Creative & Media

Sound Designer

Create the sounds you hear in films, games, and theater, from footsteps and monsters to a whole city's hum

Open interactive guide

What does a Sound Designer do?

Sound designers work in game studios, film and TV post-production houses, theaters, and app companies. They record real sounds, build new ones on computers, and place them so scenes feel alive. It suits careful listeners who are curious about how everyday things sound and enjoy tinkering with software.

A day in the life

9:30 AMRecord a creaky door, boots on gravel, and a crunching apple
11:30 AMLayer three sounds together to make a monster's roar
1:00 PMMatch footsteps to a character walking across a scene
2:30 PMSet a game's siren to grow louder as the player gets closer
4:00 PMPlay the scene for the director and note what is too loud
5:30 PMLabel new sound files in the library so you can find them later

What's great

  • You invent sounds no one has heard
  • Work on films, games, apps, and plays
  • Mixes art and technology
  • Small teams give you a big creative say

The hard parts

  • Hours of repeated listening can wear you out
  • Deadlines get heavy near release dates
  • Steady jobs are rare outside big studios
  • Feedback from directors can be vague

What is a Sound Designer's salary and outlook?

$36k – $90k
Salary Range
Bachelor's degree
Typical Education
Growing

Typical pay in this guide runs from about $36,000 to $90,000 a year, with a midpoint around $60,000. These are planning figures for students, not a job offer or an official wage.

CareerLens rates the outlook as Growing.

For the official national outlook, see BLS Occupational Data.

How do you become a Sound Designer?

A common path is Bachelor's degree in sound design, audio, or music technology, plus a demo reel. The ladder often runs from Sound Assistant or Sound Editor to Sound Designer, then Supervising Sound Editor or Lead Sound Designer, and Audio Director. Other routes: Two-year audio or media production program; Learn game audio tools with online courses; Start as a sound editor or Foley assistant; Build a portfolio by redoing the sound for short clips.

  • Two-year audio or media production program
  • Learn game audio tools with online courses
  • Start as a sound editor or Foley assistant
  • Build a portfolio by redoing the sound for short clips

Career path

Entry level
Sound Assistant or Sound Editor
Mid career
Sound Designer
Senior
Supervising Sound Editor or Lead Sound Designer
Executive
Audio Director

Will AI replace a Sound Designer?

How much will AI change this job?

Quite a bit

AI will help with some tasks in this job, while the most important parts stay human.

AI will handle routine sound tasks, but creativity stays human.

Sound designers will use AI tools to speed up repetitive editing and sound cleanup. But choosing the right sounds to tell a story still takes a human ear and imagination. This job will use more smart tools, while the creative choices stay with people.

AI can help with

  • Cleaning up background noise in recordings
  • Sorting and organizing large sound effect libraries
  • Generating quick draft sound options to test ideas

What stays human

  • Choosing sounds that match a story's emotion
  • Creating original, unique sound effects for new projects
  • Collaborating with directors to shape a film's feel

Skills to build now

  • Learn a music or audio editing app
  • Practice listening closely to sounds around you
  • Join a school video, film, or theater club

Based on public research from Anthropic and OpenAI, drafted with AI, checked automatically, and read by a person. How we know

This describes how the work may change. It is not a prediction that the job will disappear.