The study of political careers has focused mainly on highly institutionalized systems. This article examines the extent to which findings from this research apply to more fluid settings, looking at trajectories to the national cabinet in a regime combining presidentialism and federalism. For this purpose, we propose an operationalization of political career that integrates five definitional dimensions, looks at full sequences of single occupational positions, and tests six expectations derived from the literature. When only political jobs are taken into account, we found that these careers show significant movement from the subnational level and predominance of executive experience. However, when all occupational jobs are considered, all kind of political positions are pulled into second place behind the private sector. Additionally, in a significant percentage of cases, a ministerial position does not appear to be the last step of a political career but rather an initial springboard for it.