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Product designer career path, levels and ladder
Updated
5 levels, from Junior Product Designer to Principal Designer. Each one is rated on the same 37 skills — what changes between the rungs is how good you have to be at each. A ladder from junior product designer to principal, covering research, interaction, visual and content design, and accessibility.
- Level 1 of 5
Junior Product Designer job description
Delivers well-scoped screens and flows with close guidance.
Read the job description - Level 2 of 5
Product Designer job description
Owns end-to-end design for a feature with little oversight.
Read the job description - Level 3 of 5
Senior Product Designer job description
Leads design for a product area and raises design quality.
Read the job description - Level 4 of 5
Lead Product Designer job description
Sets design direction across a team and unblocks its work.
Read the job description - Level 5 of 5
Principal Designer job description
Shapes design strategy and the hardest calls org-wide.
Read the job description
Product designer levels and job titles
Product designer, UX designer and interaction designer titles overlap. This table maps each level on this ladder to the titles you will commonly see elsewhere. For how these titles line up across departments, see the job title hierarchy.
| Level on this ladder | Common job titles |
|---|---|
| Junior Product Designer | Junior Product Designer, Associate Product Designer, Associate Designer, Product Designer I |
| Product Designer | Product Designer, Product Designer II, Designer, User Experience Designer |
| Senior Product Designer | Senior Product Designer, Senior Designer, Senior Interaction Designer |
| Lead Product Designer | Lead Product Designer, Lead Designer, Staff Product Designer, Lead Interaction Designer |
| Principal Designer | Principal Designer, Principal Product Designer, Distinguished Product Designer |
Individual contributor or manager?
These are individual contributor (IC) titles, though Lead can mean leading a team in some companies. Many companies also run a separate manager track, such as Design Manager and Head of Design, that branches off around Senior. Moving between the two tracks is a change of job, not a promotion.
Skills matrix
37 skills and 3 certifications across 5 levels.
| Skill/Certification 40 | Junior Product Designer | Product Designer | Senior Product Designer | Lead Product Designer | Principal Designer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Research5 | |||||
| NoviceYou can help set up a study someone else designed, such as scheduling sessions and preparing the discussion guide. | BasicYou can plan a single-method study for a narrow question, including how you get informed consent, and have a mentor check the plan. | ProficientYou can write a study plan and screener that recruit disabled participants, and defend the method and sample size you chose. | AdvancedYou can plan a multi-method study across several teams, and decline questions that research cannot answer or that put participants at risk. | ExpertYou can set the research approach and ethics standard for a product line, including which questions research should answer and how participant data is handled. | |
| NoviceYou can sit in on an interview and take structured notes, and ask a follow-up question when invited to. | BasicYou can run a scripted interview on your own, keep it on time, and probe an unexpected answer instead of moving straight to the next question. | AdvancedYou can train other researchers to interview well, and design interview guides that a less experienced researcher can run without your presence. | AdvancedYou can train other researchers to interview well, and design interview guides that a less experienced researcher can run without your presence. | ExpertYou can set the interviewing standard for the organization, and coach other researchers through hard participant situations. | |
| BasicYou can moderate a usability session on your own, avoid leading the participant, and note where they hesitated or made an error. | ProficientYou can design tasks and success criteria for moderated or unmoderated tests that include disabled participants, and separate a usability problem from one person's preference. | AdvancedYou can decide when usability testing is the right method against the risk being tested, and turn results into specific design changes the team actually makes. | AdvancedYou can decide when usability testing is the right method against the risk being tested, and turn results into specific design changes the team actually makes. | AdvancedYou can decide when usability testing is the right method against the risk being tested, and turn results into specific design changes the team actually makes. | |
