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The differences between senior product managers and product owners can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 8-10 years to become both a senior product manager and a product owner. Additionally, a senior product manager has an average salary of $133,868, which is higher than the $97,070 average annual salary of a product owner.
The top three skills for a senior product manager include product management, cloud and product strategy. The most important skills for a product owner are user stories, acceptance criteria, and product backlog.
| Senior Product Manager | Product Owner | |
| Yearly salary | $133,868 | $97,070 |
| Hourly rate | $64.36 | $46.67 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 119,025 | 129,990 |
| Job satisfaction | 4 | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 72% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Average age | 39 | 39 |
| Years of experience | 10 | 10 |
A senior product manager oversees the workflow and workforce involved in product and service development, ensuring a high return for its investments. They are primarily responsible for assessing and providing recommendations, producing review and reference documents, and obtaining feedback from consumers and high-ranking company personnel. Furthermore, as a senior product manager, they must lead a group of product managers, motivating and supervising them in their joint effort to accomplish goals according to the company's standards and policies.
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 managers and product owners have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Product Manager | Product Owner | |
| Average salary | $133,868 | $97,070 |
| Salary range | Between $98,000 And $182,000 | Between $71,000 And $130,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | Roku | ORIX USA |
| Best paying industry | Start-up | Manufacturing |
There are a few differences between a senior product manager and a product owner in terms of educational background:
| Senior Product Manager | Product Owner | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 72% | Bachelor's Degree, 67% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | University of Georgia | University of Georgia |
Here are the differences between senior product managers' and product owners' demographics:
| Senior Product Manager | Product Owner | |
| Average age | 39 | 39 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 68.5% Female, 31.5% | Male, 64.3% Female, 35.7% |
| Race ratio | 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% | 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 | 10% | 10% |