Know Your Worth / Cross-industry
Foundational careers that work across industries. Compare the core skills, portfolio evidence, and commercial choices before exploring an industry specialty.
49–96 of 100 careers · 1,000 in the directory
All careersEmployee references are annual US median wages for the cited BLS occupation, which may cover several career paths. Freelance examples add $15,000 for benefits and $20,000 for business costs, then divide by 1,200 billable hours a year. Annual figures are rounded to the nearest $1,000 and hourly figures to the nearest dollar. Figures are before personal taxes, with no percentage fees. Open a guide to see the source or adjust the assumptions in the calculator.
BLS · May 2025 · Logisticians
A logistics consultant improves how goods move between suppliers, facilities, and customers. They examine routing, handling, service failures, and cost drivers to recommend changes that are workable under real delivery and capacity constraints.
View career → Logistics consultantBLS · May 2025 · Data Scientists
Make machine learning models usable within dependable software systems. The work connects training, deployment, monitoring, and recovery so a model can operate within practical latency, privacy, and cost constraints.
View career → Machine Learning EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
A management consultant helps leaders make a difficult organizational or commercial decision. They structure the question, test explanations against evidence, and turn analysis into a recommendation with clear options and consequences.
View career → Management consultantBLS · May 2025 · Market Research Analysts
Evaluate how marketing activity relates to customer behavior and business results. Marketing analysts reconcile campaign data, examine acquisition and retention, and explain where attribution methods cannot support a confident spending decision.
View career → Marketing AnalystBLS · May 2025 · Market research analysts
A marketing automation specialist builds reliable workflows that connect customer data and communications. The role reduces manual handoffs by making triggers, segmentation, routing, and exceptions understandable and maintainable for the team.
View career → Marketing automation specialistBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Create applications people can use away from a desk. Mobile development combines device interactions, limited connectivity, accessible screens, and release processes to support a dependable experience in changing conditions.
View career → Mobile App DeveloperBLS · May 2025 · Special effects artists and animators
A motion designer uses movement, timing, and visual storytelling to explain ideas or support a brand. Strong work makes information easier to follow while fitting the production and distribution context.
View career → Motion designerBLS · May 2025 · Computer Network Architects
Design and troubleshoot the connections that let people and systems communicate. Network engineers consider routing, segmentation, resilience, and visibility so connectivity remains understandable and recoverable when equipment or configuration changes fail.
View career → Network EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Computer Systems Analysts
Create useful applications and workflows with visual development tools. The value lies in sound process design, sensible data structures, permissions, and a handover that lets the client maintain everyday operations.
View career → No Code DeveloperBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
An operations consultant improves how work moves through a business. They identify delays, repeated errors, and unclear ownership, then design practical changes that the people doing the work can maintain.
View career → Operations consultantBLS · May 2025 · Market research analysts
A paid search specialist plans and improves advertising campaigns around audience intent and business goals. The role connects keywords, messages, landing pages, and measurement to help a team evaluate paid acquisition.
View career → Paid search specialistBLS · May 2025 · Information Security Analysts
Evaluate security weaknesses through agreed testing and clear evidence. Penetration testers work within authorized boundaries, explain business impact, and help teams reproduce findings and verify that a proposed fix addresses the issue.
View career → Penetration TesterBLS · May 2025 · Photographers
A photographer creates images that serve a specific personal, editorial, or commercial purpose. The work combines visual judgment, technical control, and client direction with careful selection, editing, and delivery.
View career → PhotographerBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Create shared tools that make application delivery easier for other developers. Platform engineers treat internal infrastructure as a product, with usable defaults, clear documentation, and feedback from the teams relying on it.
View career → Platform EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Sound engineering technicians
A podcast producer coordinates the editorial and production work behind an audio program. The role turns an idea into a repeatable listening experience through planning, guest preparation, recording, editing, and release organization.
View career → Podcast producerBLS · May 2025 · Graphic designers
A presentation designer shapes a narrative into slides that support a speaker or reader. The work clarifies hierarchy, evidence, and visual rhythm so audiences can understand the intended decision or message.
View career → Presentation designerBLS · May 2025 · Buyers and purchasing agents
A procurement consultant helps an organization make better purchasing decisions. They compare requirements, supplier proposals, total costs, and operational risks so the lowest initial quote does not become an expensive or unsuitable commitment.
View career → Procurement consultantBLS · May 2025 · Operations Research Analysts
Help product teams understand how people use an application and where they struggle. Product analysts define behavioral measures, check event quality, and evaluate changes with attention to retention, uncertainty, and unintended effects.
View career → Product AnalystBLS · May 2025 · Web and digital interface designers
A digital product designer follows problems from discovery through shipped experiences. The value lies in connecting research, interaction decisions, and product goals rather than producing attractive screens in isolation.
View career → Product designerBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
A product manager decides which customer problems deserve a team's attention. Their value comes from connecting research, commercial priorities, and delivery decisions so the team can measure whether a product helps.
View career → Product managerBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
A product operations specialist improves the systems around product decisions. They organize feedback, research access, reporting, and launch routines so product teams spend less effort reconstructing information and coordinating handoffs.
View career → Product operations specialistBLS · May 2025 · Project management specialists
A program manager coordinates several related initiatives toward a shared outcome. Their contribution is resolving cross-team dependencies, sequencing decisions, and keeping individual projects aligned with the larger business objective.
View career → Program managerBLS · May 2025 · Project management specialists
A project manager turns an agreed goal into a coordinated plan. They make ownership, dependencies, costs, and risks visible so a team can deliver work without relying on last-minute rescue.
