Product Designer Salary Guide (2024 Edition)

The field of product design is highly rewarding. In the US, top earners can command a staggering $200,000 annually, making it a potentially lucrative career choice.

While this massive salary may have you drooling, let’s discuss what product design is and what product designers do before getting into salary insights for this role.

What is Product Design

Product design is a dynamic field that offers significant potential for growth. Designers leverage their skills to align product and business strategies, creating successful and sustainable solutions that meet long-term business needs.

What do Product Designers do

Product designers play a massive role in creating user-centric products. These products require functionality and visual appeal, which may seem very similar to the duties of a UX/UI Designer. Still, Product Design is another layer added to the role of a UX/UI Designer.

A product designer blends UX principles with visual design to shape an entire product. Product designers decide how it will look when a user views it for the first time or how they feel when they use it, but they also carefully calculate how all of those interactions map out. Using different research methods and feedback from their target users, product designers create a genuinely user-centered product.

A product designer takes the product from birth to life, ensuring it never dies. They work intimately with developers, marketers, and stakeholders and go beyond just their users to ensure it meets the business's and brand's expectations. The responsibilities of a product designer cast a wider net than those of a UX or UI designer, who would only focus on the user experience or user interface. It is a role that considers the entire product lifecycle. Product designers sometimes receive higher salaries than other design roles due to the vast array of responsibilities.

Product Designer Salary Average in the US

According to Payscale and Glassdoor , the average base salary for a product designer in the US in 2024 is $92,713 annually.

The base pay range is $73,000 - $122,000, and the total pay range is $99,000 - $171,000 if the employer offers bonuses, commission, or profit sharing.

The salary for product designers is heavily determined by experience and industry. For example, large companies like Meta, Stripe, Microsoft, Google, and Apple offer annual salaries of up to $323,000. Here is an additional resource to see the average pay at some of these large FAANG companies. Reality check: to reach pay levels like that, one must have at least ten or more years of experience and be an expert in the industry. It is rare for a product designer to see this pay level in their lifetime, but it is possible.

Product Designer Salary by Experience Level in the US

Product designer pay relies upon their experience level. These are the experience levels of a product designer and their average total pay in the US, according to GlassDoor :

• Junior product designer (1–3 years of expertise): $96,103
• Mid-level product designer (4–6 years of expertise): $108,290
• Senior product designer (7–9 years of expertise): $115,342
• Lead product designer (10–14 years of expertise): $134,581
• Principal product designer (15+ years of expertise): $149,290

Product Designer Salary Average in Other Countries

If you are curious about what other countries pay product designers on average, here is an excellent display from Untitled UI of some major tech hubs and their average salary ranges.

I would like to include another location that isn’t on this map because I’ve spoken and worked with many people in India. According to Glassdoor , the average salary of a product designer in India is ?11,00,000 per year.

Product Designer Career Outlook in 2024 and 2025

Many factors influence the career of a product designer, including the economy, global factors, the rise of AI, the influx of boot camp students, and more. If you truly want to be a product designer in 2024 and 2025, it isn’t impossible, but you do need to work hard to achieve your goal.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics , Web Developers and Digital Designers have an 8% job outlook (Faster than average) for 2023-2033. 8% growth may not seem like much, but that’s great for tech now, considering all the layoffs since 2020. That 8% means an employment change of 18,600 jobs in the entire US.

If you want to become a designer, I created a handbook for new designers. It covers the lessons I learned from landing my dream career. You don’t need a college degree, related experience, or wealth to be a designer.

About Me

I'm a product designer and career coach building a community for ambitious creatives who aim to develop fulfilling careers without traditional pathways. Join me in exploring personal growth, career insights, solopreneurial freedom, and life lessons—infused with humor, coffee, and dogs. ??

Sources

Interaction Design Foundation. (2024, September 10). What is product design? - updated 2024. The Interaction Design Foundation. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/product-design ?

Naseva, G. (2024, October 14). How much do product designers make? (2024 salary guide): Untitled ui. Figma icon. https://www.untitledui.com/blog/product-designer-salaries#the-impact-of-remote-work ?

Product designer salary in 2024 | payscale. Payscale. (n.d.). https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Product_Designer/Salary ?

Salary: Product designer in United States 2024 | glassdoor. GlassDoor. (n.d.). https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/us-product-designer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,2_IN1_KO3,19.htm ?

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024, August 29). Web developers and Digital Designers. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm