How To Become A Product Design Manager: What It Is and Career Path

What is a product design manager and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Sachin Tuli

Mostly working with specialists and engineers, a Product Design Manager is responsible for developing high-quality standard products. You will manage product design teams, set objectives, determine guidelines, understand the needs of the projects, liaise with different parties, and many more.

You also need to have special skills and traits to be able to do your job as a Product Design Manager. You need to have good analytical skills to easily deal with loads of information you will work on. You need to be able to determine the relevant information and explain them to your clients. Next is communication skills. You need to clearly and efficiently express yourself to the people you are working with at all times. Lastly, you need to be creative. You will face problems and challenges along the way, and you need to be able to solve them in the best way possible.

You can earn an annual average salary of $108,411 as a Product Design Manager. There is also an 8% job growth rate, so you do not need to worry about the demand. Lastly, you can further your career as a Product Design Manager. You can be a Design Director, a Vice President, and an Executive Vice President of Sales.

What's a day at work look like for a product design manager?

Sachin Tuli

Director, International Business Major, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The pandemic accelerated ongoing shifts with work-from-anywhere and use of remote meeting technologies. With mass adoption at all levels, these trends are likely to persist to some degree across fields and industries. There will likely be less travel for a number of years, but concurrently we may see more cross-team and cross-national collaboration and coordination. From an international business perspective, firms do plan to continue their globalization efforts and we know that graduates themselves increasingly seek potential global opportunities and mobility when choosing which organizations to work for.

ScoreProduct Design ManagerUS Average

Salary

8.5

Avg. Salary $133,190

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 33.79%

male 66.21%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a product design manager

Explore product design manager education requirements

Most common product design manager degrees

Bachelor's

74.6 %

Associate

11.2 %

Master's

11.0 %

Start to develop specific product design manager skills

Skills	Percentages
Product Design	14.57%
User Research	12.97%
Sketch	12.33%
Product Management	7.19%
Facebook	5.77%

Complete relevant product design manager training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New product design managers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a product design manager based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real product design manager resumes.

Research product design manager duties and responsibilities

Create, implement and manage the QA program.
Lead teams for branding, wire-framing, prototyping, user-testing, UX and UI design, and more.
Lead cross-functional team in pioneering the application/game download ecosystem with the implementation of Java games and generating significant new revenue stream.
Update product line launch PowerPoint; create marketing presentations for sales and clients.

Prepare your product design manager resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your product design manager resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a product design manager resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable product design manager resume templates

Build a professional product design manager resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your product design manager resume.

Apply for product design manager jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a product design manager job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do product design managers rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Product design manager reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Aug 2023

Cons

high expectations, constantly evolving technology, broad range of topics to learn (product management specifics, industry, technology, software development methods

Pros

Solve tough problems, work on agile teams, outlet for creativity,

A zippia user wrote a review on Jun 2020