Average Salaries for Ruby Developers in Utah

[Eric Faerber]

I am collecting data on the average salary for ruby developers in Utah by experience. I would appreciate it if everyone could fill out the form:

http://goo.gl/forms/7LVJ1CWDyd

You can view the results here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fftIpTejpXJeh5xcjScKjfwF1DMQK3GMbKIBRDoc-pU/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks!

[Charles Wood]

Interesting...

I wonder if this will prompt anyone to go find new jobs. :D

Money isn't the only measure, but if you're already not happy and qualify as a Mid/Senior with a lower than average salary...

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[Ethan Garofolo]

Is the average in here the mean?

[Eric Faerber]

It is.

[Trevor Smith]

This certainly isn't as exact or scientific as your poll, but I can tell you as a recruiter...we've had the following:
Year 2015 (Jan 1 - present)
Location: Salt Lake City area
Ruby Engineer positions available: 16
Compensation range (as given by managers): $80-$130K
Average actual offer (post interviews): $110K

I hope this helps give another piece of insight into the market here locally.

[Claron Twitchell]

Thanks to Eric for posting the survey.  Very interesting!  Thanks to Trevor for posting his findings as a recruiter.  A couple of things that jump out to me:

Senior - 35, Mid - 28, Junior - 8, Other - 1 (Level - Number of responses)

That seems a bit heavy on the Senior end.  If that is reflective of the overall situation, it sounds good.  I am surprised at only 8 of 72 at the Junior level.  Is that because people quickly move from Junior to a higher level, or very little growth in the Ruby field so few new people coming in, or are Junior people shy to report, or does it take a while for Junior people to join the email list?  Any thoughts on the Junior level situation?

72 responded to the survey and the list ur...@googlegroups.com has 991 members.  What happened to everyone else?  There are going to be a lot of people interested in Ruby, but that consider their job in the Java, Python or whatever else world.  There will be some that are no longer in software dev.  Some that couldn't answer the survey, because they are currently unemployed.  A certain number who are coding in Ruby, but hate to take surveys.  I am interested in the other 919 on the list.  Any thoughts on what happened to the other 93%?

Thanks,

Claron

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[Peter Hamilton]

A couple of us are not in UT anymore and our numbers will skew the results (bay area especially).

I think the whole industry has seen fairly extensive title inflation. 2-3 years of experience in many places is sufficient  to land a "Senior Engineer" title. Anyone not on their first job is going to be at least a mid level. With average tenure being less than 2 years (at least out here) that leaves a pretty small window for the junior phase.

[Trevor Smith]

I agree with Peter in that titles really don't mean that much anymore. Most companies have different ideas of what a Senior is vs a Junior....everyone has their own opinion - so it is hard to standardize. Many of the companies that I work with (especially now since it is such a candidate driven market) just say - find talent junior through senior and let us talk to them and evaluate where they may fit in with our current team. Mayb for distinguishing factors/categories, Years of development experience is better than title (then again that would need to be clarified in academic vs professional and ruby vs other languages as well).

I'm also interested in where the other 93% went - perhaps they have their email notifications off and are not frequently checking this site?

[Michael Ries]

The definition for "junior" is definitely narrowing, but it doesn't not account for how small the reporting is in these numbers. I attend a lot of URUG meetings and there are definitely a large portion of the attendees that describe themselves as "junior". Bootcamps have been increasing the number of junior devs pretty rapidly so I think we are definitely seeing some selection bias here.

Even in an anonymous survey it is easier to feel comfortable reporting a salary that you feel is "higher" than report a salary that you believe is "lower".

[Mister Ed]

In addition, I know that a few of us have moved on to other languages or
positions/roles.

In my case it was due to the fact there was no real career opportunities
when being experienced in other areas and wanting to pivot into Ruby
professionally after not using it for 5-6 years. So I fell into a job
application cycle for ruby positions where I was too junior to be senior
but too senior to be junior. Even had a local company tell me I was too
old, and two that I was too old to be junior when I tried that option. I
moved on after a couple years of that repetitive cycle of banging my
head fruitlessly on the door of club ruby. So my ruby use is at a hobby
like level now.

I'm a statistical outlier, and a lurker, but the aspect of moving on and
also keeping tabs on the language can account for a few of the members
not responding as we are not or no longer paid to develop in ruby.

