Production engineering manager vs engineering director

The differences between production engineering managers and engineering directors can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes More than 10 years to become both a production engineering manager and an engineering director. Additionally, an engineering director has an average salary of $162,252, which is higher than the $96,688 average annual salary of a production engineering manager.

The top three skills for a production engineering manager include production engineering, continuous improvement and R. The most important skills for an engineering director are java, architecture, and infrastructure.

Production engineering manager vs engineering director overview

	Production Engineering Manager	Engineering Director
Yearly salary	$96,688	$162,252
Hourly rate	$46.48	$78.01
Growth rate	2%	2%
Number of jobs	123,344	63,868
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age	48	48
Years of experience	-	-

What does a production engineering manager do?

Most of the production engineering managers oversee the designing and planning methods to improve existing programs. Part of their duties is to review budgets, production requirements, and schedules to determine the most cost-effective methods of obtaining necessary resources. These managers recommend revisions to schedules, monetary resource allocations, and production requirements. They act as an advisor to the production engineering teams about tasks, projects, and operations. Production engineering managers must be capable of resolving escalated concerns from operations and requiring coordination with other departments.

What does an engineering director do?

An engineering director or director of engineering is an individual who manages a team of engineering managers and coordinates all the engineering activities within the organization. Engineering directors work closely with the organization's executives to develop new strategies to reduce unnecessary costs and time to complete their projects. They must understand and interpret complex sets of data such as profits, losses, or value of liabilities to identify problems and come up with solutions. Engineering directors must also ensure that safety protocols are implemented in the workforce.

Production engineering manager vs engineering director salary

Production engineering managers and engineering directors have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Production Engineering Manager	Engineering Director
Average salary	$96,688	$162,252
Salary range	Between $68,000 And $135,000	Between $109,000 And $239,000
Highest paying City	Menlo Park, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	California	California
Best paying company	Meta	Brookfield Properties
Best paying industry	Energy	Technology

Differences between production engineering manager and engineering director education

There are a few differences between a production engineering manager and an engineering director in terms of educational background:

	Production Engineering Manager	Engineering Director
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common major	Mechanical Engineering	Electrical Engineering
Most common college	University of Michigan - Ann Arbor	University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Production engineering manager vs engineering director demographics

Here are the differences between production engineering managers' and engineering directors' demographics:

	Production Engineering Manager	Engineering Director
Average age	48	48
Gender ratio	Male, 94.4% Female, 5.6%	Male, 94.6% Female, 5.4%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 11.8% White, 71.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 3.2% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 9.1% Asian, 13.1% White, 69.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	9%	9%

Differences between production engineering manager and engineering director duties and responsibilities

Production engineering manager example responsibilities.

Establish KPI s per processes to assure the objectives accomplish.
Manage product allocation and inventory through MRP software and communicate technical specifications.
Manage state-of-the-art extrusion plant with single screw and twin screw technology and co-extrusion capability.
Manage workflow and oversee strict cleanroom operations, assuring compliance with FDA specifications including labeling and packaging traceability.
Manage QA for research orient development efforts and for high visibility, production focuse development efforts tie to revenue generation.
Prepare KPI reports and present at executive meetings.

Engineering director example responsibilities.

Monitor and manage performance base on multiple KPI's.
Manage all FCC filings for the registration of license frequencies.
Improve network reliability and manage signal leakage and FCC compliance.
Lead implementation and remediation efforts to ensure HIPPA, SOX, and PCI compliance.
Manage a team to develop and support SaaS base access control product for health care industry.
Manage release and deployments for multiple, concurrent Java project across varying release cycles from inception to delivery.

Production engineering manager vs engineering director skills

Common production engineering manager skills

Production Engineering, 17%
Continuous Improvement, 7%
R, 5%
Lean Manufacturing, 5%
Process Improvement, 5%
Sigma, 4%

Common engineering director skills

Java, 7%
Architecture, 7%
Infrastructure, 6%
AWS, 5%
Project Management, 5%
Customer Service, 4%

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Production Engineering Manager
Production Engineering Manager vs Engineering Director

Updated January 8, 2025

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