Blockchain Developer Salary: What Do They Really Earn?
By Gregory McCubbin ·
Blockchain is consistently one of the highest paying programming fields, where developers earn between $150,000 and $175,000 on average per year as salaried employees.
While a wide range of factors determine compensation, even beginning blockchain developers can command high pay.
I can personally attest that blockchain is quite lucrative from my personal experience as a blockchain developer.
In this guide, I will provide a detailed breakdown of blockchain developer compensation, considering how factors like location and experience level affect salary distribution.
Key Insights
- Blockchain is one of the highest paid programming fields, meaning blockchain developers often out-earn their contemporaries who know other programming languages.
- Any amount of blockchain knowledge is valuable. Beginning blockchain developers commonly earn 6-figure salaries.
- While U.S. companies pay the most, these jobs are often available world-wide because blockchain development is very remote friendly.
Blockchain Developer Salary
Let’s look at several sources to find out what blockchain developers earn. We’ll consider a variety of factors like:
- Mean salary
- Median salary
- Experience level
- Location
According to job recruitment firm Hired.com, the average blockchain developer salary is staggering — it ranges from $150,000 to $175,000 per year!
While this high figure represents the mean salary, the median annual pay is as high as $127,000 based upon data provided by leading management consulting firm, Janco Associates.
Online recruiting firm Ziprecruiter reports an average salary of over $157,000 per year. Here is a breakdown of wage distribution.
Roughly 1/3 of all blockchain developers earn more than $180,000 per year, bringing the average salary up.
About 80% of all blockchain developers earn more than $115,000 per year, and that roughly less than 10% earn below $100,000 per year.
There is a clear opportunity to earn a high 6-figure income as a blockchain developer.
Blockchain Developer Salary By Experience Level
Let’s consider what blockchain developers earn based upon their experience level.
The findings are surprising: even beginning blockchain developers can command 6-figure salaries. It seems a small amount of blockchain knowledge goes a long way.
Because the field is so new, blockchain "experts" with deep 6-figure salaries might only have 2-4 years of blockchain experience (though they likely have several years of other software experience).
Join My Free Training Now »Let's take a deeper dive to see what developers earn based upon experience level. I’m going to reference Hired.com’s job application portal to generate real time salary data.
This tool will show income distribution based upon factors like:
- Software development experience (in number of years)
- Blockchain development experience (in number of years)
For example, you can see how much blockchain developers earn in the following scenarios:
- "Complete beginner": 0-1 years of software experience, 0-1 years of blockchain
- "New developer, new to blockchain": 1-2 years software experience, 0-1 years blockchain
- "Experienced developer, new to blockchain": 2-4 years software experience, 0-1 years blockchain
Blockchain Developer Salary: "Complete Beginner"
- Description: "Complete beginner"
- Experience: 0 years software experience, 0-1 years blockchain
- Salary: ~$110,000 per year
Blockchain Developer Salary: "New Developer"
- Description: "New developer, new to blockchain"
- Experience: 1-2 years software experience, 0-1 years blockchain
- Salary: ~$120,000 per year
Blockchain Developer Salary: "Experienced Developer"
- Description: "Experienced developer, new to blockchain"
- Experience: 2-4 years software experience, 0-1 years blockchain
- Salary: ~$124,000 per year
Blockchain Developer Salary: "Advanced Developer"
- Description: "Advanced developer, new to blockchain"
- Experience: 2-4 years software experience, 0-1 years blockchain
- Salary: ~$143,000 per year
Blockchain Developer Salary: "Blockchain Master"
- Description: "Blockchain Master"
- Experience: 6-10 years software experience, 2-4 years blockchain
- Salary: ~$153,000 per year
Blockchain Developer Salary By Location
Now let's see how much blockchain developers earn based upon where they live. I'll continue using data from Hired.com's salary reporting engine to demonstrate this.
This data reveals the top 3 programming fields by location, where blockchain consistently ranks at the top of each list.
Blockchain Developer Salary: San Francisco
Blockchain Engineering is one of the highest paid technical positions in San Francisco with an average salary of $155,000 per year.
While cost of living often inflates San Francisco wages, many of these jobs are available to remote employees. This allows developers worldwide to command high compensation without living in San Francisco.
Blockchain Developer Salary: New York
Blockchain developers are the second highest paid in New York, just behind gaming engineers, with an average salary of $137,000 per year.
While New York wages are often higher, just like San Francisco, many of these jobs are also available to remote workers.
Blockchain Developer Salary: London
Blockchain continues to rank in the top 3 for compensation in London with an average salary of £69,000 per year.
While this figure is somewhat lower that other major cities, other programming disciplines also earn less in this area.
Blockchain Vs Other Developer Roles
According to Hired.com, blockchain demand is growing at a rapid rate of 517% year over year.
Blockchain vastly out paces other specialties in terms of percentage growth.
This is a good indication of why blockchain salaries are so high: the demand has exploded, but the supply has not. In other words, there simply aren't enough people with the right skills to satisfy the demand for blockchain talent.
How To Become A Highly Paid Blockchain Developer
With an average salary of over $150,000 per year for experienced developers, and $110,000 per year for beginners, there is a clear opportunity to earn a high 6-figure income as a blockchain developer.
What's the best way to command one of these high salaries?
I can show you!
Join my free training where I'll reveal how I broke into the blockchain industry as a self-taught programmer, and started charging top of market rates in a matter of months.
You don't any programming experience to join now:
Become A Highly Paid Blockchain Developer »