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Software project leader vs lead software developer

The differences between software project leaders and lead software developers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a software project leader and a lead software developer. Additionally, a lead software developer has an average salary of $115,072, which is higher than the $109,474 average annual salary of a software project leader.

The top three skills for a software project leader include software development, project management and scrum. The most important skills for a lead software developer are java, architecture, and application development.

Software project leader vs lead software developer overview

Software Project LeaderLead Software Developer
Yearly salary$109,474$115,072
Hourly rate$52.63$55.32
Growth rate21%21%
Number of jobs247,780309,029
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 71%Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Average age3939
Years of experience44

Software project leader vs lead software developer salary

Software project leaders and lead software developers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Software Project LeaderLead Software Developer
Average salary$109,474$115,072
Salary rangeBetween $84,000 And $142,000Between $87,000 And $151,000
Highest paying CityCupertino, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyBoston Consulting GroupMicrosoft
Best paying industryManufacturingManufacturing

Differences between software project leader and lead software developer education

There are a few differences between a software project leader and a lead software developer in terms of educational background:

Software Project LeaderLead Software Developer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 71%Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Most common majorComputer ScienceComputer Science
Most common collegeMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyHarvard University

Software project leader vs lead software developer demographics

Here are the differences between software project leaders' and lead software developers' demographics:

Software Project LeaderLead Software Developer
Average age3939
Gender ratioMale, 75.1% Female, 24.9%Male, 86.5% Female, 13.5%
Race ratioBlack 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, 4.3% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 8.1% Asian, 30.0% White, 52.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage8%8%

Differences between software project leader and lead software developer duties and responsibilities

Software project leader example responsibilities.

  • Lead daily scrum meetings, organize and chair scrums with cross-functional teams to deliver the product goals and deliverables.
  • Maintain mature java-base web application design to automate highly detail engineering requests for the DoD.
  • Provide guidance and support to scrum team members, remove impediments and assist teams to maximize productivity.
  • Develop excellent debugging, analytical and programming skills.
  • Create the architecture framework for dynamically setting properties and property types for oracle using reflection.
  • Design enterprise software, including requirements analysis, software architecture, user interface, and database schema.
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Lead software developer example responsibilities.

  • Spring MVC are used to manage navigation.
  • Manage technical infrastructure including but not limit to AWS images and instances, deployment procedures and tools, and monitoring.
  • Used and written maven scripts to manage dependencies and to build and deploy the application locally and in DEV environments.
  • Design rich user interface using ASP.NET, HTML and CSS.
  • Develop a lightweight media gallery CDN for marketplace images using windows azure and link lists.
  • Implement a clean UI with cutting edge technologies CSS3.0 and JavaScript using AngularJS, bootstrap and other JavaScript libraries.
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Software project leader vs lead software developer skills

Common software project leader skills
  • Software Development, 15%
  • Project Management, 9%
  • Scrum, 8%
  • C, 6%
  • C++, 6%
  • Java, 6%
Common lead software developer skills
  • Java, 11%
  • Architecture, 6%
  • Application Development, 5%
  • Software Development, 5%
  • API, 4%
  • JavaScript, 4%

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