How To Become A Senior Product Designer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior product designer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted Expert

Abby Guido

The role of a senior product designer can make or break the success of a particular product, which is why this role requires a high level of skill and experience before one can qualify. Moreover, a senior product designer also serves as a leader for the product design team, which means they must be able to make the best decisions based on their client's and their team's needs.

The typical work duties of a senior product designer typically revolve around meeting with clients to identify their needs, communicating the project specifications to the product design team, and conceptualizing and refining product designs. Moreover, they are also responsible for addressing client concerns, as well as making necessary changes to the product as they see fit.

The typical requirement for this role is a bachelor's degree in a field of design that is relevant to your intended industry. And since this is a senior position, substantial experience as a product designer is a must.

When it comes to salary, you can expect to earn an average of $111,000 per year as a senior product designer.

What general advice would you give to a Senior Product Designer?

Abby Guido

Assistant Professor, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University

We've all heard the buzz about networking, and there is so much buzz because it works. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is both up to date and active. Connect with all of your past professors, classmates, and anyone and everyone you meet in a professional setting. I often tell students to get into the habit of searching for any classroom guests, or guest lecturers, to connect, thank them for their time, and build their network. Share content. Write articles, or reshare those you find interesting.

Every job I have ever received in my career has been through someone else I know. I share this with students to help them see the value in relationships. I always remember the students that took the time to write a handwritten thank-you note. And I think of them when I get an email asking if I know any students are looking for work.

ScoreSenior Product DesignerUS Average

Salary

8.1

Avg. Salary $120,587

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

7.4

Growth Rate 2%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.11%

Asian 10.27%

Black or African American 3.44%

Hispanic or Latino 9.49%

Unknown 4.61%

White 72.09%

Gender

female 18.55%

male 81.45%

Age - 39

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 - 39

Stress Level

7.4

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.6

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

5.1

Work Life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior product designer

Explore senior product designer education requirements

Most common senior product designer degrees

Bachelor's

60.0 %

Associate

28.2 %

Master's

7.2 %

Start to develop specific senior product designer skills

Skills	Percentages
Sketch	32.27%
User Research	8.72%
User Experience	6.81%
Interaction Design	6.29%
Prototyping	6.24%

Complete relevant senior product designer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-2 years on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior product designers 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 senior product designer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior product designer resumes.

Research senior product designer duties and 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.

Get senior product designer experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a senior product designer. The most common roles before becoming a senior product designer include product designer, senior designer team lead and designer.

Prepare your senior product designer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior product designer 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 senior product designer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Senior Product Designer Resume templates

Build a professional Senior Product Designer 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 Senior Product Designer resume.

Apply for senior product designer jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a senior product designer 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 senior product designers rate their job?

-/5

5 Stars

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1 Star

Senior Product Designer reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on May 2020

Pros

What I like most about a designer is doing work with Fonts designing projects designing

Cons

Let there be thousands of graphic designers