View career → Project managerBLS · May 2025 · Writers and authors
A proposal writer turns an organization's capabilities into a response that meets a buyer's requirements. The work makes evidence, delivery plans, and differentiators easy for evaluators to find and assess.
View career → Proposal writerBLS · May 2025 · Public relations specialists
A public relations consultant helps an organization communicate accurately with media and other audiences. The work develops credible stories, prepares spokespeople, and coordinates responses around the organization's reputation and public responsibilities.
View career → Public relations consultantBLS · May 2025 · Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
Investigate whether a product behaves as intended and where users may encounter failures. QA analysts turn unclear requirements into testable examples and communicate defects in a way teams can reproduce and prioritize.
View career → QA AnalystBLS · May 2025 · Human resources specialists
A recruiter connects a hiring need with suitable candidates. Their value comes from clarifying the role, finding relevant people, assessing evidence fairly, and keeping candidates and hiring managers informed through the process.
View career → RecruiterBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
A revenue operations consultant connects marketing, sales, and customer success workflows. They clarify lifecycle definitions, data ownership, and handoffs so teams can understand revenue movement without reconciling incompatible reports every week.
View career → Revenue operations consultantBLS · May 2025 · Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products
A sales consultant helps a business understand buyers and improve how it sells an offer. They may refine discovery, qualification, demonstrations, and follow-up so sales conversations connect a real need with a suitable solution.
View career → Sales consultantBLS · May 2025 · Management analysts
A sales operations analyst improves the information and processes behind a sales team. They maintain useful pipeline data, investigate funnel changes, and make reporting or handoff problems visible before leaders act on misleading numbers.
View career → Sales operations analystBLS · May 2025 · Project management specialists
A scrum master helps a team inspect its work and improve how it collaborates. The useful outcome is clearer commitments and fewer persistent obstacles, supported by facilitation rather than ceremony alone.
View career → Scrum masterBLS · May 2025 · Information Security Analysts
Translate security concerns into changes an organization can understand and prioritize. Security consultants assess practices, explain tradeoffs, and help owners choose practical controls with clear responsibility for implementation and ongoing review.
View career → Security ConsultantBLS · May 2025 · Market research analysts
An SEO specialist helps useful website content become easier to discover through search. The work combines technical investigation, audience intent, and content improvements with measurement that separates observed changes from assumptions.
View career → SEO specialistBLS · May 2025 · Network and Computer Systems Administrators
Use engineering methods to improve the reliability of running services. Site reliability engineers define meaningful service measures, reduce repetitive operational work, and help teams balance change with a tolerable level of failure.
View career → Site Reliability EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Public relations specialists
A social media manager plans publishing and audience interaction for an organization. The role combines platform-appropriate content, community judgment, and reporting so public conversations support the brand's goals and responsibilities.
View career → Social media managerBLS · May 2025 · Software Developers
Turn a repeated business task into software people can use reliably. The value comes from understanding the workflow, making sound technical choices, and maintaining the result as needs change.
View career → Software DeveloperBLS · May 2025 · Computer systems analysts
A solutions architect designs how systems should work together to meet a business need. Their value is making technical tradeoffs explicit before expensive implementation decisions create avoidable reliability, security, or operating problems.
View career → Solutions architectBLS · May 2025 · Logisticians
A supply chain analyst studies demand, inventory, suppliers, and lead times to improve planning decisions. Their work helps a business understand the tradeoff between service availability, working capital, and the risk of disruption.
View career → Supply chain analystBLS · May 2025 · Network and Computer Systems Administrators
Keep an organization's computing environment usable and maintainable. Systems administrators manage identities, updates, backups, and troubleshooting, turning routine operational tasks into documented processes that other people can follow during an outage.
View career → Systems AdministratorBLS · May 2025 · Human resources specialists
A talent acquisition consultant improves the system used to attract and hire people. They analyze hiring demand, process friction, assessment quality, and reporting so an organization can make more consistent hiring decisions.
View career → Talent acquisition consultantBLS · May 2025 · Project management specialists
A technical project manager connects delivery planning with engineering realities. They help teams sequence integrations, testing, releases, and operational readiness while making technical dependencies understandable to the people approving the work.
View career → Technical project managerBLS · May 2025 · Technical writers
A technical writer makes complex products and procedures easier to use. Accurate explanations, tested examples, and organized documentation help readers complete tasks and reduce avoidable confusion for support and engineering teams.
View career → Technical writerBLS · May 2025 · Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
Build automated checks that give teams useful feedback when software changes. Test automation engineers choose suitable test layers, manage reliable test data, and keep failures understandable enough to guide release decisions.
View career → Test Automation EngineerBLS · May 2025 · Web and digital interface designers
A UI designer builds the visual language and interface details people interact with. Clear hierarchy, consistent controls, and usable states help products communicate what matters and how to act.
View career → UI designerBLS · May 2025 · Web and digital interface designers
A UX designer turns confusing digital tasks into clearer journeys. The work connects user needs, business constraints, and interaction choices so people can complete important actions with fewer obstacles.
View career → UX designerBLS · May 2025 · Market research analysts
A UX researcher investigates how people behave and what they need from a product. Research helps teams replace assumptions with evidence, while making uncertainty and the limits of findings explicit.
View career → UX researcherBLS · May 2025 · Writers and authors
A UX writer shapes the words inside a product, from navigation to error recovery. Clear language helps people understand choices, complete tasks, and recover when something goes wrong.
View career → UX writerBLS · May 2025 · Film and video editors
A video editor turns recorded material into a coherent story with pacing, sound, and visual continuity. The work makes footage serve an audience and delivery purpose across interviews, explainers, campaigns, or other formats.
View career → Video editor