Lead product developer vs product owner

The differences between lead product developers 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 lead product developer and a product owner. Additionally, a lead product developer has an average salary of $122,863, which is higher than the $97,070 average annual salary of a product owner.

The top three skills for a lead product developer include lifecycle management, java and product development. The most important skills for a product owner are user stories, acceptance criteria, and product backlog.

Lead product developer vs product owner overview

	Lead Product Developer	Product Owner
Yearly salary	$122,863	$97,070
Hourly rate	$59.07	$46.67
Growth rate	10%	10%
Number of jobs	152,976	129,990
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age	39	39
Years of experience	10	10

Lead product developer vs product owner salary

Lead product developers and product owners have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Lead Product Developer	Product Owner
Average salary	$122,863	$97,070
Salary range	Between $87,000 And $173,000	Between $71,000 And $130,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	Arizona	California
Best paying company	Meta	ORIX USA
Best paying industry	Manufacturing	Manufacturing

Differences between lead product developer and product owner education

There are a few differences between a lead product developer and a product owner in terms of educational background:

	Lead Product Developer	Product Owner
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common major	Mechanical Engineering	Business
Most common college	University of Texas at Austin	University of Georgia

Lead product developer vs product owner demographics

Here are the differences between lead product developers' and product owners' demographics:

	Lead Product Developer	Product Owner
Average age	39	39
Gender ratio	Male, 74.3% Female, 25.7%	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 lead product developer and product owner duties and responsibilities

Lead product developer example responsibilities.

Manage development resources among development, QA, support, documentation, sales and marketing.
Manage projects build on technologies including .NET, C++, H.264 video, PHP and AJAX, JavaScript.
Target select electrical engineer database to yield increase and additional sales leads.
Used Redgate API to create tools for syncing data across databases.
Coordinate efforts among vendors to determine the mutual requirements and to define API.
Utilize SQL to support data-driven analysis and decision processes to inform project prioritization, assess feature effectiveness, and troubleshoot issues.

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.

Lead product developer vs product owner skills

Common lead product developer skills

Lifecycle Management, 27%
Java, 9%
Product Development, 8%
Project Management, 7%
R, 6%
Product Management, 3%

Common product owner skills

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