| NoviceYou can tag and group the notes from a research session and pull out the points that keep recurring. A senior researcher checks your grouping before anything is shared with the team. | BasicYou can turn a set of session notes into themes and a short write-up the team can read. You separate what a participant actually did from what you inferred about why. | ProficientYou can run the synthesis for a whole study on your own and produce personas or insights the team acts on. You show the evidence behind every theme so anyone can trace it back to a session. | AdvancedYou can synthesize messy findings from several studies and sources into insights that settle a contested design question. You say plainly when the data does not support the conclusion people want. | ExpertYou can set how research insights are stored, shared and reused across the organization, so studies build on each other instead of repeating. You decide which insights are strong enough to move the roadmap. | |
| NoviceYou can collect how a handful of named products handle one screen or flow and lay the differences out clearly. Someone more senior tells you which products to look at and what to look for. | BasicYou can run a comparison across a given set of products for a given problem and write up the patterns you find. You describe how each one behaves rather than which one you like. | ProficientYou can choose which competing and adjacent products are worth studying for a design question and turn the comparison into a recommendation. You say which patterns to borrow, which to avoid, and why. | ProficientYou can choose which competing and adjacent products are worth studying for a design question and turn the comparison into a recommendation. You say which patterns to borrow, which to avoid, and why. | AdvancedYou can compare against adjacent industries when no direct competitor solves the problem, and still reach a usable answer. You stop the team copying a rival pattern that does not fit our users. | |
| Structure & Flow5 | |||||
| NoviceYou can sort a small set of content or features into groups that make sense, with someone checking your grouping. | BasicYou can build a sitemap or navigation structure for a defined section, and run a simple card sort to check your grouping. | AdvancedYou can design the information architecture across a product spanning several teams, and you catch structural decisions made elsewhere that will not scale. | AdvancedYou can design the information architecture across a product spanning several teams, and you catch structural decisions made elsewhere that will not scale. | ExpertYou can set the architectural principles the organization's products are built on, and arbitrate when two teams' structures conflict. | |
| BasicYou can design a short flow end to end, covering its main states and the paths a user takes through it, with review. | ProficientYou can design a complex flow with branching logic and edge cases on your own, and you catch the edge cases a specification missed. | AdvancedYou can design interaction patterns that other designers reuse, and resolve a conflict between two flows that each look reasonable alone. | AdvancedYou can design interaction patterns that other designers reuse, and resolve a conflict between two flows that each look reasonable alone. | ExpertYou can set the interaction principles a whole product is built on, and decide a flow that teams cannot agree on. | |
| NoviceYou can write out the steps of a simple task and mark where the user moves from one channel to another. A mentor checks your map against real evidence before it is used. | BasicYou can build a journey map for one flow from research notes, showing the touchpoints and the moments where users get stuck. You update the map when new sessions contradict it. | ProficientYou can map an end-to-end journey across channels on your own, including the user's emotions and where they drop out, and run the session that validates it with the people who own each touchpoint. | AdvancedYou can map journeys that cross teams and systems nobody owns end to end, and use the map to get those teams to agree what gets fixed first. You leave out the detail that will not change a decision. | AdvancedYou can map journeys that cross teams and systems nobody owns end to end, and use the map to get those teams to agree what gets fixed first. You leave out the detail that will not change a decision. | |
| BasicYou can wireframe a screen or short flow from a rough brief, choosing a sensible layout and content hierarchy yourself. | ProficientYou can wireframe a complex screen with many states and conditions, and use wireframes to explore several layout options quickly before committing. | AdvancedYou can set the wireframing conventions your team uses, and skip wireframing when it would not save real time. | AdvancedYou can set the wireframing conventions your team uses, and skip wireframing when it would not save real time. | AdvancedYou can set the wireframing conventions your team uses, and skip wireframing when it would not save real time. | |
| NoviceYou can wire up a simple click-through prototype linking screens together, following an existing pattern. | ProficientYou can build a prototype with conditional logic and data that behaves convincingly enough to fool a first-time tester. | AdvancedYou can decide what fidelity of prototype a decision actually needs, and build one that persuades a sceptical stakeholder or engineer. | AdvancedYou can decide what fidelity of prototype a decision actually needs, and build one that persuades a sceptical stakeholder or engineer. | AdvancedYou can decide what fidelity of prototype a decision actually needs, and build one that persuades a sceptical stakeholder or engineer. | |
