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The differences between senior design projects and product engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both a senior design project and a product engineer. Additionally, a senior design project has an average salary of $92,208, which is higher than the $89,645 average annual salary of a product engineer.
The top three skills for a senior design project include solidworks, medical devices and prototype. The most important skills for a product engineer are CAD, product design, and project management.
| Senior Design Project | Product Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $92,208 | $89,645 |
| Hourly rate | $44.33 | $43.10 |
| Growth rate | 2% | 2% |
| Number of jobs | 70,865 | 157,888 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 86% | Bachelor's Degree, 74% |
| Average age | 41 | 41 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
A senior design project worker is responsible for developing digital content designs and applications using various software tools, following clients' specifications and requests. Senior designers must be highly-organizational and communicative, especially on providing progress updates to the client and performing multiple design adjustments as needed. A senior designer should create and recommend designs based on the clients' budget goals without compromising the quality of the output. Senior design projects work closely with the design engineering team to maintain flawless layouts and achieve client satisfaction.
A product engineer specializes in designing and developing commercial materials and services. They are primarily responsible for conducting thorough research and analysis of the latest trends and marketing conditions to come up with new ideas and products for the public. Moreover, they are also responsible for producing reports and presentations, coordinating with the development team of their company. Product engineers also reach out to vendors and suppliers for the raw materials, set regulations and standards for the product, and even conduct a rigorous and regular quality check.
Senior design projects and product engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Design Project | Product Engineer | |
| Average salary | $92,208 | $89,645 |
| Salary range | Between $70,000 And $120,000 | Between $68,000 And $118,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | Washington | California |
| Best paying company | HDR | Meta |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Technology |
There are a few differences between a senior design project and a product engineer in terms of educational background:
| Senior Design Project | Product Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 86% | Bachelor's Degree, 74% |
| Most common major | Mechanical Engineering | Mechanical Engineering |
| Most common college | Georgia Institute of Technology | Michigan Technological University |
Here are the differences between senior design projects' and product engineers' demographics:
| Senior Design Project | Product Engineer | |
| Average age | 41 | 41 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 80.3% Female, 19.7% | Male, 87.8% Female, 12.2% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% Asian, 17.0% White, 67.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1% | Black or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% Asian, 17.0% White, 67.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1% |
| LGBT Percentage | 5% | 5% |