Customer Experience and Product Design | Master of Engineering Management

Track Journey: Customer Experience Analyst / Product Experience Professional

What this track is about

The Customer Experience and Product Design track is for students who want to improve how products and services actually work for people. This pathway focuses on understanding customer needs, identifying experience gaps, and using data, design, and structured execution to deliver better outcomes.

Students in this track learn how to move from customer insight to action. That includes diagnosing problems, designing solutions, and working with cross-functional teams to implement and measure improvements.

The role this track prepares you for

This track is commonly aligned with roles such as Customer Experience Analyst, Customer Success Analyst, Quality Engineer, Software Engineer, or other product and experience-focused positions.

In these roles, professionals sit at the intersection of customers, data, and product teams. Their work directly influences customer satisfaction, retention, product quality, and long-term business value.

What this role looks like in real life

Someone working in a customer experience or product design role typically spends their time doing the following:

Reviewing customer usage data, surveys, feedback, and support tickets
Identifying patterns that explain customer frustration, drop-off, or quality issues
Mapping customer journeys to understand where experiences break down
Working with product managers, engineers, and designers to recommend improvements
Helping prioritize features, fixes, or process changes based on impact
Tracking metrics after changes are made to see if the experience improves

This role requires both analytical thinking and empathy. You need to understand numbers, but you also need to understand people.

Skills you use every day in this role

Professionals in customer experience and product design roles rely on a consistent set of skills:

Customer insight and journey analysis to understand how users interact with products
Design thinking to frame problems and test solutions before full implementation
Data analysis and visualization to identify issues and communicate insights clearly
Product and project coordination to work effectively across teams
Quality management to improve reliability, usability, and performance

How this track builds those skills

The courses in this track are intentionally aligned to the skills used on the job.

Courses in design thinking and customer experience teach how to research user needs, map journeys, and design better interactions.
Real-time data and data visualization courses build the ability to analyze experience metrics and clearly communicate insights to stakeholders.
Software quality management focuses on how quality is designed into systems and how issues are identified and resolved at scale.
Product design and project management courses prepare students to move ideas from concept through execution while working across teams.
The consulting or industrial practicum provides hands-on experience applying these skills to real organizations and real problems.

Together, these experiences mirror how customer experience and product decisions are made in industry.

Course offerings in this track

Students following this pathway often take a combination of the following courses:

EGRMGMT 542: Competitive Strategy in Technology-Based Industries
EGRMGMT 556: Consulting or Industrial Practicum
EGRMGMT 560: Project Management
EGRMGMT 575: Software Quality Management
EGRMGMT 576: Design Thinking and Innovation
EGRMGMT 578: Designing Customer Experiences in Technology
EGRMGMT 579: Using Real-Time Data to Improve Customer Quality Experience
EGRMGMT 581: Managing Product Design
EGRMGMT 587: Data Visualization for Engineering Managers

Course selection may vary based on individual goals and prior experience.

Where graduates go after MEM

Graduates from this track work across a range of industries where customer experience and product quality matter, including:

Technology
Consulting
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Finance
Energy
Fast-growing startups

While job titles vary, the core skills developed through this track remain highly transferable.