Roles and teams
Designer-to-engineer ratio
Also calledDesign ratio, Designer to developer ratio
How many engineers each designer supports. It is the most common starting point for deciding how big a design team should be.
Nielsen Norman Group's 2020 survey found the most common answer was one designer for every ten or fewer developers, and one researcher for every five or fewer designers. That puts design at roughly a tenth of product headcount.
The ratio is a starting point for a conversation, not a rule. Products with many surfaces, complex domains or heavy regulation need more design per engineer; internal tools and infrastructure need less.
In practice
A company with 40 product engineers at a 1:9 ratio would budget for about four or five design roles, then decide how many of those should be specialists rather than product designers.
Common mistake
Adding specialists on top of the ratio. Researchers, systems designers and managers come out of the same envelope, so each specialist you fund is a generalist you did not.