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stiffenthomas

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What is the difference between Mechanical Design Engineer and Product Design Engineer?

 
Both are ambiguous terms used by companies in attempt to describe their jobs. They literally could mean the same or almost nothing of what they intend. One could fathom that a Product Design Engineer just simply designs and tests things that will be created and sold. A Mechanical Design Engineer is theoretically a mechanical engineer that designs stuff. There could be some serious overlap, but it depends on the employer.

 
Both are ambiguous terms used by companies in attempt to describe their jobs. They literally could mean the same or almost nothing of what they intend. One could fathom that a Product Design Engineer just simply designs and tests things that will be created and sold. A Mechanical Design Engineer is theoretically a mechanical engineer that designs stuff. There could be some serious overlap, but it depends on the employer.
This ^^^

 
Industrial(Product) Design

  • This discipline applies the information of ergonomics and the creative skills to create attractive, user-friendly, innovative products.
  • The approach to product design is sort of outside-in.
  • There is sometimes a little wishful thinking employed in that the products defined by industrial designers have a tendency to stretch the laws of physics to achieve the designer’s vision.
  • Good industrial designers, of course, would deny that assertion. Still, the tendency is there.
Mechanical Engineering

  • Mechanical Engineering is essentially an academic discipline at the college level that focuses on the way things behave when they are subjected to various types of forces.
  • In product design the MEs emphasis is on achieving functionality.
  • As opposed to ID, mechanical Engineering typically take a sort of an inside-out approach.
  • Thermal and structural analysis are sometimes used to predict the behavior of the product under various kinds of stress.
  • There is less attention paid to appearance and more attention paid to functionality than in industrial design.
 
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Yeah, I'm with @cornsnicker3 and @Audi driver, P.E..

I've worked for 3 different companies and each one used those terms completely differently, even within the same industry. Same with "drafter" vs "designer" vs whatever else. Same thing with the modifiers "junior", "senior", "associate", "staff", "principal". There's are lots of "definitions" but nothing generally accepted everywhere.

 
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