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The differences between senior product developers and lead developers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a senior product developer and a lead developer. Additionally, a lead developer has an average salary of $116,340, which is higher than the $114,125 average annual salary of a senior product developer.
The top three skills for a senior product developer include product development, java and AWS. The most important skills for a lead developer are java, javascript, and architecture.
| Senior Product Developer | Lead Developer | |
| Yearly salary | $114,125 | $116,340 |
| Hourly rate | $54.87 | $55.93 |
| Growth rate | 21% | 21% |
| Number of jobs | 212,955 | 274,208 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 68% |
| Average age | 39 | 39 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 4 |
A senior product developer leads product development activities to deliver quality products. In this role, they are in charge of delivering assigned project portfolios within the development plan through liaison with external and internal stakeholders. Their responsibilities include ensuring effective management of budgets, tracking of product development activities within the projects assigned to the team, promoting technical guidance to the production team in ensuring appropriate level support, managing specific product development activities across the supply chain, and integrating and promoting a positive working environment for the development team.
A lead developer is responsible for creating software programs and applications, following the client and the business's software quality standards and design specifications. Lead developers assist a team of developers in implementing strategic procedures, managing system codes, debugging applications, running diagnostic tests, and troubleshooting defects to ensure its smooth performance. They also respond to clients' inquiries and concerns, performing feature adjustments as needed. A lead developer must have strong knowledge of the technology industry and command on programming languages and software design processes.
Senior product developers and lead developers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Product Developer | Lead Developer | |
| Average salary | $114,125 | $116,340 |
| Salary range | Between $87,000 And $148,000 | Between $83,000 And $161,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | Hotel Tonight, Inc. | Mayo Clinic |
| Best paying industry | Retail | Retail |
There are a few differences between a senior product developer and a lead developer in terms of educational background:
| Senior Product Developer | Lead Developer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 68% |
| Most common major | Computer Science | Computer Science |
| Most common college | Stanford University | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Here are the differences between senior product developers' and lead developers' demographics:
| Senior Product Developer | Lead Developer | |
| Average age | 39 | 39 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 57.2% Female, 42.8% | Male, 76.4% Female, 23.6% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 4.6% Unknown, 4.9% Hispanic or Latino, 8.4% Asian, 29.8% White, 52.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% | Black or African American, 4.5% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 8.2% Asian, 29.9% White, 52.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 8% | 8% |