Also called: Design Director (product), Principal Industrial Designer
Leads product design teams at companies making phones, appliances, furniture, medical devices, or sporting goods.
They review prototypes, set the design direction for a product line, and argue for good design in meetings with engineering and marketing. They mentor designers and decide which concepts move forward. Travel to factories is common.
Estimate based on upper percentiles of commercial and industrial designers and industry surveys (IDSA).
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 12 years after high school. Bachelor's in industrial design plus 8-10+ years of experience.
Ways in: 4-year college, On-the-job training, Graduate school. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Industrial Design, Product Design, Mechanical Engineering.
Growing about average (about 3% over 10 years). Follows industrial designer projections.
Low risk in 5 years, medium in 10. AI speeds concept work so teams may shrink; leading designers, user empathy and balancing cost and taste stay human.
Classes: Engineering or CAD CTE, Business or FBLA, AP Studio Art.
Official data: O*NET occupation 27-1021.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.