Career Construction in the Context of Digital Economy: the Case of Young Web-Designers of St. Petersburg

«Career construction in the context of digital economy: the case of young web-designers of St. Petersburg» Since the development of the digital economy it has become increasingly common among workers to be autonomous and free during their decision on choosing a particular type of career. Such concepts as remote work, self-employment, freelance and telework describe the significant changes in the system of employment. As a result, a new category of workers in the sphere of web design has emerged. No longer being the members of a specific organization, they often work remotely and independently with flexible working hours. One of the examples of such kind of professions is a web designer, whose work is being placed at the intersection of technical (working with code), and creative aspects (developing a website design). It is also worth noting that the scientific discourse in the field of web design is mainly focused on studying the learning process of programming skills by web designers, on how the products of web design are perceived by the consumers and what tools web designers use when creating a website. However, the very process of building a career by web designers often remains outside the scope of the studies. Therefore, it is necessary to put more focus on studying one particular group of web designers, particularly, their career paths, professional identities and attitudes when choosing a certain type of career. In this way, the research focus will be placed on exploring the career of young web designers of St. Petersburg in the context of digital economy. The research question is how do web designers construct their careers in the digital economy in St. Petersburg. The object of the study is young workers in the field of web design in St. Petersburg. The subject of the study is the existing career trajectories in the field of web design within the digital economy. The research method is semi-structured interview with the workers in this field. The collected interviews were recorded on a voice recorder, then transcribed and analyzed by thematic analysis with the elements of open coding. As a result, 3 career paths were identified among young web-designers of Saint Petersburg. The study consists of 76 pages and 2 appendixes Key words: Career, career construction, web designers, digital economy