Guide to career paths in design [Templates]
Wondering how to become a Designer? And what skills are required for a Designer?
In this article, you will find Designer levels descriptions, what skills you need to be a Designer, as well as Designer career goals examples.
Career ladder definition (or career path)
A career ladder or career path is not just a list of positions and responsibilities. This is a systematized career growth roadmap, which inсludes skills, career goals, salary expectations and a professional development plan. To simplify, the career ladder is a way to chart individual career progress.
Roles and titles
Roles and titles are terms that define the place of a designer in a company. However, there are differences:
- Job role is the area of responsibility of an employee, which reflects what kind of work they perform in the company. The area of responsibility defines the scope of duties: what the employee does at work every day, what kind of tasks they have. Job roles examples: Developer, Designer, Product Manager.
- Job title is the name of the position that a person occupies in a company. This usually consists of a job level (Junior, Middle, Senior) and a specialization (UX Designer, Marketing Designer, Illustrator, etc.).
Levels (or grades)
Job levels (or job grades) denote the level of responsibility in the company, within the job role. The higher the job level, the more expertise, independence and initiative the company expects from an engineer.
Companies use roles to build grades, set OKRs for reaching the next level, and motivate an employee to reach new heights. A simple design levels system looks like: design level 1, 2, 3, 4 or Junior Designer, Middle Designer, Senior Designer, or Team Lead, but as the company grows, it can become larger or even branch out.
Such systems allow a designer to move along their career path and develop within the company. This means that, if a company uses this method, designers have professional growth opportunities and have more motivation to stay with the company.
Designer Career Path Templates
As we said earlier, a designer career path can be more or less complex, depending on the structure and needs of the company.
The basic (and most common) design career path looks like a change of levels — designers skip from one level to another within the framework of the role approved at the start: Junior Designer, Middle Designer, Senior Designer, Art Director/ Design Director, VP of Design.
Below, you will find the list of design roles and get levels descriptions for Designers and top Designer skills on each level.
