Why Rust and Solidity Dev Salaries are Climbing

Plexus keeps a close eye on senior dev salaries, and over the past few years we’ve seen an interesting trend grow right in front of our eyes.

These are senior developer salaries for the Rust, Solidity, and Go (Golang) programming languages. Rust and Solidity salaries are steadily rising, while Golang senior salaries are moving slightly downward.

What’s it all mean? Plexus talked to Thomas Tyrie, one of our consultants, to get his take. Get an overview of where these trends are coming from, what it all means, and how it relates to the broader industry in the article below.

Origins and Use Cases

Before we jump in, it’s worth a quick look at what Rust, Solidity, and Golang are and how they are used in the blockchain and web3 world.

Go (Golang)

Origin and Purpose

Go, aka Golang, was released by Google in 2009. It was designed to be simple, efficient, and easy to read, primarily targeting system programming, large-scale software, and web development.

Key Features

• Simplicity– straightforward syntax that is easy to learn and read.
• Concurrency – built-in support for concurrent programming using goroutines, which are lightweight threads managed by the Go runtime.
• Performance – compiled to machine code, making it fast and efficient.
• Garbage Collection – automatic memory management to prevent memory leaks.
• Standard Library – extensive and robust standard library facilitates rapid development.

Rust

Origin and Purpose

Rust was developed by Mozilla and first released in 2010. It aims to provide safety and performance, making it suitable for system-level programming.

Key Features

• Memory Safety: Ensures memory safety without a garbage collector through a system of ownership with rules checked at compile time.
• Performance: As a compiled language, it provides performance comparable to C and C++.
• Concurrency: Offers safe concurrency without data races, which are common issues in concurrent programming.
• Zero-Cost Abstractions: Allows high-level abstractions without the overhead typically associated with them.
• Community and Ecosystem: Strong community support and growing ecosystem, especially in systems programming and web assembly.

Solidity

Origin and Purpose

Solidity was developed by contributors to the Ethereum project and first appeared in 2014. It is specifically designed for writing smart contracts on blockchain platforms, particularly Ethereum.

Key Features

• Smart Contracts: Tailored for creating and deploying smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
• Syntax: Similar to JavaScript, making it accessible for developers familiar with web development.
• Blockchain Interaction: Includes features for interacting with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), such as event logging and contract calls.
• Security: Emphasizes secure coding practices to prevent common vulnerabilities in smart contracts.
• Decentralization: Used in decentralized applications (DApps) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) projects.

Three Reasons for Rust & Solidity

Why are Rust and Solidity senior salaries on the upswing? Thomas identifies three primary reasons.

Market maturity

First, the broader crypto market is both larger and more mature than it used to be. While the total market cap ($2.48 trillion at time of writing) hasn’t fully returned to the heights of 2021, the market is nevertheless vastly improved from recent lows.

And as the market grows, it matures. Thomas says, “As the web3 space expands and protocols mature, there’s a high demand for skilled senior engineers, driving up salaries significantly.”

Put simply, senior projects demand senior engineers. And a more mature market produces more engineers with the skillset to qualify as such. Rust and Solidity are both mature languages (over a decade for Solidity, the newer of the two) being used in increasingly sophisticated applications. 

Supply and Demand

Thomas identifies the second reason as straightforward supply-and-demand. 

The most sophisticated projects in web3 and crypto – often programmed in Rust and Solidity – are attracting “substantial capital backing,” as Thomas observes. That backing results in a demand for skilled programmers, “leading to attractive offers for top talent.” 

In essence, a mature market is putting demand-side pressure on the equation. Even a short-term rush of new engineers isn’t going to immediately impact the supply of the senior developers needed to produce the next round of high-level applications. 

Solana’s comeback

A rising tide lifts all boats. It’s no surprise that the crypto economy is on the rebound with Bitcoin in the lead. But it might be a little easier to miss some other major comebacks, such as Solana’s recent return:

And since Solana is primarily Rust-based, it’s easy to note the correlation between Solana’s rebound and the rise in Rust developer salaries.

On its own, that’s probably not enough to drive senior dev salaries higher; combined with broader market conditions and the overall demand, Solana’s performance has added to the competition for senior software engineers.

Why Golang Salaries are currently lower – And why they may rise

What about Golang?

Rust and Solidity senior devs are seeing higher salaries – but Golang senior engineers have slipped back a bit. 

That’s partly because Golang, unlike the others, is still largely a language of web2, not web3. Thus, there’s a larger pool of both senior and junior developers. Greater supply, not as much demand in the crypto and blockchain markets, equals slightly lower high-end rates. 

As Thomas states,

Golang’s slight salary plateau might be due to its widespread use in web2, resulting in a larger pool of developers and lower scarcity. Additionally, grassroots projects in ecosystems like COSMOS, with successful launches and migrations, are hiring more junior talent, influencing salary trends.

Is this the best Golang senior devs can hope for? Not exactly. Golang is steadily growing in the crypto space, and projects like COSMOS and Hyperledger Fabric certainly have room for growth. As those projects mature and expand their own ecosystems, they could push the demand for crypto-focused Golang senior devs higher.

Outlook: Positive on all fronts

We’re seeing new developer jobs for all three programming languages. Solidity and Rust are leading with the salary increase trend, but Golang continues to have steady job demand and developers with that language can command competitive salaries in the space as a whole. 

Solidity remains the most commonly used language for blockchain applications, particularly for Ethereum and Ethereum-compatible blockchains. Its usage is expected to grow with the continued expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem. Senior Solidity devs can tap into up to a decade of experience and a comparatively small pool of engineers to command salaries that are steadily growing.

Rust is gaining traction, especially for developing high-performance blockchain protocols and platforms like Polkadot and Solana. Its usage is also expected to grow as these platforms mature and new projects adopt Rust for its performance and safety benefits. Senior Rust developer salaries are following suit.

Golang continues to play a growing role in the web3 world, though it remains bigger in web2. It does have a role in various blockchain and crypto projects, particularly for building the underlying infrastructure and supporting tools. Its features make it a suitable choice for developing efficient, concurrent, and scalable blockchain systems. The broader pool of engineers and crossover between web2 and web3 projects means that – for now – senior Golang developers aren’t seeing the same salaries as Rust and Solidity devs. That could change, and quickly, as more Golang projects grow in the web3 space.

Are you a software engineer with experience in Solidity, Rust, or Golang? Interested to learn what opportunities are available for senior developers? Reach out to our recruitment team or view our job listings.