This article examines the role of atypical employment in individual careers. Using sequence and cluster analyses based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 2002 to 2011, it identifies career types in three biographically relevant employment phases. Employment careers integrate atypical employment in particular during the job-entry phase, which, usually, is episodic in nature. During the main phase of employment, atypical employment turns out to be more stable over time and is mainly found among women who work permanently in part-time jobs. This also applies - though less wide-spread - for the transition into retirement. We can identify phase-, gender-, and qualification-specific career types that integrate atypical employment, often with hardly any points of contact to standard employment. These socially divisive tendencies, however, entail an accumulation of social risks for relatively few people.