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I am looking for B2B opportunities in Mumbai. I have total 14years of experience (9 years in Telco B2B Domain and 5 Years of Banking Experience ).. Is there anyone who can help to find opportunities Deloitte TCS Capgemini Hexaware Technologies Limited Cognizant Accenture JPMorgan Chase EY
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It’s different depending on what industry you are in and if you are brand side, agency side, or a contractor. I have met senior art directors only in the industry for a few years (agency side) and I’ve met designers who have 20 years experience (contractors). However neither is necessarily more qualified than the other for a leadership role, even if they have the same knowledge of tactical design skills. My observation: not enough designers focus on business and leadership skill building. They get thrown into leadership because they are skilled IC’s and then fail to collaborate or coach effectively or have no idea how it ties to the business. For me, I went from junior to art director over the course of 12 years. Average time in a role was 3 years before advancing. I have always been brand side FT. The biggest pivot when I went to the leadership side is positioning myself as a strategic partner with executive leads and really focusing on proof of ROI.
I know a guy at Ralph Lauren that has been a Sr Designer for 15 years. He’s happy in the role and isn’t looking to “lead”. If you’re hungry for more then go for it.
One area that I didn’t see really mentioned is your employer. Do they have the capacity, and more importantly, desire to formulate your success through promotions. I’ve been at my current employer a little over 8 years and they ignored my 25+ years as a senior designer in a request to be promoted to Marketing Director and hired an external candidate. Nice enough guy but has absolutely no design knowledge or experience and he tries blowing the “marketing bs” up my @$$ but I know better because in my previous role I generated and executed marketing budgets, finances, analytics and ROIs. Sometimes ppl think that us designers can only “make things pretty” and don’t have the ability to flip the switch to the analytical and business side. Their loss though as I’ll be taking my skills and 25+ years of experience elsewhere.
But again, it’s important to look at the organizational chart and/or have that discussion on what your career path with that employer would look like.
It really just depends on how good you are and what you are good at.
Personal history:
- 1 yr digital designer
- 2 yrs art director
- 1 yr sr graphic designer
- 1 yr art director
- 2 yrs Sr art director
- 2 yrs Creative Director
- 1 yr Product Designer
- 1 yr Marketing Consultant (Present)
I did design internships for a year and a half in college. Then spent 3 years in a graphic designer role before making the jump to art director. Another 3 years to promote to senior art director. I think it largely depends on your responsibilities within the graphic designer position you have. For me, my graphic designer position had nearly more roles and responsibilities than my art director position did. So it was an easier transition for me. If you feel like you have ideas to give and good presentation skills then you’re probably ready to move up. 3-5 years is pretty standard but sometimes people are ready earlier or later.
I'm only 4 years in myself, so I don't have much of a trajectory yet at all. I'm hoping it won't take too long though. If you feel like you're ready and the descriptions aren't asking for 10+ YOE or anything, why not just apply to those roles if you see them? Worst they can say is no 🤷♀️
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AD1 put this well, depends on the desire and trajectory, but I’ve learned in house is a lot slower than agency/consulting. Coming from consulting myself, I’d found myself working on pretty accelerated project timelines, where entire product deliverables are due much faster than what the expectation is for in house teams.
I’d say moving from large company to large company through consulting has given me a ton of varied experience, both in terms of design maturity at organizations and the fidelity of work expected.
This speed can also be seen as an accelerant to your career, I’ve promoted twice over my 7 years, from a junior who needed a lot of direction, to a senior who could take a direction and run, to a director who reports up to a senior director but has enough experience to lead the direction of a project.
From my experience, moving up to direct/lead requires knowledge past just the technical and taste skills. Leadership of course is a given, but seeing the forest from the trees comes from having a wider scope of understanding. We have to be really well versed in design, and pretty adept at understanding the tech and business aspects to properly form opinions on strategic directions.
4.5 years as entry level (associate art director)
6 months as art director
4.5 years as senior designer
4.5 years as lead designer
1 year as ACD (current role)
I've been on the design end a really long time...but I really don't want to be in charge of anybody, even though I think I'd be good at it.
It’s been 18 years working as a graphic designer. At one point, I was given the title of Creative Manager, but I chose not to continue in that direction. Not because of a lack of growth, but because my strength and passion have always been in creating—thinking, designing, and solving problems visually.
Over time, the market changed. Career paths became more linear and title-driven, and that’s where some HR conversations lose nuance. Not everyone measures growth the same way. For some, it’s hierarchy; for others, it’s depth, relevance, and impact.
Career trajectory is subjective. It depends on what you choose to pursue, where you want to see yourself in the next five years, how the market evolves, and—very honestly—on timing and luck as well. I chose to grow as a practitioner rather than move away from the craft, and that decision was intentional.
Graphic design is broad title and role, and unfortunately on the corporate in-house side of things it’s not the always easiest to get title changes if the title hasn’t existed at the company before. I’ll include my income with the title to show how broad it really is with even the same titles. As an IC expert (experienced individual contributor, not people manager) your title is less important than your provable contributions. As you can see the same title got 2x the pay at different company with more experience
Graphic design intern - 28k/year
— hired on after internship at Graphic designer - 29k/year
Graphic designer - 35k/year
Graphic designer - 48k/year
—- same job bumped to 68k/year 1 year in
Digital Graphic Designer - 86k/year
— same job bumped to 100k/year 4 years in
— same job bumped to 106k/year 6 years in , work place became very toxic after 2 reorgs
Graphic Design Lead — 100k/year, 5k sign on, 10% bonus
— place was crazy and not worth it
Accepted a Sr Graphic Designer role 98k, 5% bonus. Temporary pay cut worth the mental health leaving two toxic jobs in a row.
Other people in the comments are talking about about IC vs people managing, if your career path doesn’t span to cover people management then floating around designer and sr. Designer for years is normal. The next level title such as director or principal aren’t the norm for in house corporate jobs because to them that implies people management even though for design roles that’s not always the case.
If you want to get into people management, it’s never really too late to try to span into that. With 4 years in, even with a graphic design role you could be managing freelancer when you need help outsourcing work, that completely counts as leading people and is one of the more common ways for designers to build people management skills when in smaller / solo design teams