How to hire a senior product designer

How to hire a senior product designer, step by step

Here's a step-by-step senior product designer hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a senior product designer job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new senior product designer
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a senior product designer do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the senior product designer you need to hire. Certain senior product designer roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a senior product designer to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a senior product designer that fits the bill.

   This list presents senior product designer salaries for various positions.

   Type of Senior Product Designer	Description	Hourly rate
   Senior Product Designer	Mechanical engineering is one of the broadest engineering disciplines. Mechanical engineers design, develop, build, and test mechanical and thermal sensors and devices, including tools, engines, and machines.	$41-79
   Engineer	Engineers are highly trained professionals who determine the feasibility of various projects, usually related to the construction industry. They are considered experts in mathematics and science, two disciplines that they need to use in designing and coming up with plans for projects... Show more	$31-62
   Project Engineer	A Project Engineer develops the plan that the entire team or company will undertake. The project engineer develops the plans, strategies, and goals of a project and then gives it to the management for approval and allocation... Show more	$26-48

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Sketch
   • User Research
   • User Experience
   • Interaction Design
   • Prototyping
   • UI
   • End Design
   • CSS
   • Design Process
   • HTML
   • Design Solutions
   • Photoshop
   • User Interface
   • Visualization

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage the move of digital product design, development and prototyping from vendor to in-house.
   • Manage company PDM management system.
   • Focuse on clean design and utilize HTML and CSS to deliver online content for mobile devices from the web.
   • Coordinate design activities of analyst utilizing high-level FEA to predict and verify system design margins.
   • Utilize AutoCAD Revit cad software.
   • Create HTML and Javascript prototypes for usability testing.

   More senior product designer duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your senior product designer job description is a great way to entice the best and brightest candidates. A senior product designer salary can vary based on several factors:

   • Location. For example, senior product designers' average salary in arkansas is 37% less than in california.
   • Seniority. Entry-level senior product designers earn 47% less than senior-level senior product designers.
   • Certifications. A senior product designer with a few certifications under their belt will likely demand a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for a prestigious company or an exciting start-up can make a huge difference in a senior product designer's salary.

   Average senior product designer salary

   $120,587yearly

   $57.97 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level senior product designer salary

   $87,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 14, 2025

   Average senior product designer salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$143,850	$69
   2	Washington	$131,329	$63
   3	Oregon	$122,352	$59
   4	District of Columbia	$119,102	$57
   5	Indiana	$118,051	$57
   6	Maine	$117,121	$56
   7	New Jersey	$115,504	$56
   8	New York	$114,375	$55
   9	Arizona	$113,616	$55
   10	Colorado	$112,715	$54
   11	Texas	$112,344	$54
   12	Massachusetts	$112,024	$54
   13	Utah	$105,614	$51
   14	Illinois	$101,218	$49
   15	Pennsylvania	$101,170	$49
   16	Florida	$97,631	$47
   17	Georgia	$97,356	$47
   18	North Carolina	$95,569	$46
   19	Michigan	$95,074	$46
   20	Ohio	$90,382	$43

   Average senior product designer salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	ByteDance	$163,712	$78.71	12
   2	Brex	$162,819	$78.28	3
   3	Zeta	$162,390	$78.07	6
   4	Coinbase	$158,259	$76.09	1,214
   5	Mixpanel	$157,718	$75.83
   6	Flexport	$156,544	$75.26	3
   7	Netflix	$155,654	$74.83	14
   8	Yelp	$155,336	$74.68
   9	DoorDash	$155,322	$74.67	31
   10	Credit Karma	$155,261	$74.64	4
   11	Wealthfront	$154,514	$74.29	3
   12	Getaround	$153,740	$73.91
   13	PitchBook Data	$153,542	$73.82	1
   14	Course Hero	$153,123	$73.62
   15	Instacart	$151,641	$72.90	10
   16	Apple	$151,236	$72.71	101
   17	TikTok	$149,732	$71.99	23
   18	Twitter	$149,685	$71.96	4
   19	Addepar	$149,637	$71.94	2
   20	Squarespace	$149,568	$71.91	2

4. Writing a senior product designer job description

   A senior product designer job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a senior product designer job description:

   Senior product designer job description example

   Every day, Global Payments makes it possible for millions of people to move money between buyers and sellers using our payments solutions for credit, debit, prepaid and merchant services. Our worldwide team helps over 3 million companies, more than 1,300 financial institutions and over 600 million cardholders grow with confidence and achieve amazing results. We are driven by our passion for success and we are proud to deliver best-in-class payment technology and software solutions. Join our dynamic team and make your mark on the payments technology landscape of tomorrow.
   
   Netspend is looking for an experienced Sr. Product Designer for a key role in our UX organization. We are a highly collaborative team that provides financial products to millions of customers. You should have a solid background in Product Design and be comfortable working with Product stakeholders and UX Research to deliver user experiences that help our customers in their daily lives.
   
   You should be motivated and excited to continue learning, helping others on the team grow, and all things digital. This role involves taking ownership of Product requirements and translating those goals into a design that solves customer needs, meets business goals and is refined through customer feedback. Doing this while working within our design system, yet knowing when to evolve our system and improve functionality.
   
   We are a distributed team with some people working out of Austin, TX where our main office is located. This position can be remote or in Austin with occasional in-person collaboration.
   Responsibilities
   Lead and execute various stages of the design process including user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and high fidelity designs.Work with UX Research to validate design concepts through usability testing Collaborate with Product and UX Research on formative research early in the design process Communicate updates to design system to various stakeholders Share lead responsibility in developing and documenting our design system Work with our Development team to evolve our design system and ensure consistency across touch points Help define UX metrics and improve them Mentor and collaborate with other Product Designers
   
   Knowledge
   Some knowledge across UX research activities and methodologies including user research, usability testing and information architecture Detail-oriented, analytical thinker with strong problem solving abilities Strong verbal and written communications, combined with technical knowledge Ability to articulate UX design approach and rationale to teams and clients yet willing to listen to feedback with an eye toward improvement Ability to provide clear and effective feedback to other Product DesignersStrong visual designer Comfortable working in a remote environment and effective strategies for doing so
   
   Required Education and Experience
   8+ years of Product Design experience Deep experience designing mobile experiencesA strong portfolio of digital design work Proficient in Figma
   Global Payments Inc. is an equal opportunity employer.
   Global Payments provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, veteran status, genetic information or any other basis protected by law. Those applicants requiring reasonable accommodation to the application and/or interview process should notify a representative of the Human Resources Department.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are a few common ways to find senior product designers for your business:

   • Promoting internally or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to meet candidates with the right educational background.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit passive job-seekers.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your senior product designer job on Zippia to find and recruit senior product designer candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting senior product designers requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   Remember to include a few questions that allow candidates to expand on their strengths in their own words. Asking about their unique skills might reveal things you'd miss otherwise. At this point, good candidates can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new senior product designer

   Once you've found the senior product designer candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   After that, you can create an onboarding schedule for a new senior product designer. Human Resources and the hiring manager should complete Employee Action Forms. Human Resources should also ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc., and that new employee files are created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire a senior product designer?