RN

Junior → Architect → Beyond

Engineer Roadmap

A level-graded path through everything in this guide. Each stage lists what you can already do and what to learn next — and every flashcard is tagged with its level so you can drill exactly where you are.

  1. 1

    Junior

    Build & ship features with guidance.

    You build screens and ship features with guidance. The goal here is fluency in the fundamentals — components, state, lists, navigation, and data — so you can deliver a working screen end to end.

    You can already

    • ✓Build screens from components, props, and state, and compose hooks (useState, useEffect).
    • ✓Render long lists with FlatList instead of mapping inside a ScrollView.
    • ✓Navigate between screens with Expo Router (file-based routes).
    • ✓Fetch data and handle loading / error / empty states.
    • ✓Style with flexbox and StyleSheet, and run the app in Expo Go.

    Level up by

    • →TypeScript fluency: typed props/state, discriminated unions, typing API responses.
    • →State beyond useState — Context and Zustand — and React Query for server state.
    • →Re-render basics: stable keys, when memo/useMemo actually help.
    • →Write your first unit tests with Jest + React Native Testing Library.
    Drill the flashcards filtered to Junior, plus the State & Data and Data & Networking categories. Read study topics 01, 03, 04, and 07.
  2. 2

    Mid

    Own features end-to-end: data, state, tests.

    You own features end to end — data, state, tests, and polish — and need little hand-holding. The goal is depth across the everyday RN toolkit and the start of performance awareness.

    You can already

    • ✓Separate client vs server state (Zustand/Context vs React Query/SWR) and use caching + optimistic updates.
    • ✓Build forms, handle errors and offline, and cancel in-flight requests.
    • ✓Write unit and integration tests and keep components testable.
    • ✓Use native UI components and add basic animations.
    • ✓Ship through CI and respect a re-render budget.

    Level up by

    • →The New Architecture — Fabric, JSI, TurboModules, Codegen, Hermes — cold.
    • →Performance profiling: find and fix re-renders, run animations on the UI thread (Reanimated).
    • →Accessibility, and the release path (EAS Build, OTA, runtimeVersion).
    Filter flashcards to Mid and the React Patterns, Native UI, and Expo & Tooling categories. Work study topics 03–10 and 13–15.
  3. 3

    Senior

    Architecture, performance, native & security depth.

    You bring architecture, performance, native, and security depth, and you raise the team around you. The goal is to be the person who profiles instead of guessing and isn't afraid of the native side.

    You can already

    • ✓Explain the New Architecture and the threading model cold.
    • ✓Profile and fix jank, memory leaks, and slow startup (TTI) with real instruments.
    • ✓Write or patch native modules and integrate unwrapped SDKs.
    • ✓Reason about security in threat-model buckets (Keychain/Keystore, pinning, MASVS, attestation).
    • ✓Own releases, OTA, and release health, and mentor through reviews.

    Level up by

    • →System design at scale: CRDDS, the 4-layer architecture, offline-first, real-time.
    • →Migration & upgrade strategy (brownfield, rn-diff-purge) and observability/SLOs.
    • →Platform and tooling decisions, and multiplying a team via shared packages.
    Filter flashcards to Senior and the Performance, Native iOS/Android, Security, and Releases categories. Read study topics 02, 11, 16–31, and the full Architecture guide.
  4. 4

    Architect

    System design, platform decisions, team leverage.

    You design mobile systems end to end and make platform decisions that move a whole team. The goal is decision-making before code — for the worst phone, worst network, and worst moment.

    You can already

    • ✓Design a mobile system end to end and justify the architecture, state, navigation, and data strategy.
    • ✓Plan incremental migrations and version upgrades with bounded risk.
    • ✓Stand up build/release infrastructure, CI/CD, and production observability.
    • ✓Define the security posture and the testing strategy across the org.
    • ✓Multiply a team through shared packages, conventions, and code review.

    Level up by

    • →Org-level platform strategy and cross-platform reach (web, desktop, brownfield hosts).
    • →Build infrastructure at scale, cost/perf budgets, and evaluating emerging tech.
    Filter flashcards to Architect and the Architecture category. Work the Architecture guide + Deep dives and study topics 06, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30.
  5. 5

    Beyond

    Frontier: on-device AI and pushing the platform.

    The frontier — where you push what a React Native app can do. The goal is to bring genuinely new capability on-device and pioneer patterns the rest of the team will adopt.

    You can already

    • ✓Run AI models on-device with react-native-executorch / react-native-ai and reason about the privacy/cost/latency trade-off.
    • ✓Bring web-only capability into native incrementally with DOM components.
    • ✓Push the platform: new internals, WebGPU, and deep native interop.

    Level up by

    • →Contribute upstream, prototype with new RN/Expo internals, and set the team's direction on emerging tech.
    Filter flashcards to Beyond and the On-Device AI category, and read study topic 28.