Ruby on Rails Developer Salaries

Estimates can vary widely across different salary databases, and the way they let you parse their results isn't uniform. Some may let you enter details from geographic location to education level to the size of the company. Others are more miserly in their search parameters, only letting you look at job titles and little more.

Here at FullStack Labs, we searched five different jobs and salary sites to get a general sense of what Ruby on Rails developers are making in 2020. For devs and hiring managers alike, here's what you can expect.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow offers a useful tool for estimating salaries based on the data from its yearly survey of developers around the world. It allows for searches based on tech stack, years of experience, and location. The tool produces the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of what developers with those criteria earn. We looked at the United States for Ruby on Rails with bachelor's degrees and focused on the 50th percentile. 

According to Stack Overflow, Ruby on Rails developers earn between $83,000 for those starting out to $115,000 for those with 15 years of experience. 

ZipRecruiter

ZipRecruiter allows searches for different job titles, but years of experience and specific technologies used aren't options. We looked at the average pay rate for both Ruby on Rails developers ($104,688) and Senior Ruby on Rails developers ($112,124).

Glassdoor

The job listings and rating site Glassdoor allows for searches based on location and different spans of experience, such as 0-1 years, 1-3 years, and so on. Each search yields a distribution of salaries with an average, which we used for our measurements.

Novice Ruby on Rails devs entering the workforce can expect $66,221 (the lowest estimate of any site for entry-level), while senior programmers with 15 years of experience earn an average of $112,124.

PayScale

PayScale lets users refine searches to nearly microscopic detail. Its parameters include not only job title, location, and years of experience, but also every single technology in their stack, company size, certifications, and a myriad of other options. We looked at Ruby on Rails developers in Austin, Texas with a bachelor's degree in the market for a "Back End Developer / Engineer" job and Ruby on Rails as a required skill.

We averaged the high and low estimates PayScale provided for each year of experience. Inexperienced developers start at $80,500, and those with upper-level seniority can expect $132,500—by far the highest estimate of any site.

Indeed

Indeed produces only a single number divorced from years of experience, location, or anything else. We searched "Ruby on Rails Developer", which the site claims earn an average of $121,688, something in the range of what a dev with 7-9 years of experience might earn. 

Final results

Aggregated together, this is what a Ruby on Rails developer can expect to earn in the United States.

Ruby on Rails Developer Salaries, August 2020

We combined years of experience and averaged them out to get a figure for each year range (for example, the salary of a Ruby on Rails developer on PayScale at 7 years, 8 years, and 9 years were averaged to get the figure for the range of 7-9 years of experience).

Overall, Junior Ruby on Rails developers earn about $78,157, and senior Ruby on Rails developers earn about $115,996. 

All of this is subject to shift based on which company is hiring, how badly they need devs, and other considerations that are not easily factored into aggregate numbers. Since these are ultimately average numbers, roughly 50% of developers will earn more than the average, and 50% will earn less.
If you’re interested in joining the team here at FullStack Labs, please check out our Careers page.But if you're an HR director just getting your bearings or a developer wondering what you’re worth salary-wise, this information above is a good place to start.