Product engineering is the process of designing and producing a device. A product engineering manager, therefore, is the one who coordinates all the production processes, from designing to assembling to the actual production process.
Their responsibility is to review new product designs, analyze the cost implications, and oversee every requirement for the product to be made. After meeting the requirements, they then approve production. Every part of the production process is handled by the product engineering manager, as they verify every aspect. By implication, no technical work is executed without their lead.
A product engineering manager must possess a degree in engineering and years of experience as a product engineer before they can qualify to be a product engineering manager. Other skills they should have include strong leadership skills, interpersonal skills, and communication skills
How to Become a Product Engineering Manager
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a product engineering manager. For example, did you know that they make an average of $66.23 an hour? That's $137,758 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 5,400 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Product Engineering Manager Do
There are certain skills that many product engineering managers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, communication skills and detail oriented.
How To Become a Product Engineering Manager
If you're interested in becoming a product engineering manager, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 70.1% of product engineering managers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 19.6% of product engineering managers have master's degrees. Even though most product engineering managers have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a product engineering manager. When we researched the most common majors for a product engineering manager, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on product engineering manager resumes include associate degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a product engineering manager. In fact, many product engineering manager jobs require experience in a role such as product engineer. Meanwhile, many product engineering managers also have previous career experience in roles such as project engineer or engineering manager.
Product Engineering Manager Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a product engineering manager can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as engineering manager, progress to a title such as quality manager and then eventually end up with the title supplier quality manager.
Average Salary for a Product Engineering Manager
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Product Engineering Managers
1. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI • Private
2. Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA • Private
3. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
4. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
5. Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA • Private
6. University of Washington
Seattle, WA • Private
7. Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY • Private
8. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
9. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
10. California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo, CA • Private
Top Skills For a Product Engineering Manager
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 8.6% of product engineering managers listed project management on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and communication skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Product Engineering Manager Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Product Engineering Manager templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Product Engineering Manager resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Product Engineering Manager Demographics
Product Engineering Manager Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among product engineering managers, 8.3% of them are women, while 91.7% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among product engineering managers is White, which makes up 75.2% of all product engineering managers.
- The most common foreign language among product engineering managers is Spanish at 29.4%.
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Best States For a Product Engineering Manager
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a product engineering manager. The best states for people in this position are California, Louisiana, Oregon, and Nevada. Product engineering managers make the most in California with an average salary of $157,663. Whereas in Louisiana and Oregon, they would average $144,379 and $139,866, respectively. While product engineering managers would only make an average of $135,936 in Nevada, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. California
$157,663
Avg. Salary
2. Oregon
$139,866
Avg. Salary
3. Rhode Island
$128,657
Avg. Salary
How Do Product Engineering Manager Rate Their Jobs?
Top Product Engineering Manager Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ product engineering managers and discovered their number of product engineering manager opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Cisco Systems was the best, especially with an average salary of $155,328. Alteryx follows up with an average salary of $102,023, and then comes Texas Instruments with an average of $157,140. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a product engineering manager. The employers include Cisco, Siemens, and Siemens Enterprise Communications Inc
Most Common Employers For Product Engineering Manager
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NVIDIA | $175,518 | $84.38 | 10 |
| 2 | Intel | $175,240 | $84.25 | 18 |
| 3 | National Semiconductor | $166,233 | $79.92 | 7 |
| 4 | Texas Instruments | $157,140 | $75.55 | 34 |
| 5 | Cisco | $155,328 | $74.68 | 110 |
| 6 | IBM | $151,923 | $73.04 | 16 |
| 7 | Salesforce | $150,593 | $72.40 | 7 |
| 8 | Honeywell | $139,910 | $67.26 | 10 |
| 9 | Cypress Semiconductor | $139,484 | $67.06 | 9 |
| 10 | Hewlett Packard Enterprise | $138,745 | $66.70 | 25 |
Product Engineering Manager Videos
