Ethereum Devs Are Underpaid by Over 50%: Report

A new report from Protocol Guild has shown that Ethereum’s core developers are being paid far below industry ￰0￱ survey collected responses from 111 out of 190 Guild members and found that most are earning 50% to 60% less than their peers in similar ￰1￱ Gap Median salaries for surveyed Ethereum developers came in at about $140,000, compared with offers averaging $300,000 at rival ￰2￱ report also detailed pay by area of focus, with average salaries at $130,000 for client developers, $215,000 for researchers, and $130,000 for coordination roles. Additionally, these contributors said that they don’t get any equity or token exposure from their ￰3￱ general allocation was $0, with only 37% of respondents receiving ￰4￱ the other hand, final-stage offers made to their peers at rival organizations in the past year included a median equity or token share of 6.5%.

This ranges from cofounder-level allocations of 10% to 30% to early employee grants of 0.1% to 3%. The gap has created pressure; almost 40% of respondents have received outside job offers in the past ￰5￱ total, 108 were disclosed across 42 individuals, with the average package reaching $359,000. Some developers said they had been offered as much as $700,000 to move ￰6￱ the Pay Disparity Established in 2022, Protocol Guild has become a lifeline for such ￰7￱ by the “1% Pledge” from projects including EigenLayer, Ether. fi, Taiko, and Puffer, the group has distributed over $33 million since ￰8￱ also pledged 10% of profits from its spot Ether ETF to the initiative in ￰9￱ the last 12 months, the average Guild member received $66,000 through this funding, while the median distribution was $74,285.

That support represented nearly one-third of total annual compensation for many employees, with the mean pay rising from $140,000 to $207,121. Survey responses show how important this extra support has been, with 59% of participants rating Guild funding as “very” or “extremely important” to their ability to keep working on ￰10￱ network has secured nearly $1 trillion in value, serves millions of users, and powers thousands of applications reliant on key ￰11￱ Guild warned that inadequate compensation puts Ethereum at risk by undermining developer retention, slowing progress on the roadmap, and threatening long-term ￰12￱ group also emphasized that aligning pay with market rates is important to keep talent in place and ensure the ecosystem’s future growth.