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What is a senior product specialist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025
4 min read
Quoted expert
Sachin Tuli

A senior product specialist oversees all the stages in the product development life cycle. You could work in a technological company or, quite commonly, a pharmaceutical company, but your duties remain the same. Your job is to ensure a product moves from its planning stage into the hands of the end-user.

You will work closely with the marketing and sales team, lead all sales activities, conduct research to identify new markets, create proposals, negotiate deals, manage leads, and ensure the production process runs smoothly. You will be required to manage a consumer database and maintain good relationships with your customers.

An average senior product specialist earns about $50.92 per hour, which amounts to $105,909 annually. Excellent communication skills, product management, sales, and marketing all make indispensable skills for any good senior product specialist. The most commonly required educational qualification is a bachelor's degree, and the most common fields of study are business, marketing, and finance.

What's a day at work look like for a senior product specialist?

Sachin TuliSachin Tuli LinkedIn profile

Director, International Business Major, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The pandemic accelerated ongoing shifts with work-from-anywhere and use of remote meeting technologies. With mass adoption at all levels, these trends are likely to persist to some degree across fields and industries. There will likely be less travel for a number of years, but concurrently we may see more cross-team and cross-national collaboration and coordination. From an international business perspective, firms do plan to continue their globalization efforts and we know that graduates themselves increasingly seek potential global opportunities and mobility when choosing which organizations to work for.
ScoreSenior Product SpecialistUS Average
Salary
7.9

Avg. Salary $112,464

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level
4.9

Growth rate 19%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity
3.0
Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.13%

Asian 13.37%

Black or African American 4.96%

Hispanic or Latino 11.82%

Unknown 4.95%

White 64.77%

Gender

female 34.00%

male 66.00%

Age - 34
Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 34
Stress level
4.9

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level
8.2

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance
4.6

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Senior product specialist career paths

Key steps to become a senior product specialist

  1. Explore senior product specialist education requirements

    Most common senior product specialist degrees

    Bachelor's

    70.1 %

    Associate

    12.8 %

    Master's

    10.6 %
  2. Start to develop specific senior product specialist skills

    SkillsPercentages
    Product Management8.18%
    Healthcare7.69%
    PowerPoint6.27%
    Product Development5.98%
    Market Research3.67%
  3. Complete relevant senior product specialist training and internships

    Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior product specialists learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a senior product specialist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior product specialist resumes.
  4. Research senior product specialist duties and responsibilities

    • Demonstrate proficiency in handling forecasting of market demands while simultaneously managing OEM supplier relationships
    • Lead expert team that prove feasibility of manufacturing green elastomeric nonwovens by reactive extrusion.
    • Work with QA team to do application testing.
    • Compose responses to numerous FDA medical reviewer questions.
  5. Get senior product specialist experience

    Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a senior product specialist. The most common roles before becoming a senior product specialist include sales representative, product specialist team lead and consultant.
  6. Prepare your senior product specialist resume

    When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior product specialist resume.

    You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a senior product specialist resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

    Choose from 10+ customizable senior product specialist resume templates

    Build a professional senior product specialist resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your senior product specialist resume.
    Senior Product Specialist Resume
    Senior Product Specialist Resume
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    Senior Product Specialist Resume
    Senior Product Specialist Resume
    Senior Product Specialist Resume
    Senior Product Specialist Resume
    Senior Product Specialist Resume
    Senior Product Specialist Resume
  7. Apply for senior product specialist jobs

    Now it's time to start searching for a senior product specialist job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

    1. Browse job boards for relevant postings
    2. Consult your professional network
    3. Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
    4. Watch out for job scams

How did you land your first senior product specialist job

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Average senior product specialist salary

The average senior product specialist salary in the United States is $112,464 per year or $54 per hour. Senior product specialist salaries range between $82,000 and $153,000 per year.

Average senior product specialist salary
$112,464 Yearly
$54.07 hourly

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Senior product specialist reviews

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A zippia user wrote a review on Dec 2019
Cons

simply wasting time


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A zippia user wrote a review on Jul 2019
Pros

TheBeing a Product Specialist your main job description is to work very closely with technical engineers, designer, product analysts and customers to improve company's product inline to customer's feedback or studying or keeping eye on competitor's products to put more and more diversity, more features/options into your product(s) for higher selling points, studying market dynamics to analyze ways for gaining more market share for your product, analyzing day to day digital marketing practices and to implement them in collaboration with sales team for more higher sales. Except this all you would also be given management/monitoring jobs from time to time this might includes managing customer support team, sales team etc.

Cons

The Being a Product Specialist your main job description is to work very closely with technical engineers, designer, product analysts and customers to improve company's product inline to customer's feedback or studying or keeping eye on competitor's products to put more and more diversity, more features/options into your product(s) for higher selling points, studying market dynamics to analyze ways for gaining more market share for your product, analyzing day to day digital marketing practices and to implement them in collaboration with sales team for more higher sales. Except this all you would also be given management/monitoring jobs from time to time this might includes managing customer support team, sales team etc.


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Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

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