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Software project leader vs software developer

The differences between software project leaders and 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 software developer. Additionally, a software project leader has an average salary of $109,474, which is higher than the $87,521 average annual salary of a software developer.

The top three skills for a software project leader include software development, project management and scrum. The most important skills for a software developer are java, python, and C++.

Software project leader vs software developer overview

Software Project LeaderSoftware Developer
Yearly salary$109,474$87,521
Hourly rate$52.63$42.08
Growth rate21%21%
Number of jobs247,780294,329
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 71%Bachelor's Degree, 72%
Average age3939
Years of experience44

Software project leader vs software developer salary

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

Software Project LeaderSoftware Developer
Average salary$109,474$87,521
Salary rangeBetween $84,000 And $142,000Between $67,000 And $113,000
Highest paying CityCupertino, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyBoston Consulting GroupThe Citadel
Best paying industryManufacturingFinance

Differences between software project leader and software developer education

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

Software Project LeaderSoftware Developer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 71%Bachelor's Degree, 72%
Most common majorComputer ScienceComputer Science
Most common collegeMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyHarvard University

Software project leader vs software developer demographics

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

Software Project LeaderSoftware Developer
Average age3939
Gender ratioMale, 75.1% Female, 24.9%Male, 79.3% Female, 20.7%
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, 4.5% 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 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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Software developer example responsibilities.

  • Restructure the project code in repository and use maven to manage project dependencies.
  • Used JIRA to manage and track the issues report by QA and prioritize and take action base on the severity.
  • Develop the front-end web page by using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, taking advantage of the frameworks Angular.JS.
  • Lead team and develop UNIX administrative and maintenance development tasks, supporting customer requirements.
  • Configure custom PL/SQL database to manage new database objects including triggers, user-define functions and store procedures.
  • Implement a centralize configuration system for managing application settings, consisting of a desktop application with a WCF backend.
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Software project leader vs software developer skills

Common software project leader skills
  • Software Development, 15%
  • Project Management, 9%
  • Scrum, 8%
  • C, 6%
  • C++, 6%
  • Java, 6%
Common software developer skills
  • Java, 11%
  • Python, 9%
  • C++, 7%
  • Software Development, 6%
  • JavaScript, 5%
  • Database, 5%

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