What does a Senior Engineering Manager do?
Senior engineering managers are the leaders who oversee and supervise a team of engineers. These executives are the ones who develop, modify, create, and test solutions to technical-related problems. They direct and coordinate the production, quality assurance, maintenance, operations, or testing in industrial plants. It is part of their job to handle the research and development of new procedures and products. They are also involved in improving the advance scientific research and manufacturing processes of the company.
Senior engineering manager responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real senior engineering manager resumes:
- Lead PCB design activities for achieving signal integrity and EMC/EMI compliances.
- Manage and lead technical NPI cross-functional team, focal contact and liaison for manufacturing supply chain.
- Direct and manage all FEA & CFD activities including hardware and software system activities.
- Promote lead engineer to manage new internal SDLC, cutting bug-fix time from weeks to days.
- Manage all aspects of geotechnical engineering projects from proposal preparation to review of invoices and collection of fees.
- Develop quotes and proposals, track budgets and headcount needs, and manage outsourcing of high-volume PCB or tester builds.
- Engineer advanced keyword API module.
- Develop site with PHP, MySQL and Javascript
- Export data to facilitate creating separate DNS database.
- Oversee the geotechnical engineering group and supervise staff personnel.
- Evolve the API over time to permit new features.
- Act as product manager and scrum master for development teams.
- Founded and implement the DevOps discipline for the product group.
- Deliver company s first Linux OS for a file server blade.
- Create a high performance compute pipeline for video processing using Hadoop.
Senior engineering manager skills and personality traits
We calculated that 11% of Senior Engineering Managers are proficient in Java, Architecture, and Cloud. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Communication skills, and Detail oriented.
We break down the percentage of Senior Engineering Managers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Java, 11%
Managed small team of Java developers to design and develop custom applications supporting Conditional Access and Interactive TV applications.
- Architecture, 8%
Participated in a yearlong process consisting of the market analysis, customer validation, product requirements and architecture definition.
- Cloud, 7%
Provided information assurance expertise to the certification and accreditation of Cloud -technology and various Cross Domain Solutions.
- Infrastructure, 7%
Ensured system requirement satisfaction which included the development and support of 5 infrastructure development and test platforms/environments and two operational environments.
- Software Development, 5%
Planned, staffed, budgeted and directed object-oriented and distributed n-tier software development efforts for various customer-care applications.
- Project Management, 5%
Performed contract management, vendor management, order management, project management, inventory management, and probe network quality control.
Common skills that a senior engineering manager uses to do their job include "java," "architecture," and "cloud." You can find details on the most important senior engineering manager responsibilities below.
Analytical skills. One of the key soft skills for a senior engineering manager to have is analytical skills. You can see how this relates to what senior engineering managers do because "architectural and engineering managers evaluate information to solve problems." Additionally, a senior engineering manager resume shows how senior engineering managers use analytical skills: "included reduced representations and data visualization while in research in service to highly available 5ess. "
Communication skills. Many senior engineering manager duties rely on communication skills. "architectural and engineering managers must effectively convey information and expectations related to projects.," so a senior engineering manager will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways senior engineering manager responsibilities rely on communication skills: "provide engineering and product development services to clients in the consumer electronics, aerospace, telecommunications, utilities and automation industries. "
Math skills. A big part of what senior engineering managers do relies on "math skills." You can see how essential it is to senior engineering manager responsibilities because "architectural and engineering managers use calculus and other mathematics to develop new products and processes." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical senior engineering manager tasks: "analyzed and translated quantitative and qualitative data from web analytics tools into an actionable seo plan. "
Organizational skills. Another crucial skill for a senior engineering manager to carry out their responsibilities is "organizational skills." A big part of what senior engineering managers relies on this skill, since "architectural and engineering managers keep track of many workers, schedules, and budgets simultaneously." How this skill relates to senior engineering manager duties can be seen in an example from a senior engineering manager resume snippet: "managed organizational activities for the hardware, software, program management and development test of a very successful product line. "
The three companies that hire the most senior engineering managers are:
Choose from 10+ customizable senior engineering manager resume templates
Build a professional senior engineering manager resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your senior engineering manager resume.Compare different senior engineering managers
Senior engineering manager vs. Research and development director
A research and development director spearheads and oversees the research and development initiatives and projects in a company. It is their duty to set goals and guidelines, establish timelines and budgets, direct and manage different departments, liaise with internal and external parties, gather and analyze data to implement solutions against problem areas, and utilize expertise in developing strategies to optimize company operations. Moreover, as a director, it is essential to lead and encourage the workforce to reach goals, all while promoting the company's policies and regulations, creating new ones as needed.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between senior engineering managers and research and development director. For instance, senior engineering manager responsibilities require skills such as "architecture," "cloud," "infrastructure," and "sr." Whereas a research and development director is skilled in "oversight," "strategic direction," "due diligence," and "intellectual property." This is part of what separates the two careers.