| Visual & UI Design4 | |||||
| BasicYou can compose a screen's visual hierarchy from a brief, choosing type, color and spacing that make the priority clear. | ProficientYou can design visually for a whole feature with consistent hierarchy and tone, and give visual feedback that improves someone else's work. | AdvancedYou can define the visual language for a product, and resolve a conflict between brand expression and clarity in someone else's favor or your own. | AdvancedYou can define the visual language for a product, and resolve a conflict between brand expression and clarity in someone else's favor or your own. | ExpertYou can set the visual design standard for the organization, and make the final call when opinions genuinely differ. | |
| BasicYou can design a screen's states, including empty, loading, error and edge cases, at a fidelity ready for build. | ProficientYou can design new UI patterns when the system has no component that fits, and specify their states precisely enough that engineering does not have to guess. | AdvancedYou can design UI across a whole product with consistent density, spacing and behavior, and set the fidelity bar your team designs to. | AdvancedYou can design UI across a whole product with consistent density, spacing and behavior, and set the fidelity bar your team designs to. | ExpertYou can set UI design standards for the organization, and resolve a UI dispute that has already gone through two rounds of debate. | |
| NoviceYou can use existing components from the design system correctly, and flag when one does not fit a screen you are designing. | BasicYou can propose and design a new component to a defined pattern, documenting its states and variants for the system. | ProficientYou can audit the system for inconsistency and drift, and lead a component's design from proposal through documentation to adoption. | AdvancedYou can set the governance for what enters the system and what gets deprecated, and resolve a conflict between two teams who want the same component to behave differently. | ExpertYou can set design system strategy across the organization, including its relationship to code, tokens and multiple brands or products. | |
| BasicYou can design a screen that holds at your project's breakpoints and at 200% text size, and check touch targets on a real device. | ProficientYou can design one layout that works across screen sizes and input methods, including at 400% zoom. | ProficientYou can design one layout that works across screen sizes and input methods, including at 400% zoom. | AdvancedYou can solve layouts with hard constraints, such as dense tables, split views or content whose length varies wildly, and keep them usable on every device. You set the grid and breakpoint conventions your team works to. | AdvancedYou can solve layouts with hard constraints, such as dense tables, split views or content whose length varies wildly, and keep them usable on every device. You set the grid and breakpoint conventions your team works to. | |
| Accessibility3 | |||||
| NoviceYou can check a design's contrast and text size with a tool and fix what it flags. | BasicYou can design a screen to WCAG 2.2 AA from the start without being told to. | ProficientYou can design flows for needs a checklist misses, such as motion sensitivity and cognitive load. | AdvancedYou can set a product's accessibility bar and publish its accessibility statement, including known issues. | ExpertYou can set accessibility standards and procurement expectations across the organization, and judge which accessibility findings are genuine barriers rather than tool noise. | |
| NoviceYou can apply the inclusion rules you have been given and flag a design that shuts people out. | BasicYou can design for needs beyond the default user, such as low vision, a slow connection or a second language, when those needs are known. You raise them before sign-off rather than after build. | ProficientYou can build inclusion into a design from the first sketch, with lightweight pages and imagery, and name who it still excludes and what would include them. | AdvancedYou can resolve conflicts between inclusion, environmental impact and a commercial or technical constraint, and teach designers to spot exclusion in their own work. | AdvancedYou can resolve conflicts between inclusion, environmental impact and a commercial or technical constraint, and teach designers to spot exclusion in their own work. | |
| NoviceYou can move through a prototype using only the keyboard and report where focus disappears or a control cannot be reached. Someone more experienced helps you judge what your findings mean. | BasicYou can test a flow with a screen reader, the keyboard and a screen magnifier, and write each failure so a developer can reproduce it unaided. | ProficientYou can run an assistive technology check across a whole feature, and retest each fix instead of trusting the ticket. | ProficientYou can run an assistive technology check across a whole feature, and retest each fix instead of trusting the ticket. | AdvancedYou can evaluate custom widgets and multi-step flows across platforms, and trace a surprising result back to its cause. | |
