runtimelab▮
Sign in

~/runtimelab $ cat ./roadmap

Roadmap

The order to build things in — where you are now, and what comes next.

Browse all challenges →

22 challenges you can start today, 6 more on the way. Sign in to track your progress along the path.

Sign in with GitHub
tree ./careers

4 paths, one catalogue

Everybody starts the same way: foundations, then one language. After that it is a choice — an ordered run toward a role, with a new chapter shipping every month.

  1. Programming Foundations

    Never written code before? One grade-book, in whichever language you mean to carry on in.

    1. available: Programming Foundations (Python)15
    2. available: Programming Foundations (Go)14
    3. available: Programming Foundations (C)16

    1. Go

      available: Learn Go by writing it15 stages

      1. Backend Engineer

        Ship production services in Go: HTTP, data stores, and the systems behind them. Starts with four short ones you can finish in an evening.

        12 open · 2 next · 2 planned

        1. available: The Ring Buffer (Go)4
        2. available: Chunk a file (Go)4
        3. available: Resumable uploads (Go)7
        4. available: TCP Reverse Proxy (Go)8
        5. available: Build your own varint14
        6. available: Write-Ahead Logging (Go)18
        7. available: Build your own curl16
        8. available: Backend Engineering (Go)40
        9. available: Build your own HTTP server14
        10. available: Build your own HTTP parser20
        11. available: Build your own Postgres driver22
        12. available: Build your own Redis115
        13. coming soon: Build your own dotenv parserParsing what has no specification
        14. coming soon: Build your own GitBuild your own Git

      2. Platform / SRE

        The infrastructure layer: systems programming, distributed coordination, the network — and the tools you type every day.

        2 open · 9 planned

        1. available: Packet Journey20
        2. available: Build your own curl16

    2. C

      available: Learn C by writing it14 stages

      1. Systems Engineer (C)

        Go under the runtime: memory, the kernel's primitives, and the filesystem.

        1 open · 1 next · 2 planned

        1. available: Systems Programming: memory & syscalls15
        2. coming soon: Memory Engineering (C)C — memory and ownership

    3. Python

      available: Learn Python by writing it14 stages

      1. AI/ML Engineer

        From what a token is up to a served, retrieval-augmented, tool-using system.

        2 open · 3 next · 4 planned

        1. available: Build your own BPE Tokenizer14
        2. available: Build your own Text Generator15
        3. coming soon: Build an LLM (from scratch)
        4. coming soon: Build your own Embeddings
        5. coming soon: Build your own Semantic Search

        The rest of the AI/ML catalogue ships as its own pass. Build your own BPE Tokenizer comes with every Runtime Lab pass — it is the on-ramp, and it needs no mathematics.

$ cd ~/runtimelab && ./start▮

Pick the first one and start.

Every path opens on something short. The first two stages of any challenge are free to read and run.

Browse all challengesHow it works