Research and development directors tend to make the most money working in the finance industry, where they earn an average salary of $167,250. In contrast, senior engineering managers make the biggest average salary, $160,722, in the telecommunication industry.On average, research and development directors reach similar levels of education than senior engineering managers. Research and development directors are 2.7% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 9.8% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Senior engineering manager vs. Research and development manager
A research and development manager is responsible for supervising project development procedures to support business operations and identify business opportunities that would pave the way for more revenue resources and profits. Research and development managers monitor the production plans from the conceptualization to the final outputs, inspecting inconsistencies and flaws in every phase and revising strategies as needed to achieve the required specifications and requirements. They delegate tasks to the staff, oversee progress, and conduct research and development programs to maximize productivity and team efforts.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real senior engineering manager resumes. While senior engineering manager responsibilities can utilize skills like "architecture," "cloud," "infrastructure," and "software development," research and development managers use skills like "customer service," "patients," "c #," and "rd."
On average, research and development managers earn a lower salary than senior engineering managers. Some industries support higher salaries in each profession. Interestingly enough, research and development managers earn the most pay in the professional industry with an average salary of $143,083. Whereas senior engineering managers have higher pay in the telecommunication industry, with an average salary of $160,722.Average education levels between the two professions vary. Research and development managers tend to reach similar levels of education than senior engineering managers. In fact, they're 3.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 9.8% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for Senior Engineering Managers in the next 3-5 years?
Dr. Galen Duree
Head of the Department of Physics and Optical Engineering and Professor, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Senior engineering manager vs. Design manager
A design manager is responsible for creating graphic and digital designs, following clients' specifications, and managing project deliverables efficiently. Design managers work closely with the marketing and public relations department, developing strategies to promote the brand to the target audience. They coordinate with the creative team and present the design ideas to the management, ask for final approval, perform revisions as needed, and follow the budget goals. A design manager must have excellent communication and leadership skills to handle the design team's concerns and needs.
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, senior engineering managers are more likely to have skills like "java," "architecture," "cloud," and "infrastructure." But a design manager is more likely to have skills like "sketch," "user experience," "powerpoint," and "design process."
Design managers make a very good living in the technology industry with an average annual salary of $121,279. On the other hand, senior engineering managers are paid the highest salary in the telecommunication industry, with average annual pay of $160,722.design managers typically earn lower educational levels compared to senior engineering managers. Specifically, they're 12.0% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 1.7% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Senior engineering manager vs. Vice president of engineering
A Vice President Of Engineering manages all aspects of the company's engineering product development activities. They are responsible for strategic planning, production designing, quality assurance, and problem resolution.
Even though a few skill sets overlap between senior engineering managers and vice presidents of engineering, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a senior engineering manager might have more use for skills like "sr," "continuous improvement," "digital transformation," and "debugging." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of vice presidents of engineering require skills like "python," "aws," "ul," and "customer service. "
Vice presidents of engineering enjoy the best pay in the technology industry, with an average salary of $141,200. For comparison, senior engineering managers earn the highest salary in the telecommunication industry.The average resume of vice presidents of engineering showed that they earn similar levels of education compared to senior engineering managers. So much so that theyacirc;euro;trade;re 2.7% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 0.9%.Types of senior engineering manager
Updated January 8, 2025