We continue to publish the results of the salary survey we conducted from April to May 2023 by chapters. Today's publication discusses the income levels of Russian-speaking game developers.
We remind you that we are currently conducting a new salary survey. Through it, we are gathering up-to-date data on salary situations among Russian-speaking and Russian specialists. You can take it here:
The average salary for a programmer in the Russian-speaking game industry is $2,674. The median is slightly lower at $2,200. Overall, among Russian-speaking game programmers, there are five dominant salary groups. Four of these are in the range of $1,000 but less than $3,000, and one is in the range of $4,000 but less than $5,000.
There is no single salary group among programmers that clearly dominates or falls behind within the $1,000 to less than $5,000 range.
Almost half of all game programmers have left Russia. Most of them have settled in Georgia and Serbia. The average salary for Russian-speaking game programmers varies greatly depending on their location. Accordingly, the lowest salaries are found among programmers in Kazakhstan and Russia, while the highest are in Cyprus.
The majority of programmers surveyed (53%) are versatile specialists. Interestingly, the average rates for frontend specialists are higher. In our case, this is explained by the presence of more junior and middle-level professionals among backend specialists in our sample.
Most programmers are mid-level specialists, whose salaries understandably differ significantly from senior programmers and leads. Notably, there is no significant salary difference between Senior and Lead levels.
The most common language is C#. In one way or another, more than 65% of Russian-speaking game programmers work with it.
The most popular game development tool among Russian-speaking game developers remains Unity. This can likely be attributed to the fact that 70% of the programmers who participated in our survey develop mobile games.
Methodology
This study is the result of the third salary survey among Russian-speaking representatives of the game industry. The survey was conducted by WN Media Group from April to May 2023. It was carried out through voluntary questionnaires (respondents independently filled out freely distributed forms with questions).
A total of 1,004 completed questionnaires were obtained in the survey. Out of them, 156 were from programmers.