Design Engineer Career

If you possess a desire and are creative and innovative, you might consider a career as a design engineer. Design engineers produce designs for new or improved engineering products.

Typically you job as a design engineer is to apply engineering principles to design, develop, or modify or design a product or process. In addition, you would conduct engineering studies on design for products, associated and subsystems components, and structures, and analyze engineering proposals, process requirements, and related technical data pertaining to design.

These skills typically require an engineering degree in a field of specialty. Positions covered by this definition are characterized by the inclusion of work that requires an understanding of both theories and principles.

They work alongside civil engineers in many cases on projects involving the design of highly sophisticated products and structures, including aircraft, bridges, medical equipment and agricultural machinery, computers and telecommunications systems.

A design engineer takes into consideration numerous factors in his or her designs including use of the product, its environment, materials, the economics of production, safety, legal requirements, quality, production requirements, cost and ease of maintenance.

Typically, a design engineer begins with a sketch outline of their design, often using computer-aided design for details, to generate parts lists and specifications. Many times a design requires additional inputs from marketing and sales departments, especially when the goal of the design is to upgrade products, or if a products requires re-design due to failure or to reduce costs. In addition it may be necessary to consult with development engineers about new products and the application of novel technology.

The design engineer needs to possess a number of key skills, not the least of which is attention to detail, being able to understand of a wide range of technologies and engineering drawings, knowledge of computer-aided design and computer design software.

Communication skills are also a necessity, since design engineers must interface often colleagues and other departments.

Typical salaries for a design engineer really depend on the industry. For example, an Intern can expect to earn between $50 and $70,000 a year, where a Senior Consultant might earn as much as $155,000 a year.