Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between senior product developers and systems developers 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 systems developer takes usually requires 4-6 years. Additionally, a senior product developer has an average salary of $114,125, which is higher than the $97,230 average annual salary of a systems developer.
The top three skills for a senior product developer include product development, java and AWS. The most important skills for a systems developer are java, python, and C++.
| Senior Product Developer | Systems Developer | |
| Yearly salary | $114,125 | $97,230 |
| Hourly rate | $54.87 | $46.75 |
| Growth rate | 21% | 9% |
| Number of jobs | 212,955 | 322,419 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 68% |
| Average age | 39 | 43 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 6 |
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 Systems Developer is responsible for designing and creating software applications and server programs to support business requirements and client specifications. System Developers run multiple diagnostic tests to the systems to ensure performance and stability and revise scripts for optimization as needed. They also evaluate and improve existing networks, develop infrastructure, and set configuration. A Systems Developer must have excellent communication and technical skills, as well as a strong command of programming languages and system codes to identify network structures and operating systems.
Senior product developers and systems developers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Product Developer | Systems Developer | |
| Average salary | $114,125 | $97,230 |
| Salary range | Between $87,000 And $148,000 | Between $73,000 And $129,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | Massachusetts |
| Best paying company | Hotel Tonight, Inc. | Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld |
| Best paying industry | Retail | Hospitality |
There are a few differences between a senior product developer and a systems developer in terms of educational background:
| Senior Product Developer | Systems 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 systems developers' demographics:
| Senior Product Developer | Systems Developer | |
| Average age | 39 | 43 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 57.2% Female, 42.8% | Male, 76.5% Female, 23.5% |
| 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, 10.0% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 10.9% Asian, 16.6% White, 57.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 8% | 8% |