Research

Four learner archetypes we designed for

RTResearch Team·Mar 24, 2026· 6 min read

The career switcher, the upskiller, the hobbyist, the team lead. Each needs something different — here's how we built for all four without bloat.

Before writing a line of code we interviewed 40 people learning new skills on the side. Not a formal academic study — just structured conversations, two hours each, with people who were actively trying to get better at something while holding down a job or running a business.

Four archetypes emerged cleanly, and they've held up as a decision filter ever since. The career switcher. The upskiller. The hobbyist. The team lead. Each optimises for something different, and understanding that difference is why skills123 feels cohesive instead of like a feature salad.

The career switcher optimises for credibility. They want a certificate they can put on a LinkedIn profile, evidence an employer will recognise. Every course we ship gets evaluated through the lens: 'would this move a hiring manager's needle?' If not, we redesign the outcome.

"Every major product decision gets pressure-tested against all four archetypes. If a feature only helps one, it waits."
— Research Team

The upskiller optimises for speed. They have 25 minutes before the kids wake up. They are not interested in a 40-hour course; they want the 80/20 core in the shortest coherent path. This directly influenced our module length standard: eight minutes median, twelve minutes maximum.

Key Insight

The hobbyist optimises for joy. They're not building toward a job or a promotion — they're curious. They'll tolerate difficulty if the topic is genuinely engaging. This archetype is why we don't cut corners on production quality. A hobbyist will notice and resent a sloppy slide deck.

The team lead optimises for consistency across the team. They don't just want to learn — they want to roll out learning to five or fifteen people and trust that the quality is uniform. SCORM export, progress dashboards, and team management features all trace back to this archetype.

Every major product decision gets run through all four. If a proposed feature only helps one archetype meaningfully, it joins a backlog gate. When a feature helps three or more simultaneously, it jumps the queue. This sounds simple because it is.