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Technical product manager vs architect

The differences between technical product managers and architects can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 8-10 years to become a technical product manager, becoming an architect takes usually requires 2-4 years. Additionally, a technical product manager has an average salary of $120,052, which is higher than the $86,635 average annual salary of an architect.

The top three skills for a technical product manager include technical product, product management and cloud. The most important skills for an architect are cloud, java, and infrastructure.

Technical product manager vs architect overview

Technical Product ManagerArchitect
Yearly salary$120,052$86,635
Hourly rate$57.72$41.65
Growth rate10%3%
Number of jobs185,30594,621
Job satisfaction-3
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 69%Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age3945
Years of experience104

What does a technical product manager do?

A technical product manager's responsibilities revolve around performing research and analysis to identify consumers' needs, utilizing new technologies to develop strategies and products, coordinating with different teams, and monitoring the entire progress of production. There are also instances when a technical product manager must perform clerical tasks such as producing reports, preparing presentations, responding to issues and concerns promptly, and managing schedules. Furthermore, as a manager, it is essential to lead and encourage staff to meet goals while implementing the company's policies and regulations.

What does an architect do?

Architects are licensed professionals who specialize in art and science of design, building constructions, and structures. They play a vital role in the construction and not only responsible for the appearance but also the safety of users. They ensure that every structure is functional, safe, cost-effective, and suit the needs of the future occupants. They closely monitor the working progress to make sure that the project is built according to plan. Some architects are focused mainly on creating designs while some are exclusive in the production of building plans or "blueprints".

Technical product manager vs architect salary

Technical product managers and architects have different pay scales, as shown below.

Technical Product ManagerArchitect
Average salary$120,052$86,635
Salary rangeBetween $89,000 And $161,000Between $54,000 And $137,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaAlaska
Best paying companyMetaMeta
Best paying industryTechnologyTechnology

Differences between technical product manager and architect education

There are a few differences between a technical product manager and an architect in terms of educational background:

Technical Product ManagerArchitect
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 69%Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common majorBusinessArchitecture
Most common collegeUniversity of GeorgiaCornell University

Technical product manager vs architect demographics

Here are the differences between technical product managers' and architects' demographics:

Technical Product ManagerArchitect
Average age3945
Gender ratioMale, 75.8% Female, 24.2%Male, 76.7% Female, 23.3%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%Black or African American, 2.3% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 11.8% Asian, 16.0% White, 65.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage10%15%

Differences between technical product manager and architect duties and responsibilities

Technical product manager example responsibilities.

  • Manage user interface design for PC products, working with designers and developers to create look and feel.
  • Manage the UI domain team encompassing user interface functionality, global behavior definitions, new user paradigms and concepts.
  • Task with product ownership; implement and improve the product operations following SDLC methodologies, managing and meeting the stakeholder expectations.
  • Design and lead implementation of web-base Java application for high volume transaction processing.
  • Manage horizontal UX prototyping resource needs, implementing effective collaborative expectations and cross-product timeline allocation strategies.
  • Involve championing the development of product requirements, use cases, and user stories for a target cloud document delivery service.
  • Show more

Architect example responsibilities.

  • Manage Daimler resources for development of RFC programs
  • Manage overall testing activities withing the group including functinal, system and regression testing.
  • Manage the company website using HTML and CSS to produce an easily read website that customers can access more intuitively.
  • Manage GitLab and Jenkins deployment environment to support automate AWS- development software builds.
  • Lead re-architecture and implementation of cloud solution for enterprise auto-backup of individual computing devices.
  • Provide insight and manage all technology relate aspects with presentations and communications at Sr. management and CxO level.
  • Show more

Technical product manager vs architect skills

Common technical product manager skills
  • Technical Product, 10%
  • Product Management, 7%
  • Cloud, 6%
  • User Stories, 5%
  • Project Management, 4%
  • Scrum, 4%
Common architect skills
  • Cloud, 10%
  • Java, 8%
  • Infrastructure, 7%
  • Azure, 5%
  • AWS, 5%
  • Digital Transformation, 5%

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