ME

> <javascript:> has 991 members. What happened to everyone else?

> https://docs.google.com/__spreadsheets/d/__1fftIpTejpXJeh5xcjScKjfwF1DMQK__3GMbKIBRDoc-pU/edit?usp=__sharing

> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fftIpTejpXJeh5xcjScKjfwF1DMQK3GMbKIBRDoc-pU/edit?usp=sharing>
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> http://utruby.org
> http://groups.google.com/group/urug
> <http://groups.google.com/group/urug>
>
> please prefix the subject with [JOB] when regarding job
> opportunities
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[Eric Faerber]

I wondered why there were so few juniors as well. Most candidates I have interviewed recently have been junior or at the bottom of mid. 

Are the bootcamp graduates having a hard time finding jobs? Are they getting QA jobs so they didn't respond? Does anyone from a bootcamp want to respond?

[Ryan Holdaway]

To Michael's point about the large number of Jr's present at the meetups, I've noticed that as well and I think it is because they are all looking for work. 

I'm a Bootcamp grad. Self Reported Jr. Dev. And I think I'm in the minority that was able to find work as a Jr. Dev soon after finishing my Bootcamp. 

Even though the bootcamps have pumped ~100 Jr. Ruby Devs in to the market over the last year or so, it looks to me like the companies in the area haven't added that many jobs to be filled by Jr's. 

On Monday, March 23, 2015 at 2:52:16 PM UTC-6, Eric Faerber wrote:

[Clinton De Young]

Hello, Eric,

I don’t know about other bootcamp graduates, but I know in my wife’s case, it was a huge challenge just to get someone to interview her.  The first company that was willing to talk to her hired her, but getting the interview to start with was a challenge.  I've had a few hiring managers tell me they have had some bad experiences with bootcamp graduates, so they just pass on anyone with a bootcamp in their resume, so your hypothesis that junior developers are having a hard time finding a job seems plausible.

The challenge with bootcamps, I think, is that a lot of people go into them thinking that paying the money is the hard part, and that once they’ve accomplished that financial hurdle, the skills will just pour effortlessly into their brains, a la The Matrix.  In my wife’s case, she studied Ruby 8 hours a day for a few months before attending the bootcamp, she studied during evenings and weekends while enrolled in the bootcamp, and she has continued to study since.  It’s almost impossible for her to show people that, however, when they write her off based on their experiences with other candidates.  While this logic is no less flawed than writing off blond candidates because you once had to fire a blond employee, it seems to be the case nonetheless.

Clinton De Young

[dinkelburt]

+1 to Clinton's reply. Interviewing bootcamp grads has been a mixed bag. I think bootcamps can work but grads need to be super hungry and be able to show that they can ship product. I want to believe in bootcamps though, seems like a great venue to get great people that can't afford college or don't know where to start.

[Neil Oler]

What about those with college degrees who are wanting to do a boot camp? I'm currently looking for a job, am loving Ruby and Rails, and have had a little bit of experience from a job I was just laid off from and some consulting I've done over the past year. I'm not sure how to take it to the next level in Rails, but I'd love to have a day job working in it to really get some more experience. (if anyone knows any thing, please let me know, of course!)

On Monday, March 23, 2015 at 2:52:16 PM UTC-6, Eric Faerber wrote:

[Michael Ries]

Neil - You should definitely come talk to MX :)

The best way that I know to level-up your ruby/rails skills and be able to show what those skills are is to contribute to open-source. It lets companies see both your code and how you went about contributing that code and discussing it with the maintainers. Sometimes you can even contribute the an open-source project that is maintained by the company you want to work at. That is a great way to have your name at the top of their candidate list.

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[Kenny Trionfo]

I participated. I'm a junior and from a bootcamp (a cohort or two after Ryan I think). I've been surprised by the overall lack of participation in the community from noobs. I was able to get a job fairly quickly but it's not easy. you really have to work hard and have more than just a certificate of completion. seems like bootcamp attendance is like having taken the ACT for college and gotten a decent score. it does say something yes, but you also need to be able to interview, show passion, have extra skills or exp, be a good fit etc. it's tuff but probably should be. 

[Paul Baker]

Kenny you are awesome. So happy for you. Let's grab lunch sometime. 

Paul 

801-214-8090

Sent from my iPhone

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