| Content & Handover5 | |||||
| NoviceYou can write a label or a short message following an existing style guide and glossary. | BasicYou can write the copy for a screen or short flow, including error and empty states, in the established voice and with terms used elsewhere in the product. | ProficientYou can write a complex flow with many states, and edit copy on neighboring screens so voice and terms stay consistent. | AdvancedYou can set your team's tone and terminology guidelines, and settle conflicts where two teams use different terms for the same thing. | AdvancedYou can set your team's tone and terminology guidelines, and settle conflicts where two teams use different terms for the same thing. | |
| NoviceYou can take part in a critique and give feedback on a specific part of a design rather than a general reaction. You ask what problem the designer was solving before offering an opinion. | NoviceYou can take part in a critique and give feedback on a specific part of a design rather than a general reaction. You ask what problem the designer was solving before offering an opinion. | BasicYou can run a critique on a small piece of work, hold the group to the question the designer asked, and record what was decided so the session leaves a trace. | AdvancedYou can run a critique on contentious work with senior stakeholders present and keep the feedback about the design rather than the person. You coach other designers to take critique without defending. | ExpertYou can set how critique works across the design organization, including how often it runs, who attends and what must go through it. You change critique habits in teams you do not manage by showing better sessions. | |
| NoviceYou can explain the thinking behind your own design in a review and point to the research or constraint that led to it. A mentor helps you prepare what to say beforehand. | BasicYou can present a design to your team, walk through the options you considered and say why you dropped them. You answer straightforward challenges without abandoning the decision on the spot. | ProficientYou can tell the story of a design end to end to a mixed audience, joining the user problem, the evidence and the trade-offs. You defend a decision under pressure, and change it when the challenge is a fair one. | AdvancedYou can make the case for a design that is expensive or unpopular to senior stakeholders and get a decision. You frame the same choice differently for engineers, sales and executives without changing what it is. | ExpertYou can set the expectation that design decisions rest on evidence and trade-offs, not seniority or taste, and speak for design where investment is decided. | |
| BasicYou can hand over a feature with its states, spacing, assets and its empty and error cases documented. You stay reachable while it is built instead of moving straight to the next piece of work. | ProficientYou can spec a whole feature with all its variants, and agree with engineering what lives in code. | AdvancedYou can hand over designs that span several teams or an unfamiliar platform, and work out with engineers what genuinely needs specifying instead of documenting everything. You catch the edge case that would otherwise surface in production. | AdvancedYou can hand over designs that span several teams or an unfamiliar platform, and work out with engineers what genuinely needs specifying instead of documenting everything. You catch the edge case that would otherwise surface in production. | AdvancedYou can hand over designs that span several teams or an unfamiliar platform, and work out with engineers what genuinely needs specifying instead of documenting everything. You catch the edge case that would otherwise surface in production. | |
| BasicYou can review an in-progress build against the design across its main states, raise clear tickets with screenshots and steps, and check the fixes rather than assuming they landed. | ProficientYou can run design QA for a feature before release and decide which drift blocks it. | ProficientYou can run design QA for a feature before release and decide which drift blocks it. | AdvancedYou can QA a complex release where the build departs from the design for sound technical reasons, and negotiate what actually gets changed. You review during the build so drift is caught before it is expensive. | AdvancedYou can QA a complex release where the build departs from the design for sound technical reasons, and negotiate what actually gets changed. You review during the build so drift is caught before it is expensive. | |
| Design Leadership1 | |||||
| NoviceYou can explain how your current design work supports your team's goals, with a mentor helping you link it to the organization's strategy. | BasicYou can align a feature's design to your team's goals and name one risk or opportunity that design can address. | ProficientYou can write a design strategy for a product area that links its work to company goals. | AdvancedYou can create design patterns and components that several teams adopt. | ExpertYou can get design into early strategy and delivery decisions by working with senior leaders. | |
