Product designer here with 2 years professional experience at a large company in a major US city.

In your experience what are the fastest ways to maximizing your salary in the design industry?

I’m currently stuck at around $80k and would like to get into the $120k+ range. (Seems reasonable considering places like Google and Amazon provide $120k+ or more to entry level designers — https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-User-Experience-Designer-Salaries-E9079_D_KO7,31.htm.)

At this point, my company might offer me a promotion by end of year. Either way, my understanding is that I should seek a pay-raise/promotion via a company transition at this point — what's a realistic bump I should look for?

Another avenue I’ve been considering is to move into product management, which seems to pay more. It also aligns better with the business side of things, which I seem to gravitate towards.

The last option I’ve considered, is to move into consulting or a big 4 in tech.

In the hopes of making this post more objective, I’ve boiled the tactics down to a list. Please let me know if I'm missing anything:

• do good work, get noticed and seek promotions/pay-raises. If these don't occur, switch companies every 2 years, or sooner if the opportunity arrises, to get a promotion and pay raise
• seek roles to transition to that are more lucrative, like product management
• move to industries/companies that pay more, like consulting or top 4 tech companies