grow
A week-by-week plan from the best existing courses, books and docs, sized to your hours.
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Step 3Evidence
Projects built around your new skills, and your finished work in one place, with links an employer can open.
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Step 4Apply
The roles you match, ranked by fit, a CV tailored to each job, and interview practice from your own CV.
What AI Engineer job ads ask for
2,015 job ads from 819 employers, last 180 days. Tick what you have.
48%
of what AI Engineer job ads ask for. Your biggest gap: LLMs.Full AI Engineer report
Your plan, week by week
Coverage after the plan . Every step ends with a short check and a project.
Work you can show
A project built around the skills you just learned, and your finished work in one place.
Openings ranked by your fit
A CV tailored to each job, and interview practice from your own CV.
you match
Practice out loud. Nothing is recorded or graded.
Market figures are real (AI Engineer report, November 2, 2026): each percentage is the share of those 2,015 job ads that ask for the skill. Grow, Evidence and Apply are examples, including the opening and its employer.
See every feature, with short films from the app
Full reports: AI Engineer, Software Engineer, Product Manager, Forward Deployed Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Data Scientist, Data Engineer, Data Analyst and 31 more roles.
See what the market wants.
And where you stand.
What employers ask for, what a skill is worth, which skills are asked for together, and how roles changed since 2021.
Demand for your target, month by month.
Illustrative curves and plans for eight sample roles. Your own target uses live job ads.
Target role
Remote · mid-level · based on 1,392 sample job ads
the last 12 months
Your next step
Your biggest win, from the skills you ticked above.
Build my full planBuilt like a study, not a guess.
Worked out again every week from the job ads collected since 2021. Similar job ads are compared, and each number shows how sure it is.
What a skill is worth
What the skill adds to advertised pay, with the rest of the job ad held equal: role, level, place, company size, benefits and the other skills it asks for.
Worth more together
Asked for together, these pay more than either skill alone would suggest.
What sets pay
What the pay model explains, measured on companies it never saw.
From job ads that state pay, in US dollars (pay in Canadian dollars converted at an approximate rate). Estimates, not promises; intervals are 95%.
Every skill, in its neighborhood.
The 260 most-asked of the 12,675 skills tracked, placed by how job ads use them together. Point at a star.
Watch roles emerge.
Every month back to 2021:
- New job titles as they appear, from AI engineer to forward deployed engineer.
- Skills rising and fading over years, compared fairly, as shares of each year's job ads.
- Industries shifting in what they hire for.
Job titles in data and AI
Share of data and AI job ads with each title, by year. Illustrative.
View the data
Wherever you're
starting from.
Starting out, starting over or moving up: what does the market want, and how do I get there?
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Starting out
See which tools employers expect beyond the coursework, and build your first projects. Data Analyst report
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Changing careers
Find what carries over from your work so far, and the shortest route to what doesn't. AI Engineer report
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Between roles
Spend your time on the skills that are rising now, and apply while you learn. Software Engineer report
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Moving up
See what senior job ads ask for that mid-level ones don't, skill by skill. Engineering Manager report
For coaches, schools and companies
Seats for the people you support, each with their own plan from the live market.
Write to [email protected]
- Coaches ground advice in what employers ask for this quarter, client by client.
- Schools line programs and placement up with the skills job ads ask for.
- Companies track how skills in their field are shifting, and support people through placement.
Wherever you already look.
The same job-ad data in your browser and in your assistant, without an account. Ask about any role Mettlespark tracks, or let a job page tell you what it asks for.
In your browser
On Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday, Workable and SmartRecruiters pages, Mettlespark for Chrome shows which of your role's top skills the ad names, and saves the job to have your CV tailored to it. The toolbar keeps the newest job ads for your role one click away.
Get the extensionFree. No account needed.
In your assistant
Add Mettlespark to Claude or ChatGPT and ask about any role: the newest job ads, what they ask for, and which of the top skills you already have. Read-only, no sign-in, and nothing about you is kept.
Connect your assistantapp.mettlespark.com/mcp
Free while we're in early access.Everything, including Mettlespark AI. No credit card. You'll hear from us before any plan is paid.
Spark is free. Forge gets you the whole path.Spark covers one target role, changeable once every 30 days, with a partial role summary and job ads. Forge adds the market in numbers, your fit, the plan, the CV editor and Mettlespark AI, and you can start it with a 14-day free trial.
See pricingGood to know.
Something else on your mind? Write to [email protected] and a person will answer.
Which roles are covered?
42 roles across five tracks, from intern to director: data and AI, software, infrastructure and security, product management, and engineering and data leadership, in the United States and Canada. A role with at least 100 job ads in the last 180 days also has a public report under Market insights.
Is Mettlespark free?
Yes. During early access everything is free, Mettlespark AI included, with no credit card. When paid plans start, with notice first, Spark stays free for one target role, which you can change once every 30 days: the Overview, the Role page with a partial role summary, Openings, Games and Community.
Is there a free plan?
Yes. Spark is free for one target role, which you can change once every 30 days: the Overview, the Role page with a partial role summary, Openings, Games and Community. No credit card. The market for your role in numbers, the skills, insights, learning, CV and interviews pages, CV comparison, plans and alerts come with Forge. You can start Forge with a 14-day free trial.
Do I need a CV?
No. A CV in Word, PDF, text or Markdown gives the most precise comparison, but you can list your skills instead.
What happens to my CV?
It builds your skill profile and powers the features you use it in, such as the CV editor, tailored versions and interview prep. It is stored encrypted, sent over an encrypted connection, never used to train AI models, and never shared with employers or other users unless you share a link to it yourself. You can delete it, and everything derived from it, at any time.
Does Mettlespark write the courses?
No. We help you find what to learn and where to learn it. The courses, books, docs and talks come from the people who made them, and every link goes to the original. We pick and order them for your role and level, and check the links every week.
How are skills counted, and how far back?
Each job ad, with reposts merged, is read for the skills it asks for; synonyms count as one. A skill's share is the percentage of job ads in your target that mention it. Trends go back to 2021.
Your next role. A clearer path.
Free in early access. No credit card. Already have an account? Sign in