The average salary of a programmer in the Russian-speaking gaming industry is $2,674

We continue to publish the results of the salary survey chapter by chapter, conducted by us from April to May 2023. This publication focuses on the income levels of Russian-speaking game programmers.

We remind you that we are currently conducting a new salary survey. Through it, we are gathering up-to-date information about the salary situation among Russian-speaking and Russian specialists. You can take it here:

The average salary for a programmer in the Russian-speaking gaming industry is $2,674. The median is slightly less at $2,200. Overall, among Russian-speaking game programmers, there are five predominant salary groups. Four of them range from $1,000 but less than $3,000, and one ranges from $4,000 but less than $5,000.

No particular salary group dominates or acts as an outlier within the range of $1,000 to less than $5,000 among programmers.

Almost half of all game programmers have left Russia. Most of them have settled in Georgia and Serbia. The average salary of a Russian-speaking game programmer varies greatly depending on their location. Consequently, the lowest salaries are in Kazakhstan and Russia, while the highest are in Cyprus.

The majority of the programmers we surveyed (53%) are versatile specialists. Surprisingly, however, the average rates for frontend specialists are higher. In our case, this is explained by the fact that our sample had more junior and middle-level backend specialists compared to frontend.

Most programmers are mid-level specialists whose salaries understandably differ significantly from senior programmers and leads. Notably, there wasn't a significant difference in salaries between Senior and Lead roles.

The most common language is C#. Over 65% of Russian-speaking game programmers work with it in one form or another.

Unity remains the most popular game development tool among Russian-speaking game developers. This is likely due to the fact that 70% of programmers who participated in our survey develop mobile games.

Methodology

The study is the result of the third salary survey of Russian-speaking representatives of the gaming industry. The survey was conducted by WN Media Group from April to May 2023. It was conducted via voluntary questionnaires (users filled out a freely distributed questionnaire with questions themselves).

During the survey, 1004 completed questionnaires were received. Of these, 156 were from programmers.