Director, product & project management vs product owner

The differences between directors, product & project management and product owners 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 owner. Additionally, a director, product & project management has an average salary of $129,963, which is higher than the $97,070 average annual salary of a product owner.

The top three skills for a director, product & project management include customer satisfaction, architecture and product development. The most important skills for a product owner are user stories, acceptance criteria, and product backlog.

Director, product & project management vs product owner overview

	Director, Product & Project Management	Product Owner
Yearly salary	$129,963	$97,070
Hourly rate	$62.48	$46.67
Growth rate	10%	10%
Number of jobs	214,699	129,990
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 72%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age	39	39
Years of experience	10	10

Director, product & project management vs product owner salary

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

	Director, Product & Project Management	Product Owner
Average salary	$129,963	$97,070
Salary range	Between $94,000 And $178,000	Between $71,000 And $130,000
Highest paying City	-	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	-	California
Best paying company	-	ORIX USA
Best paying industry	-	Manufacturing

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

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

	Director, Product & Project Management	Product Owner
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 72%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Georgia	University of Georgia

Director, product & project management vs product owner demographics

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

	Director, Product & Project Management	Product Owner
Average age	39	39
Gender ratio	Male, 67.9% Female, 32.1%	Male, 64.3% Female, 35.7%
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 owner 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 owner example responsibilities.

Manage remote teams to port core and legacy components into AWS.
Manage a global team to create Java base EDI / XML / XSL mapping suite.
Gather and define requirements for the BSS require to operate and manage the SaaS offerings.
Serve as technical contact for affiliate partners during API integration and create and manage API documentation.
Manage the team to redesign the Java base desktop trading community management product to a web base portal.
Used Microsoft TFS to manage project phases, sprints and burn down chart of various stages of SDLC.

Director, product & project management vs product owner 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 owner skills

User Stories, 10%
Acceptance Criteria, 7%
Product Backlog, 5%
Analytics, 5%
Product Management, 4%
EPICS, 4%

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Director, Product & Project Management
Director, Product & Project Management vs Product Owner

Updated January 8, 2025

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