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The differences between senior design projects and senior mechanical designers 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 senior mechanical designer. Additionally, a senior mechanical designer has an average salary of $103,765, which is higher than the $92,208 average annual salary of a senior design project.
The top three skills for a senior design project include solidworks, medical devices and prototype. The most important skills for a senior mechanical designer are CAD, mechanical design, and GD.
| Senior Design Project | Senior Mechanical Designer | |
| Yearly salary | $92,208 | $103,765 |
| Hourly rate | $44.33 | $49.89 |
| Growth rate | 2% | 2% |
| Number of jobs | 70,865 | 71,958 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 86% | Bachelor's Degree, 48% |
| 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 Senior Mechanical Designer is responsible for creating effective mechanical designs for their company and developing mechanical concepts in accordance with project requirements. They assist the engineering manager in coaching other mechanical engineers to develop design skills.
Senior design projects and senior mechanical designers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Design Project | Senior Mechanical Designer | |
| Average salary | $92,208 | $103,765 |
| Salary range | Between $70,000 And $120,000 | Between $81,000 And $131,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | Washington | California |
| Best paying company | HDR | |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Automotive |
There are a few differences between a senior design project and a senior mechanical designer in terms of educational background:
| Senior Design Project | Senior Mechanical Designer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 86% | Bachelor's Degree, 48% |
| Most common major | Mechanical Engineering | Mechanical Engineering |
| Most common college | Georgia Institute of Technology | Carnegie Mellon University |
Here are the differences between senior design projects' and senior mechanical designers' demographics:
| Senior Design Project | Senior Mechanical Designer | |
| Average age | 41 | 41 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 80.3% Female, 19.7% | Male, 94.1% Female, 5.9% |
| 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, 3.4% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 9.3% Asian, 11.4% White, 71.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1% |
| LGBT Percentage | 5% | 5% |