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Software project leader vs principal software engineer

The differences between software project leaders and principal software engineers 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 principal software engineer. Additionally, a principal software engineer has an average salary of $134,230, 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 principal software engineer are java, python, and software development.

Software project leader vs principal software engineer overview

Software Project LeaderPrincipal Software Engineer
Yearly salary$109,474$134,230
Hourly rate$52.63$64.53
Growth rate21%21%
Number of jobs247,780345,893
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 71%Bachelor's Degree, 69%
Average age3939
Years of experience44

Software project leader vs principal software engineer salary

Software project leaders and principal software engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Software Project LeaderPrincipal Software Engineer
Average salary$109,474$134,230
Salary rangeBetween $84,000 And $142,000Between $98,000 And $182,000
Highest paying CityCupertino, CASeattle, WA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaHawaii
Best paying companyBoston Consulting GroupGoogle
Best paying industryManufacturingRetail

Differences between software project leader and principal software engineer education

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

Software Project LeaderPrincipal Software Engineer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 71%Bachelor's Degree, 69%
Most common majorComputer ScienceComputer Science
Most common collegeMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyCalifornia State University - Long Beach

Software project leader vs principal software engineer demographics

Here are the differences between software project leaders' and principal software engineers' demographics:

Software Project LeaderPrincipal Software Engineer
Average age3939
Gender ratioMale, 75.1% Female, 24.9%Male, 87.5% Female, 12.5%
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, 4.4% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 8.2% Asian, 29.9% White, 52.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage8%8%

Differences between software project leader and principal software engineer 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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Principal software engineer example responsibilities.

  • Manage and fix bugs with JIRA bug tracking application.
  • Manage Blogcritics.org revamp/rewrite using Wordpress, PHP, MySQL and memecach.
  • Participate in daily scrum meetings and used TFS to manage the user stories, tasks and for bugs reporting and tracking.
  • Manage OS security patching and intrusion detection systems.
  • Manage building and deploying DataPower configuration and flows to all environments using Jenkins jobs.
  • Manage Java central monitor, authoring Java system implementing java-base central monitoring system using Linux.
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Software project leader vs principal software engineer skills

Common software project leader skills
  • Software Development, 15%
  • Project Management, 9%
  • Scrum, 8%
  • C, 6%
  • C++, 6%
  • Java, 6%
Common principal software engineer skills
  • Java, 16%
  • Python, 8%
  • Software Development, 6%
  • Object Oriented Programming, 4%
  • Linux, 3%
  • AWS, 3%

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