| Certifications3 | |||||
| Not required | Not required | Not required | Required | Required | |
| Not required | Not required | Not required | Required | Required | |
| Not required | Not required | Required | Required | Required | |
| Delivery4 | |||||
| NoviceYou can keep your own tasks and deadlines in a current to-do list, and tell your manager as soon as work you own will be late. | BasicYou can organize a small piece of work into steps, put them in a sensible order, and finish it by the date you agreed, raising problems before they cause a delay. | ProficientYou can coordinate a small team's work on a shared goal: who does what by when, what has to wait for what, and a revised plan when things change. | AdvancedYou can keep several people's work in step across teams, agree priorities and hand-offs with them, and keep one shared task list that all of them actually use. | ExpertYou can set the everyday habits for how work is organized and followed up across the organization, and teams you do not lead adopt the routines you introduce. | |
| NoviceYou can estimate how long a task will take once the approach is clear, and you say promptly when the estimate turns out to be wrong. | BasicYou can estimate your own work with reasonable accuracy and keep a steady enough pace that other people can plan around you. | ProficientYou can estimate a whole project including its risks and unknowns, split it into stages, and defend the estimate when it is challenged. | AdvancedYou can estimate work that spans several teams, name the assumptions behind each figure, and rework the plan when those assumptions break. | ExpertYou can forecast work and staffing quarters ahead, and set the estimating method other teams use. | |
| BasicYou can stay responsible after you hand work over: you check it did what it was meant to, fix your own mistakes, and give updates before anyone asks. | ProficientYou can pick up a problem that has no obvious owner and make yourself accountable for it, including the parts nobody enjoys. | AdvancedYou can hold accountability for outcomes delivered mostly by other people, taking the blame when it fails and passing on the credit when it works. | AdvancedYou can hold accountability for outcomes delivered mostly by other people, taking the blame when it fails and passing on the credit when it works. | ExpertYou can report the organization's most exposed outcomes to its leaders as they stand, including bad news, and answer for them. | |
| BasicYou can choose checks that suit the task in front of you, catch your own mistakes before anyone else sees them, and confirm the result works once people start using it. | ProficientYou can define what good enough means for a project, put checks in place to show it has been met, and hold work back when it falls short. | AdvancedYou can set how quality is checked on complex work shared by several teams, and you spot the problems that only appear where their pieces meet. | AdvancedYou can set how quality is checked on complex work shared by several teams, and you spot the problems that only appear where their pieces meet. | ExpertYou can raise the quality bar across the organization by building the tools and habits that make the careful way the easy way. | |
| Craft3 | |||||
| BasicYou can work out what is wrong in work you did not create, and you fix the underlying cause instead of working around the symptom. | ProficientYou can break a large, ambiguous problem into pieces and weigh the options for each against the evidence. | AdvancedYou can make the call on a problem outside your expertise and explain its cost, time and risk. | AdvancedYou can make the call on a problem outside your expertise and explain its cost, time and risk. | ExpertYou can crack problems the organization has repeatedly failed to solve, and your approach becomes how others tackle that whole kind of problem. | |
| NoviceYou can apply the basics of your field to the work you are given, and ask an expert when a task goes beyond what you have learned. | BasicYou can work confidently with the tools and methods your team uses daily, and you can explain how your work serves the team's goals. | ProficientYou can advise the team on your area and apply new developments in the field where they pay off. | AdvancedYou can bring in good practice from outside the organization and make it work here, and your judgment clearly improves the work you touch. | ExpertYou can influence how the field is practiced beyond this organization, and your expertise settles questions that have stood open for years. | |
| ProficientYou can pick up an unfamiliar area fast enough to be useful in it, and you turn what you learned into something others can reuse. | ProficientYou can pick up an unfamiliar area fast enough to be useful in it, and you turn what you learned into something others can reuse. | AdvancedYou can judge which new ideas are worth the team's time and which are not, and you make room for the people around you to learn too. | AdvancedYou can judge which new ideas are worth the team's time and which are not, and you make room for the people around you to learn too. | ExpertYou can set what the organization invests its learning time in, and the material and practice you create outlive your involvement. | |
