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How many levels do product design ladders have?

Data collected on

We read 10 product design ladders that companies and public employers publish for their own staff and counted their levels. The median is 5 levels for product designers who do not manage people, and 5 is the most common count. Every source is linked below, and the data is free to download.

Key findings

  • Ladders run from 3 to 6 levels. The median is 5, and 4 of the 10 ladders use exactly 5.
  • 7 of the 9 ladders that use job titles have a Senior level. Its median position is step 3 from the bottom.
  • 5 ladders publish a separate track for managers. Only 1 says where it starts; the table shows which.

How many levels product design ladders have

Each bar is the number of ladders with that many levels for product designers who do not manage people.

  • 3 levels2 ladders
  • 4 levels2 ladders
  • 5 levels4 ladders
  • 6 levels2 ladders

Which titles the ladders use

The bars cover the 9 ladders whose levels are job titles. The other one uses grades or scope names instead of job titles, such as “Level 2” or “Level 5”. One ladder can use several of these words.

  • Associate3 of 9
  • Senior7 of 9
  • Lead2 of 9
  • Staff4 of 9
  • Principal5 of 9

Senior counts a level titled Senior or Sr., not Senior Staff or Senior Principal.

Download the data

One row per ladder: its name, who publishes it, the source link, the number of levels, the level names, the manager track and the step it starts at.

Download the CSV

All 10 ladders

Levels for product designers who do not manage people, lowest first, as each publisher names them.
LadderLevelsLevel namesManager track
37signals4
  1. Designer
  2. Senior Designer
  3. Lead Designer
  4. Principal Designer
Not stated
BuzzFeed5
  1. Associate Product Designer
  2. Product Designer
  3. Senior Product Designer
  4. Staff Product Designer
  5. Principal Product Designer
Separate; start not stated
GitLab5
  1. Product Designer
  2. Senior Product Designer
  3. Staff Product Designer
  4. Principal Product Designer
  5. Distinguished Product Designer
Separate; start not stated
Intercom6
  1. Associate [P2]
  2. Mid-Level [P3]
  3. Senior
  4. Staff
  5. Principal
  6. Senior Principal
Separate; start not stated
Made Tech3
  1. Associate Designer
  2. Designer
  3. Senior Designer
Separate, above the top level (step 4)
Monzo6
  1. Level 1
  2. Level 2
  3. Level 3
  4. Level 4
  5. Level 5
  6. Level 6
Not stated
Skylight5
  1. Product designer I
  2. Product designer II
  3. Senior product designer
  4. Staff product designer
  5. Principal product designer
Separate; start not stated
UC San FranciscoPublic employer(read from the Internet Archive copy)4
  1. User Experience Designer 2
  2. User Experience Designer 3
  3. User Experience Designer 4
  4. User Experience Designer 5
Not stated
UK Government Digital and Data ProfessionPublic employer5
  1. Junior interaction designer
  2. Interaction designer
  3. Senior interaction designer
  4. Lead interaction designer
  5. Head of interaction design
Not stated
University of Wisconsin–MadisonPublic employer3
  1. User Experience Architect I
  2. User Experience Architect II
  3. User Experience Architect III
Not stated

How we did it

We read 10 product design ladders that their publishers use for their own staff: 7 from companies and 3 from public employers, on their own sites or in documents they publish. We kept only those whose levels we could read as text. We left out templates written by individuals, professional bodies’ standards and ladders only for user research, content design, service design or visual design.

Levels are the steps a product designer can climb without managing people, lowest first. Interns and trainees are left out. When a ladder splits one title into numbered steps, each with its own expectations (like “Product designer I” and “II”), each step counts. Pay bands inside one level do not. A level above both tracks that the ladder does not open to individual contributors is not counted.

The manager track starts where the ladder puts its first people-manager role: the same band or level number, the same row of its table, or the step where it says the tracks split. When that role sits above the top level, it counts as the next step up. When a ladder has a manager track but does not place it, we do not guess.

Title shares only count ladders whose levels are job titles. A level counts as Senior when its title says Senior or Sr., but not Senior Staff or Senior Principal (Senior Principal counts as Principal). Each word is matched whole, so Lead does not match Leadership.

This is a sample of the ladders people chose to publish, mostly from tech companies and digital consultancies, plus a few public employers, and some are several years old. It shows what public ladders look like, not what every employer does. Where a live page was gone or blocked automated reading, we read the Internet Archive copy, and the table says so.

We store only public facts: how many levels a ladder has, what the levels are called and where the manager track starts. Each ladder belongs to its publisher, so follow the links for the full text. None of them has reviewed or endorsed this study, and Competrace is not affiliated with them.

Spotted a mistake, or a public ladder we missed? Email support@competrace.com with the link, and we will update the data.

See levels with their skills

The study counts levels. To see what each level needs, browse our product design career path with the skills each level expects, or read what a career ladder is.

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