Design salary: $195K median
From 446 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
$195Kmedian advertised salary
$160K – $230Kmiddle half of roles
$198Kaverage advertised salary
446roles counted
Design salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $230K, 27% more than senior roles ($180K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $180K | $165K–$204K | 125 |
| Lead and above | $230K | $188K–$253K | 171 |
| No level in title | $176K | $125K–$215K | 144 |
Design salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $212K | 186 |
| 🇺🇸New York | $210K | 119 |
| 🇺🇸California | $202K | 217 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $195K | 425 |
| 🇺🇸Seattle | $182K | 22 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles | $151K | 24 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | $345K | 6 |
| Block | $314K | 4 |
| Ramp | $314K | 5 |
| OpenAI | $278K | 13 |
| Vanta | $257K | 5 |
| Render | $251K | 4 |
| Scale AI | $249K | 4 |
| Asana | $238K | 3 |
| Figma | $236K | 9 |
| Harvey | $230K | 15 |
| Perplexity | $230K | 8 |
| Datadog | $230K | 6 |
| Twitch | $230K | 7 |
| Hinge Health | $227K | 4 |
| Fivetran | $227K | 5 |
| Nextdoor | $226K | 4 |
| $225K | 4 | |
| Brex | $216K | 15 |
| CodeRabbit | $212K | 3 |
| Zip | $210K | 4 |
| Mercury | $208K | 6 |
| Roblox | $208K | 9 |
| Duolingo | $204K | 7 |
| Decagon | $200K | 5 |
| Coinbase | $196K | 3 |
Highest-paying open Design roles
All Design jobs- VP of Learning DesignDuolingo · 🇺🇸New York, NY; Pittsburgh, PA$330K - $550KLead
- Head of DesignVanta · 🇺🇸Remote U.S.$365K - $513KRemoteLead
- Silicon Design LeadOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$287K - $485KLeadVerilog
- Senior Director, DesignEpic Games · BLANK,BLANK,Multiple Locations$290K - $467KLeadUnreal Engine
- Product Designer, GrowthAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$305K - $460KSQLFigma
- Product Designer, SafeguardsAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA$305K - $460KFigma
- Design Leader, Emerging ProductsAsana · 🇺🇸San Francisco$350K - $450K
- Senior Director of Design, Search & FeedsReddit · 🇺🇸Remote - United States$317K - $444KRemoteLead
- Product DesignerRamp · 🇺🇸New York, NY (HQ)$188K - $440KLLMFigma
- Director, Product DesignRamp · 🇺🇸New York, NY (HQ)$320K - $440KLeadGo
- Head of Industrial DesignWaymo · 🇺🇸Mountain View, CA, US$323K - $399KLead
- Principal Product Designer, Agentic WorkflowsAmplitude · 🇺🇸San Francisco$237K - $398KLead
- Product Design ManagerPatreon · 🇺🇸New York$266K - $398KFigma
- Product Designer, People Innovation LabsOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$230K - $385K
- Creative Director, BlockBlock · 🇺🇸New York, NY, United States of America$252K - $377KLead
- Creative Director, ExperientialBlock · 🇺🇸New York, NY, United States of America$252K - $377KLead
- Director, Product Design - AI & ContextFigma · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA • New York, NY • United States$290K - $376KLeadAI
- Network Planning & Design ManagerLambda · 🇺🇸San Francisco Office (Fremont St)$250K - $370KMachine Learning
- Senior Director of DesignVanta · 🇺🇸Remote U.S.$309K - $363KRemoteLead
- Senior Creative Director, MarketingDuolingo · 🇺🇸New York, NY$237K - $355KLead
Questions about Design pay
- What is the average Design salary?
- $198K a year on average and $195K at the median, across 446 open Design postings at tech companies that state pay (November 2026). The median is the better guide: a few very high offers pull the average up.
- What is the typical range?
- The middle half of the postings offer $160K to $230K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Design pay?
- Anthropic ($345K), Block ($314K), Ramp ($314K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Where do these figures come from?
- From the pay ranges employers print in their own job postings, read from their careers pages every hour. The midpoint of each range is counted. These are advertised ranges for open roles, mostly in the United States and in US dollars, not what people are actually paid.
Writing about this? A sentence you can quote
The median advertised salary for Design roles at tech companies is $195K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $160K to $230K. Counted from 446 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Hiring Right Now, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/design/
Free to use with the link.