| Communication4 | |||||
| BasicYou can explain your work so your team can act on it, and play a request back in your own words before you act on it. | ProficientYou can explain a complex topic to people with very different backgrounds, adjusting the detail to the audience without talking down to them. | AdvancedYou can bring disagreeing groups to agreement on the facts and the next steps, and help colleagues frame a difficult or sensitive message. | AdvancedYou can bring disagreeing groups to agreement on the facts and the next steps, and help colleagues frame a difficult or sensitive message. | ExpertYou can set how the organization communicates by creating the forums and norms that teams use to share information. | |
| BasicYou can work well with people in other roles, share context and credit, and take criticism of your work without defending territory. | ProficientYou can build working relationships beyond your own team and get things done through people who do not report to you. | AdvancedYou can align teams with competing priorities on a common goal, surfacing the conflict early instead of letting it harden into resentment. | AdvancedYou can align teams with competing priorities on a common goal, surfacing the conflict early instead of letting it harden into resentment. | ExpertYou can remove the barriers that stop teams working together by putting in place routines and forums they use across the organization. | |
| BasicYou can document your own work well enough for a colleague to follow it unaided, such as a how-to guide or a handover, and keep it current as things change. | ProficientYou can write for a defined audience, whether a proposal, a policy, a report, or a decision record, and make the reasoning as clear as the conclusion. | AdvancedYou can own the documents behind a large piece of work, coordinating contributions so that people who were not involved can carry it on. | AdvancedYou can own the documents behind a large piece of work, coordinating contributions so that people who were not involved can carry it on. | ExpertYou can set the writing standard the organization works to, and documents you wrote are still in use long after you have moved on. | |
| NoviceYou can keep your manager and immediate team informed of your progress, and you raise an issue before someone else discovers it. | BasicYou can identify who is affected by your work and keep them updated at a level of detail and a frequency that suits them. | ProficientYou can win support for a proposal, reset expectations when the plan changes, and turn down a request with a reason the other side accepts. | AdvancedYou can hold senior and external relationships, negotiate between competing demands, and deliver unwelcome news without losing trust. | ExpertYou can represent the organization in its most important relationships and set how it engages with everyone who depends on it. | |
| Leadership3 | |||||
| NoviceYou can act on direction well, seek feedback on how you work, and be open about what you need help with. | BasicYou can spot a problem and propose a way forward unprompted, and you take a small leading role such as running a working group. | ProficientYou can lead one piece of work shared by several people, on your own team and beyond, and make calls that they act on. | AdvancedYou can lead across team boundaries, build the credibility that makes people follow you by choice, and create room for others to lead. | ExpertYou can set direction for the whole organization, make hard calls under real uncertainty, and carry the decisions nobody else wants to own. | |
| NoviceYou can share what you have just learned with your peers and help a newer colleague find their way around. | BasicYou can help someone new settle into your team's work, answer their questions patiently, and give feedback specific enough to act on. | ProficientYou can mentor someone over months, tell them the uncomfortable thing they need to hear, and adapt how you teach to how they learn. | AdvancedYou can develop other mentors, coach people through career decisions rather than tasks, and lift the capability of a whole team. | ExpertYou can shape how the organization grows its people, and those you developed are themselves named by others as strong in their field. | |
| NoviceYou can explain why the work you were given matters and who it is for. | BasicYou can connect your team's work to its goals and question a task that does not appear to serve them. | ProficientYou can look a year ahead in your area, name what will matter by then, and turn that into work people can pick up now. | AdvancedYou can set direction for an area, choose deliberately what not to do, and defend that choice when it is challenged. | ExpertYou can shape the organization's strategy, and the bets you argued for are visible in where it ended up. | |
Use this ladder with your own team
For managers and HR teams: create a free account, then add product design from Departments → Add from template in one click: all 37 skills, with the mastery expected at each of your 5 career levels.