Director of product development vs product director

The differences between directors of product development and product directors can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 8-10 years to become both a director of product development and a product director. Additionally, a product director has an average salary of $148,910, which is higher than the $140,507 average annual salary of a director of product development.

The top three skills for a director of product development include product development, project management and product management. The most important skills for a product director are product management, product strategy, and project management.

Director of product development vs product director overview

	Director Of Product Development	Product Director
Yearly salary	$140,507	$148,910
Hourly rate	$67.55	$71.59
Growth rate	10%	10%
Number of jobs	175,429	125,200
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 71%	Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Average age	39	39
Years of experience	10	10

What does a director of product development do?

A Director of Product Development supervises and implements product development policies, initiatives, and objectives. They conduct market research to determine consumer needs and identify competitors.

What does a product director do?

The duties of a product director depend on one's place or industry of employment. Typically, their responsibilities revolve around overseeing the product development operations to ensure smooth flow and efficiency, devise strategies to improve processes, gather relevant data such as sales and customer feedback, and coordinate with different departments in developing new products and services. Furthermore, as a director, it is essential to lead and encourage departments to meet goals, all while implementing the company's policies and regulations, including its mission and vision.

Director of product development vs product director salary

Directors of product development and product directors have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Director Of Product Development	Product Director
Average salary	$140,507	$148,910
Salary range	Between $100,000 And $196,000	Between $104,000 And $212,000
Highest paying City	San Mateo, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	California	California
Best paying company	Apple	Meta
Best paying industry	Manufacturing	Internet

Differences between director of product development and product director education

There are a few differences between a director of product development and a product director in terms of educational background:

	Director Of Product Development	Product Director
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 71%	Bachelor's Degree, 73%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Georgia	University of Georgia

Director of product development vs product director demographics

Here are the differences between directors of product development' and product directors' demographics:

	Director Of Product Development	Product Director
Average age	39	39
Gender ratio	Male, 72.0% Female, 28.0%	Male, 72.4% Female, 27.6%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	10%	10%

Differences between director of product development and product director duties and responsibilities

Director of product development example responsibilities.

Organize and manage project meetings between partners, vendors, and associates using both scrum and waterfall methodologies.
Manage long-term care, hospital transition, and Medicaid- Medicare expansion initiatives, that includes model of care design and implementation )
Manage packaging design and nutritional labeling within QA guidelines.
Manage company intellectual portfolio and develop key relationships with vendors and clients including leading global technology companies.
Develop using Java, JSP, J2EE, CSS, DHTML, HTML, Plugins and JavaScript.
Prepare proposals for new projects, including project feasibility, ROI, expenses and costs.

Product director example responsibilities.

Lead the overall site ISO implementation.
Manage Salesforce integration to SaaS platform and client systems.
Lead SaaS application visibility and performance monitoring in hybrid enterprise to accelerate adoption of cloud.
Utilize SQL to support data-driven analysis and decision processes to inform project prioritization, assess feature effectiveness, and troubleshoot issues.
Interact with FDA, CDC, and other external agencies as required to introduce novel molecular products into the market.
Spearhead transformation of the organization to modern best practices, ISO & lean manufacturing.

Director of product development vs product director skills

Common director of product development skills

Product Development, 12%
Project Management, 9%
Product Management, 9%
R, 7%
Product Strategy, 4%
Market Research, 3%

Common product director skills

Product Management, 10%
Product Strategy, 6%
Project Management, 6%
Product Roadmap, 5%
Product Design, 4%
Software Development, 4%

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Director Of Product Development
Director Of Product Development vs Product Director

Updated January 8, 2025

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