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Senior product designer vs product design engineer

The differences between senior product designers and product design 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 product designer and a product design engineer. Additionally, a senior product designer has an average salary of $120,587, which is higher than the $94,827 average annual salary of a product design engineer.

The top three skills for a senior product designer include sketch, user research and user experience. The most important skills for a product design engineer are CAD, mechanical design, and GD.

Senior product designer vs product design engineer overview

Senior Product DesignerProduct Design Engineer
Yearly salary$120,587$94,827
Hourly rate$57.97$45.59
Growth rate2%2%
Number of jobs121,037170,485
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 60%Bachelor's Degree, 74%
Average age4141
Years of experience66

What does a senior product designer do?

A senior product designer is responsible for coordinating with clients to identify their requirements and specifications for the development of new products and services that also comply with the company's regulations and functions. Senior product designers work with a whole project management team to identify opportunities that would generate more revenue resources by analyzing public demands on industry trends. They handle the allocation of materials and must be able to utilize digital tools and equipment to create content for brand awareness on different media platforms. A senior product designer reviews consumers' reviews to facilitate any adjustments with the product's features.

What does a product design engineer do?

A Product Design Engineer designs new products that customers will want to purchase. They are responsible for designing, modeling, and testing prototypes for products.

Senior product designer vs product design engineer salary

Senior product designers and product design engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Product DesignerProduct Design Engineer
Average salary$120,587$94,827
Salary rangeBetween $87,000 And $165,000Between $69,000 And $129,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Mateo, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyByteDanceMeta
Best paying industryStart-upTechnology

Differences between senior product designer and product design engineer education

There are a few differences between a senior product designer and a product design engineer in terms of educational background:

Senior Product DesignerProduct Design Engineer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 60%Bachelor's Degree, 74%
Most common majorGraphic DesignMechanical Engineering
Most common collegeCarnegie Mellon UniversityMichigan Technological University

Senior product designer vs product design engineer demographics

Here are the differences between senior product designers' and product design engineers' demographics:

Senior Product DesignerProduct Design Engineer
Average age4141
Gender ratioMale, 81.4% Female, 18.6%Male, 90.9% Female, 9.1%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 3.4% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 9.5% Asian, 10.3% White, 72.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%Black or African American, 3.2% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 8.2% Asian, 16.2% White, 67.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%
LGBT Percentage5%5%

Differences between senior product designer and product design engineer duties and responsibilities

Senior product designer example 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.
  • Show more

Product design engineer example responsibilities.

  • Lead team members and shop floor personnel to correct all floor and inventory issues to insure BoM accuracy.
  • Manage automation projects including purchasing, scheduling fabrication and assembly, debugging, and delivery to customer.
  • Perform environmental testing, cost reductions, FMEA's, failure analysis, and successfully launch electronic control modules.
  • Provide design concepts, design analysis and prototyping solutions for parts and product assemblies to satisfy customer project requirements.
  • Create 3D and 2D models, designs, assemblies, drawing, BOM's and customer conceptual design packages.
  • Interpret UL documents for compatibility of products/specs.
  • Show more

Senior product designer vs product design engineer skills

Common senior product designer skills
  • Sketch, 32%
  • User Research, 9%
  • User Experience, 7%
  • Interaction Design, 6%
  • Prototyping, 6%
  • UI, 6%
Common product design engineer skills
  • CAD, 15%
  • Mechanical Design, 5%
  • GD, 5%
  • Prototyping, 4%
  • Industrial Design, 4%
  • Creo, 4%

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