When I visit careerbuilder.com and look up ID jobs, why does Industrial Design Engineer come up the most? Do most firms want ID’ers with engineering experiense or with another BS in engineering?
try visiting coroflot.com, an industrial design engineer is not an ID job.
YO’s information lacks tremendously in avail.
Care to decode that?
esg,
This job title is a newer term, last 4-5 years. It comes from the change of many CAD drafting programs changing their coarse titles to associates industrial design, or other plays on the term Industrial Design. If you look carefully at the responsabilitites you will find most are looking only for a CAD jockey, most often using AutoCAD or other 2D CAD programs.
What got me looking into it was 4 yrs ago I contacted one such posting, and the HR manager could not believe that someone would go to school for 5 yrs to get a degree that his employees got in 18 months. They also were only offering $12.50…
But as of recent months I have seen more and more ID free lancers using the term in their marketing materials, as I think a way to gain more appreciation from companies who do not hold design in high reguard. But the trend is that they focus more on the engineering and manufacturing support than on the initial conceptual phases of defining the product goals.
With the recent focus in the media on “design” from Businessweek to NYT, Industrial Design has unfortunately become a buzzword with value as engineer was in the past. Just look at the elevation of so-so job like garbage-man (person) to santitaion engineer, and likewise CAD engineer to ID engineer.
Its indeed unfortunate that unlike many other professional degrees (ie. arhcitecture) that ID can mean almost anything and isnt controlled or regulated like some titles. You can have a bachelor of english and no design training, and still call yourself an industrial designer.
R
In regards to the term “Industrial Designer”, I’ve heard “Product Designer” used a lot lately. Do you think it will eventually phase out the term Industrial Designer? While in school a professor of mine said this could happen in the near future due to the fact that “Engineer” has been added to so many CAD position titles.