As the name implies, a senior engineering manager is an executive position within the engineering department of a company or an organization whose role is to lead the team in conceiving, building, and providing some sort of product or service, usually in a digital format.
The person in this role is responsible for managing projects in a way that garners a productive but healthy work environment without straying from the given budget or timeline, for the experimentation and development of new products and processes, and the hiring and the subsequent training of new employees. They must also report progress to higher management and even stakeholders.
An individual hoping to begin working as a Senior Engineering Manager will most likely need to have a Bachelor's degree, or even a Master's, in a subject related to Engineering, as well as several years of experience, at least, in software development, cloud computing, and programming languages such as Javascript.
Senior Engineering Manager Overview
Working as a Senior Engineering Manager
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior engineering manager. For example, did you know that they make an average of $72.39 an hour? That's $150,564 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 Senior Engineering Manager Do
There are certain skills that many senior 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.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior engineering manager, we found that a lot of resumes listed 7.7% of senior engineering managers included cloud, while 7.7% of resumes included architecture, and 7.3% of resumes included project management. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the senior engineering manager job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior engineering managers actually find jobs in the technology and manufacturing industries.
How To Become a Senior Engineering Manager
If you're interested in becoming a senior engineering manager, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 40.2% of senior engineering managers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 42.5% of senior engineering managers have master's degrees. Even though most senior engineering managers have a college degree, it's possible 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 senior engineering manager. When we researched the most common majors for a senior engineering manager, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior engineering manager resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior engineering manager. In fact, many senior engineering manager jobs require experience in a role such as engineering manager. Meanwhile, many senior engineering managers also have previous career experience in roles such as project engineer or senior engineer.
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Senior Engineering Manager Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of senior project manager you might progress to a role such as senior program operations manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title senior program operations manager.
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Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Senior Engineering Manager
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
United Services Automobile Association (USAA) Senior Manager, Data Engineering Senior Manager, Data Engineering | United Services Automobile Association (USAA) United Services Automobile Association (USAA) | 01/27/2021 01/27/2021 | $97,20001/27/2021 $97,200 |
Charter Spectrum SR. Manager, Wireless Engineering SR. Manager, Wireless Engineering | Charter Spectrum Charter Spectrum | 01/26/2021 01/26/2021 | $90,60001/26/2021 $90,600 |
Ball Corporation Senior Engineering Manager-Payload Analysis Senior Engineering Manager-Payload Analysis | Ball Corporation Ball Corporation | 01/23/2021 01/23/2021 | $166,50001/23/2021 $166,500 |
Ball Corporation/Ball Aerospace Senior Engineering Manager-Payload Chief Engineers Senior Engineering Manager-Payload Chief Engineers | Ball Corporation/Ball Aerospace Ball Corporation/Ball Aerospace | 01/22/2021 01/22/2021 | $166,50001/22/2021 $166,500 |
Dish Network Corporation Senior Manager of Traffic Engineering Senior Manager of Traffic Engineering | Dish Network Corporation Dish Network Corporation | 01/22/2021 01/22/2021 | $99,90001/22/2021 $99,900 |
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Senior Engineering Manager Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Senior Engineering Manager. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Senior Engineering Manager Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Senior Engineering Manager resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Senior Engineering Managers
1. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI • Public
2. Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA • Public
3. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
4. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
5. Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA • Public
6. University of Washington
Seattle, WA • Public
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 • Public
Top Skills For a Senior 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, 7.7% of senior engineering managers listed cloud on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and communication skills are important as well.
- Cloud, 7.7%
- Architecture, 7.7%
- Project Management, 7.3%
- Software Development, 6.8%
- Infrastructure, 6.7%
- Other Skills, 63.8% See All Senior Engineering Manager Skills
Best States For a Senior Engineering Manager
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior engineering manager. The best states for people in this position are Alaska, California, Washington, and Louisiana. Senior engineering managers make the most in Alaska with an average salary of $177,668. Whereas in California and Washington, they would average $177,629 and $157,551, respectively. While senior engineering managers would only make an average of $156,196 in Louisiana, 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
$177,630
Avg. Salary
2. Washington
$157,551
Avg. Salary
3. Massachusetts
$150,014
Avg. Salary
How Do Senior Engineering Manager Rate Their Jobs?
Top Senior 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 senior engineering managers and discovered their number of senior engineering manager opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Rockwell Collins was the best, especially with an average salary of $146,988. Cisco Systems follows up with an average salary of $171,761, and then comes Lockheed Martin with an average of $146,681. 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 senior engineering manager. The employers include Dell, Kronos, and U.S. Bank
Senior Engineering Manager Videos
