Survey: Ethereum Core Developer Median Salary is $140,000, Doubling After ``Job Hopping``

BlockBeats News, September 16th, a new survey shows that software developers engaged in maintaining and improving the Ethereum blockchain have a median annual salary of $140,000. According to the Protocol Guild survey, Ethereum core developers who have the opportunity to "job hop" have received a median salary offer of $300,000, twice their current salary, even though their work is to enhance the world's most important smart contract blockchain.

Ethereum is maintained by a group of distributed software developers. Many work for the Ethereum Foundation, which held over $970 million in cryptocurrency and other assets as of last October. However, many are also employed by other crypto companies, which hire Ethereum core developers more as a gesture of "goodwill support."

It is estimated that there are currently 200 to 300 Ethereum core developers, with 190 being Protocol Guild members, and 111 participated in this survey. The survey results are not very optimistic: apart from the median annual salary of $140,000, only 37% of respondents have received equity or token incentives from their employers. In other words, they have not received the wealth appreciation opportunities that many people entering the tech industry expect.

In comparison, according to Protocol Guild, Coinbase's entry-level employees have a base annual salary of $150,000, along with $56,000 in annual stock and bonuses. It is worth noting that Coinbase is a U.S. company, while many of the respondents surveyed by Protocol Guild may come from countries with lower wage levels. Additionally, Protocol Guild also supplements developers' income by receiving donated tokens based on Ethereum projects. Since 2022, it claims to have distributed over $33 million.

However, 38% of respondents stated that they had received job offers in the past year—mostly from other blockchains, including layer 2 blockchains in the Ethereum ecosystem. As mentioned earlier, the median salary offer they received was $300,000.