Post job

Senior technical program manager vs project manager

The differences between senior technical program managers and project managers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a senior technical program manager has an average salary of $137,188, which is higher than the $91,578 average annual salary of a project manager.

The top three skills for a senior technical program manager include technical program, program management and project management. The most important skills for a project manager are project management, project scope, and customer service.

Senior technical program manager vs project manager overview

Senior Technical Program ManagerProject Manager
Yearly salary$137,188$91,578
Hourly rate$65.96$44.03
Growth rate16%8%
Number of jobs252,894167,116
Job satisfaction-4.17
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 67%Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Average age4747
Years of experience8-

What does a senior technical program manager do?

A senior technical program manager is responsible for handling the overall development of technical project processes from the initial conceptualization to the completion. Senior technical program managers lead the development team, implementing strategic procedures to maintain the efficiency and accuracy of the output, as well as developing quality control techniques to spot inconsistencies and system failures. They also monitor the current technology trends, identify cost-reduction resources, and research on technical opportunities that would bring more revenues and increase the company's profitability.

What does a project manager do?

Project managers oversee a specific project related to the organization's business. They manage the whole project from inception to evaluation. They initiate planning with involved departments, follow-through on the plans, ensure smooth execution of the plans, and evaluate the project for further improvements should these be needed. In line with this, project managers also ensure that the project is cost-efficient and well within the budget. They also manage the different work teams involved in the project and ensure that things are running smoothly on this aspect as well.

Senior technical program manager vs project manager salary

Senior technical program managers and project managers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior Technical Program ManagerProject Manager
Average salary$137,188$91,578
Salary rangeBetween $102,000 And $184,000Between $64,000 And $129,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyRokuThe Citadel
Best paying industryReal EstateTechnology

Differences between senior technical program manager and project manager education

There are a few differences between a senior technical program manager and a project manager in terms of educational background:

Senior Technical Program ManagerProject Manager
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 67%Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Most common majorBusinessBusiness
Most common collegeStanford UniversityUniversity of Pennsylvania

Senior technical program manager vs project manager demographics

Here are the differences between senior technical program managers' and project managers' demographics:

Senior Technical Program ManagerProject Manager
Average age4747
Gender ratioMale, 74.7% Female, 25.3%Male, 68.9% Female, 31.1%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 5.9% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 8.9% Asian, 18.7% White, 61.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%Black or African American, 7.7% Unknown, 4.7% Hispanic or Latino, 12.9% Asian, 9.0% White, 65.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%
LGBT Percentage11%10%

Differences between senior technical program manager and project manager duties and responsibilities

Senior technical program manager example responsibilities.

  • Lead application development and architecture in a large scale environment that manage company's mortgage financial data.
  • Conduct daily scrum meetings with agile teams to manage scope, schedules, and budgets.
  • Manage deployment of DynMRO SaaS solution to every program which include the overall release and versioning control.
  • Plan, manage, and contribute to full SDLC of transaction processing tools (e-Commerce and POS).
  • Manage test execution across all stages of testing (QA, integration, performance, UAT and for operational readiness).
  • Manage integration of bank acquisition ATM infrastructure into corporate core.
  • Show more

Project manager example responsibilities.

  • Schedule and manage the GCP audit process.
  • Define, develop and manage metrics and KPIs systems for new product business group.
  • Manage the application process for the FDA medical device, minority and small business certifications.
  • Manage multiple projects and resources simultaneously while mentoring, coaching and implementing best practices, SOX and HIPAA compliance standards.
  • Lead teams using the Informatica ETL tool for the design and development of multiple financial and risk enterprise data warehouses.
  • Administer and manage Salesforce requirements.
  • Show more

Senior technical program manager vs project manager skills

Common senior technical program manager skills
  • Technical Program, 10%
  • Program Management, 9%
  • Project Management, 8%
  • Cloud, 7%
  • Software Development, 6%
  • Infrastructure, 5%
Common project manager skills
  • Project Management, 23%
  • Project Scope, 6%
  • Customer Service, 6%
  • Infrastructure, 5%
  • Status Reports, 4%
  • Risk Management, 3%

Browse executive management jobs