careerladder.fyi › Career paths › LinkedIn
How people got jobs at LinkedIn
What 32 people did before they joined LinkedIn: where they worked, what they studied, which role they came in through, and how long it took.
32
people in our data got there
75%
had a graduate degree first (of those listing one)
6
typical years since first job
- The most common step right before: from other companies (59%).
- The most common way in was Software engineering (31% joined in that kind of role).
- Of those who list their education, 75% had a graduate degree before arriving and 12% a PhD.
- The typical person arrived about 6 years after their first job.
How LinkedIn compares
- 75% had a graduate degree, above the 62% across other Big Tech companies, the 2nd-highest of the 12 in our data.
- People arrived about 2 years earlier in their careers than at the typical one of the other Big Tech companies (6 vs 8 years since their first job).
Among people who list their education; places with at least 10 such people.
Show as a table
| People listing education | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | 50 | 78% |
| LinkedIn (this page) | 16 | 75% |
| Meta | 103 | 71% |
| 105 | 69% | |
| NVIDIA | 36 | 67% |
| Amazon | 54 | 63% |
| Adobe | 43 | 58% |
| Microsoft | 97 | 58% |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | 44 | 50% |
| Palantir Technologies | 36 | 50% |
| Salesforce | 28 | 43% |
| Oracle | 30 | 37% |
Show as a table
| Median years | ||
|---|---|---|
| Adobe | 12 yrs | |
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | 11 yrs | |
| Salesforce | 11 yrs | |
| NVIDIA | 10 yrs | |
| Apple | 10 yrs | |
| Meta | 8 yrs | |
| Palantir Technologies | 8 yrs | |
| 7 yrs | ||
| Microsoft | 7 yrs | |
| Oracle | 7 yrs | |
| Amazon | 6 yrs | |
| LinkedIn (this page) | 6 yrs |
Which role they joined in
Kinds of role with fewer than 5 people are combined into "All other roles".
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Software engineering | 10 | 31% |
| All other roles | 22 | 69% |
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 5 | 16% |
What they did right before
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| From other companies | 19 | 59% |
| From Big Tech | 5 | 16% |
| Other | 8 | 25% |
Education
Among the 16 of 32 people who list their education.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's | 4 | 25% |
| Master's | 10 | 62% |
| PhD | 2 | 12% |
How much experience they had
Among the 31 of 32 people with an earlier job listed.
Show as a table
| People | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | 1 | 3% |
| 1-3 years | 6 | 19% |
| 3-5 years | 3 | 10% |
| 5-8 years | 9 | 29% |
| 8-12 years | 6 | 19% |
| 12+ years | 6 | 19% |
Where would your path lead?
Paste your LinkedIn or resume and see the ladders people like you climbed to LinkedIn, and how each step changes your chances.
Plan my path to LinkedIn →
Paste your LinkedIn or resume and see the ladders people like you climbed to LinkedIn, and how each step changes your chances.
Plan my path to LinkedIn →
Related
How these numbers are made. From 3k+ public career histories collected for careerladder.fyi (dated jobs, degrees and publications). The collection was built around particular employers, so people who reached well-known tech, AI and finance employers are over-represented: read shares as "among people in this dataset", not as hiring odds. Names are shown only when at least 5 people are behind them; smaller groups are combined into "Other". No individual profile is shown. Updated November 2026.