Why We Built Career Universe: A Free Map of 10,000+ Careers
Career Universe is a free map of career ideas for anyone figuring out what's next, from high schoolers to career changers. This is why we built it, what's in it, and what it can't promise yet.
The list of twenty
Ask a 16-year-old what they want to be and you often get one of two answers. The first is a shrug. The second is a job they have seen up close - a teacher, a nurse, a coder, a YouTuber, whatever a parent or an aunt or a favorite show does for a living.
Both answers come from the same place. We pick from the jobs we have watched someone do, and for most of us that's a short list. I call it the list of twenty. (I don't have a study behind the number twenty. Try it yourself. Count the jobs you have actually watched someone do for a full day. Most of us run out fast.)
The list isn't the problem. The size of it is. And I don't think it's only teenagers. Plenty of adults changing careers are choosing from the same short list.
Career Universe started the ordinary way: a parent helping a teenager with the "what's next" question, and realizing the usual tools were built for a different moment. The government's Occupational Outlook Handbook is excellent - but it covers a few hundred occupations, in language written for adults. Interest quizzes hand back a label. College sites start from the college. None of them did the one thing we actually needed, which was to make the menu bigger before trying to choose from it.
So we started building a bigger menu.
What we built instead
Career Universe is a free map of more than 10,000 careers that exist in the United States. It works on a phone or a laptop, and you don't need an account to use any of it.
29 sectors, 400+ fields, 10,000+ jobs
The map works like zooming in. You open a sector, like Ocean & Maritime. Then a field inside it. Then a pay tier, then a job. The tiers compare pay inside one field, so they show how a job sits next to its neighbors, not across the whole map.
More than 3,800 of the jobs are flagged as hidden gems. These are jobs most people have never heard of and some people would love: perfusionist, foley artist, saturation diver, orthotist and prosthetist, launch range safety officer. That's about a third of the map, and it's the third we care about most. The flag is a judgment call made during the research. It isn't a formula, and it isn't a ranking of pay or quality.
If you want the strangest corner first, start with Wildcard: Unusual & Niche Careers.
Plain enough for a 16-year-old
Every job is written in plain words, with a short day in the life. Here is the start of the one for family medicine physician:
If a 16-year-old can read it, so can a 46-year-old who is tired of job-board jargon.
The decision helpers
Each job card also has:
- Pay over a career. A starting figure, a typical figure and a high one (what the highest-paid 10% earn). When the spread is unusual, as it is for athletes, founders and performers, a note explains it.
- A possible path. College, trade school, apprenticeship, military, certificate, on-the-job training or self-taught, with the usual cost band for the common route.
- Will it last? A 10-year job outlook, plus our estimate of AI and automation risk over the next 5 and 10 years, with one sentence on what changes and what stays human.
- Start now, in high school. Classes that help, and one to three things a 15-to-18-year-old could try now: a club, a starter job, a certificate a teen can earn.
- Could start right away. For 1,500+ jobs, the card says whether someone could realistically begin right away or within a month, the youngest age that's usually legal, and one way to start.
Alongside the careers sit profiles of more than 5,000 US colleges and trade schools, built from the Department of Education's College Scorecard and IPEDS files. When a job lists a major, you can see schools that offer it, roughly what they cost, and what former students typically earned ten years later.
What it is not
Not a quiz
There is no score and no "your ideal career is...". I think labels close doors at the exact moment doors should be opening.
Not a ranking
When a job lists schools, we call them schools to explore. The people who know what fits a particular student are that student, their family and the people who teach them.
Not verified
This is an early prototype. I would rather say that plainly than let a nice-looking screen imply something it can't promise.
Pay and growth figures are anchored on BLS data, but about 92% of them are flagged approximate, mostly because the BLS lumps niche job titles into broader categories. The AI-risk ratings are estimates. They are judgments made against a written rubric, not measurements and not predictions. We expect some of them are wrong, and we want to hear about it.
How the research was done, honestly
A very small team built the map in rounds. The first pass covered the jobs you would expect. The second filled gaps. The third went looking for obscure corners: niche technicians, behind-the-scenes roles, regional and government jobs. A few small rounds since then have filled more gaps.
Each round was written with AI research assistants against a strict schema, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. That's the honest version, and it's why the app wears an "Early prototype" tag.
Pay and growth were pulled toward BLS figures where a job lines up cleanly with an official occupation code, and flagged approximate where it doesn't. Most figures were filled in and spot-checked, not pulled live from the BLS. The data also mixes two years of BLS releases. A pass to bring every figure in line with the newest official numbers is planned. Until then, treat them as good ballparks, not exact figures.
For the AI ratings we wrote a rubric, pinned it to example jobs so "low" means the same thing in nursing as it does in finance, and required a one-sentence reason for every rating. That's the part people most want to argue with, and they should, so it has its own post.
How a family might use it this week
Open the map together. Tap the Hidden gems chip. Pick three jobs neither of you had heard of and read the day in the life out loud. That's the whole first session.
Later, try the chips that match how people actually ask: Outdoors, Be your own boss, No 4-year degree, Get paid to train, Start today. Star anything that sounds interesting. Stars stay in your browser unless you choose to save them across devices.
When something sticks, open the job's "Start now, in high school" section and pick one thing to try this month. A club. A weekend class. A day shadowing someone who does the job. The map isn't there to decide for you. It's there to make the next small step easy to see.
If you're the one changing careers, the same steps work. Skip the high-school section and spend more time with Get paid to train and No 4-year degree.
And when a job really matters to you, check it. Talk to someone who does it. Read the school's own pages. Look up the BLS entry. Our Terms of Use say this in lawyer language, so here it is in plain language: the map is where you start, not where you stop.
What comes next
We update the data from time to time and fix errors people report. The official-numbers pass for pay and growth is planned.
If you spot something wrong - a job, a school, a rating - email privacy@tarvacore.ai with the name and what you think is off.
If you're a school counselor or you run a homeschool co-op, you can use the map with a group right now. No accounts, no roster, nothing to sign.
Questions people ask
Is Career Universe free?
Yes. Exploring the map, filtering, opening job and college profiles, and starring careers as a guest are all free and need no account. Saving a shortlist across devices is free too. It only needs an email address for a one-time sign-in code. There is no paid tier, no advertising and no marketing email.
Who made it?
Tarva, LLC, a small company based in Wyoming. I'm the founder. It began as a parent helping a teenager research careers and colleges step by step, and it grew into a map for anyone who wants a bigger menu than the usual twenty jobs.
Is the information verified?
Not fully. This is an early prototype. Pay and growth figures are anchored on BLS data, but about 92% are flagged approximate. The AI-risk ratings are judgments made against a published rubric. Before you act on anything important, check it with schools, employers, licensing boards and official sources.
Do I need an account?
No. You can explore the whole map, filter, open every job and college profile, and star careers without one. Guest stars and settings stay in your browser on that device. An account is optional, and it exists only to save a shortlist across devices.
Can my 12-year-old use it?
Yes, as a guest, with a parent, guardian or teacher alongside. Accounts are for ages 13 and up, so a child under 13 shouldn't enter their own email address. The writing is aimed at about a 16-year-old reader, and the "try it now" ideas are chosen to be legal and age-appropriate for teens. The map doesn't give counseling or individual advice.
Your next step: open the map, tap Hidden gems, and read three day-in-the-life descriptions out loud with your teenager, or with whoever you're figuring things out with. Then tell us what you found.
Sources: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, BLS Employment Projections, O*NET, College Scorecard and IPEDS. Parts of the research behind Career Universe were written with AI research assistants and checked by hand.