Product Designer 6+YOE salary expectations @ top tech companies?
Currently interviewing at Facebook, Apple, etc and was just asked today. Couldn’t give a good answer and was truthful and said I hadn’t really thought about it yet. I just realized I’m super underpaid and haven’t the clue how I’m supposed to be paid. Was going to ask for 150 TC but checking levels seems like that’s what I should be asking for base? There’s not as much data on levels for product design and I’m worried the data given are skewed. I live in Silicon Valley Bay Area. Looking for job here or SF. Targeting big tech firms: apple, Facebook, Netflix, google, Dropbox etc. Currently I’m lead designer at a very small but relatively known (in certain circles) startup. I manage a small design team (3 of us). I co-founded my own startup prior and helped design and release 2 apps. Company didn’t go anywhere but was on tech news/featured on Apple. Before that I was at a small “unicorn” startup and another super small startup before that. Also have 3 summers of internship experience. But these were more graphic design. Not included in my 6YOE or my resume. Obviously going to drop down in title from lead. Possibly drop below senior depending on the company.
You could get 150+ BASE not TC if you're experienced.
How'd you get into product design? Current SWE looking for a change of pace
Probably not much help since I had a pretty generic path. I got a bachelor’s in design. Did a lot of design internships. Last internship was at a startup and I was exposed to product design. Spent my senior year prepping my portfolio and projects to relate to it and got a job at a startup as a product designer. Then used those skills I learned to improve my portfolio and got a job a company with a good design team that helped me grow. Biggest thing about product design is the portfolio. It’s pretty much entirely how we’re judged as well as how we present and talk through the projects. So I know some compsci majors that became designers because they had a kickass portfolio that relates to product/ux side of things. Visually good looking is (perhaps sadly) a huge factor too. So you’ll need a lot of practice and making stuff to have good content in your portfolio and it takes a long time to build. Currently mine took a year to create off/on. Probably at least a month of dedicated work if you condensed it. And this was me presenting work I’ve already done not having to create them from scratch.
200k+ at these companies.
I'm around the same YoE (8) and I would go for at least 180k. You can likely get 200k if you do well during interview.