Industrial designer jobs: in-house designer vs consultancy vs start up

Curious about where industrial designer's work? In this video, I outline 3 environments that industrial designers could work: in-house designer, consultancy and start-up. Check out the video for the whole scoop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIKKK-MrgJA

Here are some highlights:

I should make a disclaimer, most of my experience is at a consultancy so my opinions are based on friends experiences.

In-house designer

- things to think about: are you the only Industrial designer at the company? If yes, you could be lonely. On the other hand, you may thrive being the only Industrial designer. Either way it's a good idea to think about how you feel about being the only IDer on the team.

Consultancy

- Unless your consultancy specializes in one market (ie. medical devices) you could be constantly surprised by the projects you work on. In my experience, I've worked on products I didn't know existed!

- typically at a consultancy you are working with other Industrial designers

- your experience will be broad in terms of markets but shallow in depth of those markets.

Start-up

- remember the nature of a start-up, typically there are few people so you may be doing many other duties beyond your Industrial design duties

- typically when a start-up puts out their first product, the next priority is to sell. Which means plans to design a second product could be off in the distance. It means you may not have anything to design for a while.