Jobs and Internships

Cherry Blossoms on the quadHuman Centered Design & Engineering is one of today's fastest changing and fastest growing fields in academia and industry. Not long ago, we concerned ourselves almost exclusively with print documents, but today the work of human centered designers can vary greatly. Design of multimedia, website development, and content computing figure more and more prominently, and HCDE job titles now include "executive producer" and "interactive experience designer" as well as "writer" and "editor."

Be sure to review internships posted on our department’s Internship Database, as well as the Engineering Co-Op Program. For full time employment opportunities, be sure to visit the HCDE Career Network on AfterCollege.com. The HCDE Blog has information about work-study and TA/RA appointments, as well as other great job-finding resources. Another great resource for current UW students is the UW Career Center's Husky Jobs.
HCDE graduates go on to work as:
  • Multimedia and web developers (writing or editing on-line information in many forms, including on-line help, multimedia products, and webpages).
  • Usability engineers and interface designers (helping software developers make and test programs that are more user-friendly).
  • Technical writers and editors (designing, writing, and editing manuals and online help in the software industry and other technical fields).
  • Science writers and editors (working with engineers and scientists to write environmental impact statements, scientific journal articles, and other scientific documents).
  • Content management systems designers including product management.

A recent sampling of our alumni on LinkedIn reveals the following job titles: user experience designers and architects, user researchers, content strategists and publishers, programming writers and editors, web designers, information developers, instructional designers, documentation managers, globalization managers, product and program managers, technical writers and editors, etc.

Our students put their HCDE skills to work in high-tech industries, such as Microsoft, Boeing, Intel, IBM, and Google, as well as work for small companies and non-profits.