Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between senior product developers and product owners 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 product developer, becoming a product owner takes usually requires 8-10 years. Additionally, a senior product developer has an average salary of $114,125, which is higher than the $97,070 average annual salary of a product owner.
The top three skills for a senior product developer include product development, java and AWS. The most important skills for a product owner are user stories, acceptance criteria, and product backlog.
| Senior Product Developer | Product Owner | |
| Yearly salary | $114,125 | $97,070 |
| Hourly rate | $54.87 | $46.67 |
| Growth rate | 21% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 212,955 | 129,990 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Average age | 39 | 39 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 10 |
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.
Product owners are at the forefront of an organization's development cycle. They have various duties and responsibilities, which include ensuring that the value of products created by the development team is maximized, creating a vision and defining the goals for development projects, and working closely with all stakeholders. As the product owner, you are responsible for ensuring that the development team maintains a consistent vision and overseeing the product backlog. You are also expected to supervise the actual product development stages and anticipate the needs of clients.
Senior product developers and product owners have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Product Developer | Product Owner | |
| Average salary | $114,125 | $97,070 |
| Salary range | Between $87,000 And $148,000 | Between $71,000 And $130,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | Hotel Tonight, Inc. | ORIX USA |
| Best paying industry | Retail | Manufacturing |
There are a few differences between a senior product developer and a product owner in terms of educational background:
| Senior Product Developer | Product Owner | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Most common major | Computer Science | Business |
| Most common college | Stanford University | University of Georgia |
Here are the differences between senior product developers' and product owners' demographics:
| Senior Product Developer | Product Owner | |
| Average age | 39 | 39 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 57.2% Female, 42.8% | Male, 64.3% Female, 35.7% |
| 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, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 8% | 10% |