Automotive Product Design Engineer
Career Area: Design, Media, and Writing
Occupation Group: Product Design
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Automotive Product Design Engineer earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $91,541
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $89,249
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Responsible for creating or improving motor vehicle bodies, parts or accessories. Responsible for the aesthetics of the product but also designing how it will work, defining the problem and solving it. May be responsible for producing low-fidelity mock ups, prototypes for validation through user testing and crafting the final product accordingly.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 5 | +4.5% |
| Nationwide | 287 | +3.3% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Automotive Product Design Engineer is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
- Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.
- Creativity: Mental characteristic that allows a person to think outside of the box, which results in innovative or different approaches to a particular task.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Product Design: Product design as a verb is to create a new product to be sold by a business to its customers.
- Mechanical Engineering: Mechanical Engineering, is the discipline that applies engineering, physics, and materials science principles to design, analyze, manufacture, and maintain mechanical systems.
- Product Development: In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) covers the complete process of bringing a new product to market.
- CATIA: CATIA (an acronym of computer aided three-dimensional interactive application, pronounced ) is a multi-platform software suite for computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided engineering (CAE), PLM and 3D, developed by the French company Dassault Systmes.
- Project Management: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Automotive Product Design Engineer that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- CANalyzer: Working experience of CANalyzer, which is an analysis software tool from Vector Informatik GmbH. This development software is widely used, primarily by automotive and electronic control unit suppliers, to analyze the data traffic in serial bus systems. The most relevant bus systems here are CAN, LIN, FlexRay, Ethernet and MOST as well as CAN-based protocols such as J1939, CANopen, ARINC 825 and many more.
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA): Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)also failure modes, plural, in many publicationswas one of the first highly structured, systematic techniques for failure analysis.
- Vehicle Systems: Working experience of Vehicle Systems. A vehicle is composed of basic mechanical parts and devices making up its systems; each of them fulfills a specific function, including: transmission, supension, braking, steering, engine, cooling, electrical systems, and exhaust.
- Component Design: the activity for the design of specific components including responsibility for material, cost, weight, reliability, durability, function, appearance, and serviceability.
- Electric Vehicle: An electric vehicle, also called an electric drive vehicle, uses one or more electric motors or traction motors for propulsion.
Salary Boosting Skills
A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:
- Dspace: Working experience of Dspace, which is an open source repository software package typically used for creating open access repositories for scholarly and/or published digital content.
- Fuel Efficiency: Fuel efficiency is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the efficiency of a process that converts chemical potential energy contained in a carrier fuel into kinetic energy or work.
- SysML: Working experience of the Systems Modelling Language, which is a general purpose modelling language for engineering systems. SysML supports the analysis, design and verification of complex systems including hardware, software, information, personnel, procedures, and facilities in a graphical notation. SysML provides graphical representations based on a semantic foundation for modelling system behaviour, requirements, structure, and parametrical elements which are used to integrate with other engineering analysis models using the OML XML Metadata Interchange.
- Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP): Working experience of Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP), which is a framework of procedures and techniques used to develop products in industry, particularly the automotive industry. It is quite similar to the concept of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).
- Unigraphics: Unigraphics is a leading CAD/CAE/CAM software product developed and marketed by UGS (formally Unigraphics Solutions, Inc.)
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 29% |
| 3 to 5 years | 58% |
| 6 to 8 years | 9% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Product Engineer Powertrain
- Automotive Manufacturing Product Design Engineer
- Product Engineer Chassis
- Powertrain Product Engineer
- Product Engineer General
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