Director, product & project management vs product lead

The differences between directors, product & project management and product leads 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, product & project management and a product lead. Additionally, a director, product & project management has an average salary of $129,963, which is higher than the $118,828 average annual salary of a product lead.

The top three skills for a director, product & project management include customer satisfaction, architecture and product development. The most important skills for a product lead are product management, project management, and architecture.

Director, product & project management vs product lead overview

	Director, Product & Project Management	Product Lead
Yearly salary	$129,963	$118,828
Hourly rate	$62.48	$57.13
Growth rate	10%	10%
Number of jobs	214,699	95,557
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 72%	Bachelor's Degree, 66%
Average age	39	39
Years of experience	10	10

Director, product & project management vs product lead salary

Directors, product & project management and product leads have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Director, Product & Project Management	Product Lead
Average salary	$129,963	$118,828
Salary range	Between $94,000 And $178,000	Between $86,000 And $163,000
Highest paying City	-	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	-	California
Best paying company	-	Airbnb
Best paying industry	-	Hospitality

Differences between director, product & project management and product lead education

There are a few differences between a director, product & project management and a product lead in terms of educational background:

	Director, Product & Project Management	Product Lead
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 72%	Bachelor's Degree, 66%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Georgia	University of Georgia

Director, product & project management vs product lead demographics

Here are the differences between directors, product & project management' and product leads' demographics:

	Director, Product & Project Management	Product Lead
Average age	39	39
Gender ratio	Male, 67.9% Female, 32.1%	Male, 71.1% Female, 28.9%
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, product & project management and product lead duties and responsibilities

Director, product & project management example responsibilities.

Manage horizontal UX prototyping resource needs, implementing effective collaborative expectations and cross-product timeline allocation strategies.
Review design and perform QA testing of deliver products.
Perform QA testing, and direct internal alpha testing and customer beta testing.
Redesign core SaaS product to add industry-leading functionality and enterprise platform.
Develop detailed cloud products opportunity analysis, XaaS service matrix, value proposition, build/buy/partner analysis, and financial business case.
Manage horizontal UX prototyping resource needs, implementing effective collaborative expectations and cross-product timeline allocation strategies.

Product lead example responsibilities.

Manage multiple teams of designers, information architects, and UI developers across various projects for desktop, mobile and tablets.
Design, manage, and implement internationalization QA process for radiology software in the European office.
Manage horizontal UX prototyping resource needs, implementing effective collaborative expectations and cross-product timeline allocation strategies.
Lead UX designer for multiple scrum teams.
Develop the first versions of cloud base web services APIs to integrate enterprise applications as well as 3rd party applications.
Used a combination of extreme programming, scrum, traditional waterfall processes to establish a multi-location, engineering and support operation.

Director, product & project management vs product lead skills

Common director, product & project management skills

Customer Satisfaction, 45%
Architecture, 36%
Product Development, 3%
Project Management, 3%
Product Management, 1%
Web Content, 1%

Common product lead skills

Product Management, 9%
Project Management, 6%
Architecture, 5%
Digital Marketing, 5%
Lifecycle Management, 4%
Cloud, 4%

Director, Product & Project Management vs. similar jobs

Director, Product & Project Management related careers

Director, Product & Project Management related jobs

What similar roles do

Zippia Careers
Executive Management Industry
Director, Product & Project Management
Director, Product & Project Management vs Product Lead

Updated January 8, 2025

Browse executive management jobs