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Functional DemoConsumer Application

Career Path Wealth Simulator

A game-like simulator that compares career and education paths by their lifetime wealth outcomes.

CareerWorld landing page headlined 'Choose your path. Simulate your future,' with Build-your-path and sample buttons and six feature cards covering real careers, education ROI, and net-worth goals.
CareerWorld landing page

What it solves

Career choice is one of the largest financial decisions a person makes, but its long-term effect is hard to see: education time and student debt, opportunity cost, starting salary and growth, lifestyle spending, savings rate, and investment compounding all interact over decades. Salary calculators and college-ROI spreadsheets do not show how a whole path plays out to net worth.

Built for People comparing different career and education paths and their long-term financial outcomes.

Overview

CareerWorld lets users model and compare career paths across income growth, student debt, time in school, opportunity cost, lifestyle spending, savings, and investment compounding to project long-term net worth. It is framed as a cinematic life-path strategy simulator rather than a salary calculator, presenting outcomes visually so users can see which path builds the life they want. Results can be shared as images for virality.

What this demonstrates

Builds a deterministic lifetime financial-projection engine (income growth, debt, savings, compounding to net worth) driving interactive charts, with typed models and unit tests. All computation runs client-side with shared state, and shareable result images are generated in the browser.

What makes it different

Not a salary calculator or a college-ROI spreadsheet — a cinematic life-path strategy simulator for comparing where each career actually leads.

  • Career choice is a major financial decisionModel its full lifetime impact on wealth, freedom, and risk.
  • Game-like on the surface, serious underneathNumbers stay realistic and assumption-based.
  • Always comparativeCompare 2–4 paths side by side.
  • Every score is explainedPlain-English reasoning behind each result.
  • Projections are estimatesNot career, tax, or investment advice.

Core capabilities · 12

  • Life Path Builder

    Set starting age, savings, debt, lifestyle, risk tolerance, and freedom targets.

  • Career Selector

    Pick 2–4 paths or build a custom career with income, stability, and upside scores.

  • Education Cost Simulator

    Model tuition, aid, years in school, loans, opportunity cost, and degree ROI.

  • Income Growth Engine

    Project salary, bonuses, commissions, and business income over a career.

  • Debt & Loan Simulator

    Model student, consumer, and business debt payoff and its drag on wealth.

  • Lifestyle & Savings Engine

    Choose a spending level and see expenses, savings rate, and retirement impact.

  • Investment Growth Engine

    Compound savings into net worth and age-to-milestone estimates.

  • Career Timeline

    A life-path game board of milestones from first job to financial freedom.

  • Scenario Lab

    Compare paths and see category winners by wealth, debt, freedom, and risk.

  • Career ScoreCareer Score

    A 0–100 score of how well a path fits the user's goals, with explanation.

  • Recommendation Engine

    Suggests moves like paying debt faster, raising savings, or switching paths.

  • Reports & Share Cards

    Career comparison, College ROI, Debt Drag, and Freedom Age outputs.

How it works

  1. Choose multiple career paths
  2. Configure education and training cost
  3. Add income assumptions
  4. Add lifestyle and savings behavior
  5. Simulate lifetime wealth
  6. Compare paths visually
  7. See key milestones
  8. Optimize the path
  9. Generate shareable results

How the score works

Career Score

  • Lifetime wealth potential25%

    Total wealth the path can build.

  • Debt burden15%

    Weight of education and other debt.

  • Time-to-earning15%

    How long before the path pays.

  • Income growth15%

    Rate of earnings increase over time.

  • Stability10%

    Job security of the path.

  • Flexibility10%

    Freedom and remote potential.

  • Lifestyle compatibility5%

    Fit with the user's desired lifestyle.

  • Upside potential5%

    Entrepreneurial and ceiling upside.

Key screens

  • Landing
  • Dashboard
  • Life Path Builder
  • Career Selector
  • Education ROI
  • Debt Simulator
  • Lifestyle
  • Investment Growth
  • Career Timeline
  • Scenario Lab
  • Reports
  • Settings

Data model

  • User
  • CareerScenario
  • CareerPath
  • EducationPlan
  • DebtPlan
  • LifestylePlan
  • InvestmentPlan
  • CareerSimulationYear
  • CareerMilestone
  • Recommendation
  • ShareCard
  • AssumptionSet

Screens · 11

CareerWorld Life Path Builder form setting scenario, starting position (savings, debt, lifestyle), and targets (net worth, freedom age), with life-stage income-stream options for Software Engineer and Electrician paths.
Life Path Builder — starting assumptions
CareerWorld dashboard comparing three career paths with getting-started checklist, highlight tiles (fastest to $1M, highest earnings), a net-worth-race line chart, and a top career score of 87 for Startup Founder.
Dashboard — three-path comparison
CareerWorld Career Selector comparing Software Engineer, Electrician, and Startup Founder cards (starting pay, ceiling, growth, stability/flexibility/upside bars, risk) above an editable outcome-percentile tuning panel.
Career Selector — compare and tune paths
CareerWorld Education ROI page modeling a Software Engineer bachelor's degree: cost, aid, and loan inputs on the left, with a results panel showing $125K cost, break-even age 25, and 830% ROI.
Education ROI calculator
CareerWorld Debt Simulator for the Software Engineer path: KPI tiles ($136K debt at grad, $45.3K interest, debt-free age 32, $17.5M final net worth) and a 6-year debt-drag indicator.
Debt Simulator — student-loan impact
CareerWorld Lifestyle & Savings page with a Balanced spending preset, monthly expense inputs (housing, food, transport), and a summary showing $45.4K annual expenses and a 30% savings rate.
Lifestyle & Savings inputs
CareerWorld Investment Growth page with contribution and return inputs, KPI tiles ($17.5M final net worth, age 25 to $100K, freedom age 37), and a net-worth-projection line chart for all three paths.
Investment Growth projection
CareerWorld Career Timeline mapping Software Engineer, Electrician, and Startup Founder as three horizontal milestone tracks by age, with milestone detail cards for training, career start, and net-worth goals.
Career Timeline — milestone tracks by age
CareerWorld Scenario Lab showing the active 'College vs Trade vs Startup' scenario, a net-worth-race line chart, and three career-score dials (78, 67, 87).
Scenario Lab — head-to-head comparison
CareerWorld Scenario Lab category-winners view with cards crowning path winners for fastest to $1M, highest earnings, lowest debt, best career score, and stability, plus tradeoff and next-action callouts.
Scenario Lab — category winners
CareerWorld Reports & Share Cards page with card-type toggles and a purple gradient 'Fastest to $1M — Age 32, Startup Founder' share card, above the start of a career-comparison report table.
Reports & shareable summary cards

How it is built

A client-side React single-page app built with Vite; there is no backend. Simulation state is held in a Zustand store, projections render through Recharts, and result cards are exported as images in the browser.

Classification

Industries
Finance
Capabilities
Financial ModelingAnalytics
Technologies
Node.jsReactTailwind CSSTypeScriptViteZod

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