Remote backend developer statistics for Q2 2023

On our job board, we posted close to a thousand remote jobs in the second quarter of 2023. All jobs are fully remote, and each job we’re deriving data from was posted on Simple Job Listings’ job board.

So, what does the data show?

Remote backend developer statistics:

For starters, the average pay for remote backend developers on Simple Job Listings stands at $157,694.

Most Common Salary Range: The most prevalent salary range for the backend roles in this dataset is between 150K and 160K. This means a significant portion of these jobs offer an average salary within this range.

Salary Range Distribution: There's a notable concentration of jobs offering an average salary between 140K and 170K. Beyond this range, the percentage of jobs tends to decrease, indicating that these salary ranges are less common for backend roles.

High Salary Range Rarity: Very few jobs offer an average salary in the upper ranges (above 200K). These could potentially be high-level or specialized roles, or roles at companies with larger budgets for employee salaries.

Lower Salary Range Rarity: Similarly, fewer jobs offer an average salary in the lower ranges (below 140K). This could suggest a certain baseline salary expectation for backend roles in the industry.

Of course, this includes senior and non-senior titles and there’s something pretty interesting about that data, as well.

Before that, these are the top designations for backend jobs on Simple Job Listings.

Now, you’ll see that there are both, senior and non-senior roles here.

Well, the average salary for Senior Backend roles in the dataset is approximately $155,201.77, while the average salary for non-Senior Backend roles is approximately $159,018.82.

That’s a pretty counter-intuitive result. On average, Senior Backend Developers are being paid less than Backend Developers.

Why?

That’s where company pay scales come into the picture.

The salary your get is more dependent on the company you work for, rather than the designation you’re given.

Yes, there’s a guidance value for most designations but it varies wildly. So, when all’s said and done, it comes down to what a company wants to pay you.

Next, let’s look at how much companies are willing to offer. Most companies publish a salary range.

For example, a company might be hiring for a backend developer and they’ll mention the pay scale as “$130,000 - $150,000”.

Have you ever wondered how much of a gap there is?

On average, the difference between the low-end and the high-end is $50,658!

Here’s a graph to put things in context:

So, when you’re negotiating with a company, know that there’s plenty of room to bargain. It boils down to how much a company is willing to pay rather than how much a company can afford to pay.

Here are two more graphs that go into a bit more detail:

This graph shows the distribution of the lower end of the pay scale for companies that have a “range” for their salaries.

This graph shows the distribution of the higher end of the pay scale for companies that have a “range” for their salaries.

This leads us to a pretty interesting point.

Take a look at the graph below:

Each point on the x-axis is the minimum salary for a job. The y-axis shows the difference between the minimum salary and the maximum salary.

One of the more interesting trends here is that companies aren't necessarily trying to snag the candidate who'll take the lowest salary.

For jobs that have a lower starting point, the variance is low, too. This means that they know exactly what they want to pay and they've said it.

Concentrate on the right half of the graph. Companies that have a higher starting point also have a wider range, which means that they're willing to pay much more than their starting point (which is already quite high).

What is happening here?

Well, while we don't have any clear explanations, we can take an educated guess — Investments.

A lot of companies that offer very high salaries are actually startups that are funded really well. This means that they need to get their product or service working quickly. Thanks to the investments in their company, they're able to offer very high salaries, so that they can attract the best talent possible.

Another trend (bad trend) is that companies continue to not disclose salary ranges in their job description. Of all the backend jobs that we’ve listed, 48% of the postings don’t have a salary range because companies haven’t provided them.

Also, another broad trend when it comes to remote backend developer roles is that companies prefer a bit of experience before they offer remote roles.

So, what does that mean?

Well, most of the jobs that we post require candidates to have at least two years of experience. The same companies also have roles for freshers. However, those roles are in-office roles. Companies seem to be of the opinion that candidates have to have some experience before they go ahead and offer remote jobs.

Finally, the number of remote jobs is actually increasing.

Conclusion

There are lots of talks about recessions and economic downturns, and so on. While all that may be true, the fact is that it's not entirely being reflected in the job market for remote back-end developers.

Yes, we did see a bit of a dip in June but that's already on the recovery. We've stopped data collection on July 7th and already, we're sure that the number of jobs posted this month will be higher. So, the market situation is not bad, at all.

The one thing that we've learned in compiling remote backend developer statistics is that if you have the right skills and experience, there are plenty of jobs out there that pay really well.

On that front, if you're looking for remote back-end developer roles, check out Simple Job Listings. You already know that we post high-paying jobs. The best thing is that most of the jobs that we post aren't listed anywhere else.

Visit Simple Job Listings and find amazing remote back-end developer jobs. Good luck!