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Senior lead project engineer vs staff engineer

The differences between senior lead project engineers and staff engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 2-4 years to become a senior lead project engineer, becoming a staff engineer takes usually requires 4-6 years. Additionally, a staff engineer has an average salary of $107,530, which is higher than the $102,402 average annual salary of a senior lead project engineer.

The top three skills for a senior lead project engineer include risk management, R and product development. The most important skills for a staff engineer are java, python, and architecture.

Senior lead project engineer vs staff engineer overview

Senior Lead Project EngineerStaff Engineer
Yearly salary$102,402$107,530
Hourly rate$49.23$51.70
Growth rate10%2%
Number of jobs128,828277,011
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 72%Bachelor's Degree, 74%
Average age4241
Years of experience46

Senior lead project engineer vs staff engineer salary

Senior lead project engineers and staff engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Lead Project EngineerStaff Engineer
Average salary$102,402$107,530
Salary rangeBetween $78,000 And $133,000Between $69,000 And $167,000
Highest paying CityBellevue, WASan Mateo, CA
Highest paying stateWashingtonCalifornia
Best paying companyASML HoldingFlexport
Best paying industryFinanceTelecommunication

Differences between senior lead project engineer and staff engineer education

There are a few differences between a senior lead project engineer and a staff engineer in terms of educational background:

Senior Lead Project EngineerStaff Engineer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 72%Bachelor's Degree, 74%
Most common majorMechanical EngineeringElectrical Engineering
Most common collegeNorthwestern UniversityMassachusetts Institute of Technology

Senior lead project engineer vs staff engineer demographics

Here are the differences between senior lead project engineers' and staff engineers' demographics:

Senior Lead Project EngineerStaff Engineer
Average age4241
Gender ratioMale, 86.3% Female, 13.7%Male, 87.9% Female, 12.1%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 4.3% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 10.5% Asian, 15.3% White, 65.9% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%Black or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.8% Asian, 16.8% White, 67.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%
LGBT Percentage4%5%

Differences between senior lead project engineer and staff engineer duties and responsibilities

Senior lead project engineer example responsibilities.

  • Manage BOM to support staff and AS400 applications.
  • Manage the manufacturing of defense and aerospace electro-mechanical print circuit boards from prototype to production level.
  • Work with the enterprise architecture team to assess and resolve issues relating to enterprise wide deployment and QA involvement.
  • Design and develop prototype and production line tooling using Solidworks and AutoCad.
  • Develop detailed construction drawing sets for solar PV projects using AutoCAD, including mechanical equipment, electrical and structural installation.
  • Conduct geotechnical and environmental subsurface investigations.

Staff engineer example responsibilities.

  • Manage complete design flow: schematic creation, layout design, PCB fabrication, parts procurement and assembly.
  • Develop and manage technical procedures for quality control to comply with ISO laboratory accreditation.
  • Implement a process for reusing SilverStream Java custom reports and UI code on a ColdFusion server saving 1.5 man-years of development.
  • Develop and document communication stack API, enabling parallel development of third-party stack and UI interface.
  • Participate in relocating network infrastructure, server farm, network monitoring and IP telephony to another data center.
  • Web pages contain HTML and JavaScript.
  • Show more

Senior lead project engineer vs staff engineer skills

Common senior lead project engineer skills
  • Risk Management, 17%
  • R, 13%
  • Product Development, 11%
  • Technical Issues, 9%
  • QA, 5%
  • HVAC, 4%
Common staff engineer skills
  • Java, 15%
  • Python, 10%
  • Architecture, 7%
  • Software Development, 4%
  • Project Management, 4%
  • API, 3%

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