From Top 1% to Top 0.01% Engineer: Serdar's Roadmap

🧭 Roadmap: From Top 1% → Top 0.01%

This roadmap transforms an already elite frontend engineer into a technical leader, OSS contributor, and public voice in the frontend ecosystem.

🌪 Phase 1: Refine Mastery into Precision (1–2 months)

🔍 Zero-Friction Fundamentals

• Rewrite closures, scoping, hoisting in your own words.
• Build a mini Object.create polyfill and prototype-based mixin engine.
• Dive into Object.defineProperty, Proxy, and the Reflect API.
• Learn the TypeScript Compiler API — build a linter or transformer.

🧨 Practice Challenges

• Solve 50 real bug reports on GitHub (React, TS, Vite).
• Submit at least 3 PRs to core projects (React, TS, Next.js).
• Build a React clone in <300 lines.

🚀 Phase 2: Build Like an Engineer-Architect (2–3 months)

🛠 Two Foundation Projects

1. A zod-style declarative validator with advanced TS inference.
2. A custom JSX UI runtime with hydration, scoped styles, no VDOM.

📘 Study Design by Reading Specs

• ECMA262: Study execution contexts and object internals.
• TypeScript issue threads: Learn compiler evolution.
• Fork and mod Vite or Turbopack, add your own plugin system.

🧠 Phase 3: Visibility, Writing, and Engineering Identity (Ongoing)

📕 Publish Deep Content

• Monthly blog posts:
  • "TS Inference: From keyof to Infer"
  • "Hydration without React"
  • "Understanding React's Fiber in 100 Lines"
• Submit to TS Weekly, Dev.to, GitHub Discussions.

📽 Speak & Teach

• Record 3–5 talks (~15 min each) with diagrams/code.
• Apply to speak at: JSConf EU, React Summit, TS Congress.

🪙 Phase 4: Strategic Leverage & Personal Ecosystem (6–12 months)

💼 Own a Tool or Framework

• A mini Remix/Qwik-style meta-framework.
• Plugin-based component or markdown compiler.

🧠 Mentorship + Community

• Mentor 2–3 devs: document the process.
• Build "Frontend Engineering Bible" in Notion/GitHub.
• Start a Discord channel to share weekly TS/React gems.

🎯 Final Outcome: Top 0.01%

• Core team devs follow you.
• TS contributors reference your blog.
• OSS projects adopt your tools.
• You shape standards, not just follow them.
• You never have to apply — you’re invited.