Your Comprehensive Guide to Hiring Top Ruby on Rails Developers

If you’re building or scaling a product using Ruby on Rails, you need a developer who can do more than write clean code. You need someone who understands the full lifecycle of a Rails app, collaborates well with product and design teams, and can move quickly without sacrificing quality. 

Whether you’re building an in-office team, hiring remotely within the US, or exploring international options, this article will help you make smart hiring decisions.

We cover: 

• The core skills to prioritize
• Current salary expectations in different regions
• Where to find the right candidates
• How to evaluate them effectively
• How the right recruitment partner can make the process easier

What Does a Ruby on Rails Developer Do?

Ruby on Rails developers build and maintain the back-end of web applications using the Ruby programming language on the Rails framework to power reliable, scalable, and efficient digital products.

They write the logic that connects user interfaces to databases and services, handling everything from API integrations to background jobs and authentication systems. Their work is what makes your app actually function behind the scenes.

While some Rails developers are full-stack and contribute to the user interface, that’s not always the case. Most RoR developers focus strictly on the back-end. They work with product managers, front-end developers, and designers to deliver features that align with business needs. 

Rails is popular with startups and growing companies because it allows teams to build quickly without sacrificing long-term maintainability. It encourages clean, opinionated code and comes with built-in tools that speed up development.

For example, if you’re launching a SaaS product or internal platform, a good Rails developer can take your requirements and build out secure user accounts, data models, admin controls, and APIs with fewer moving parts than other tech stacks.

Hundreds of thousands of live websites use Ruby on Rails, including platforms in e-commerce, healthcare, and B2B SaaS that demand stability. While that’s just a fraction of the internet overall, it shows how Rails continues to serve teams that care about speed, reliability, and developer productivity.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Ruby on Rails Developer

Salaries for Ruby on Rails developers vary widely based on experience and location.

In the US, full-time back-end developers working with Rails typically earn between $68,000 and $219,000 per year.

The breakdown by experience looks like this:

• Junior developer: $68,000 to $141,000
• Mid-level developer: $82,000 to $163,000
• Senior developer: $100,000 to $219,000

Hiring internationally can reduce those costs by 30 to 70%. 

For example, here are the average salaries for back-end developers in Latin America based on our experience filling this role:

• Junior: $30,000 to $48,000
• Mid-level: $48,000 to $60,000
• Senior: $60,000 to $100,000

These savings don’t reflect lower skills or performance but local economic conditions and the lower cost of living in the region.

Companies can stretch their budgets further, build stronger teams, or bring in more senior talent than they could otherwise afford in the US. In some cases, it also means hiring multiple developers for the cost of one US-based role.

Hiring offshore is not about sacrificing quality for cost. It’s about hiring fairly within a different market, where your budget goes further, and you still get high-quality talent. 

So it’s definitely worth considering unless you are hiring for in-office positions (but we’ll cover that a little more later). 

What Skills Should You Look for in a Ruby on Rails Developer?

When hiring a Ruby on Rails developer, the best candidates not only excel in coding but also possess a strong problem-solving mindset and the ability to collaborate effectively with other team members.

Here’s a breakdown of the key skills to consider when hiring for this role.

Must-have technical skills

The technical skills below are essential for Ruby on Rails developers, ensuring they can build secure, scalable, and maintainable web applications.

• Ruby language mastery:  Ruby is the foundation of Rails, and developers must have a strong grasp of its syntax and object-oriented design principles. You can assess this by asking candidates to explain key Ruby concepts or have them complete coding challenges that involve writing efficient Ruby code.
• Rails framework proficiency: Ruby on Rails is designed to make web development faster and easier by providing built-in tools. Proficiency in Rails is crucial, as it allows developers to leverage its powerful features like ActiveRecord, routing, and templating engines. Look for developers who can discuss how they’ve used Rails in past projects and who understand its MVC architecture.
• Database knowledge (PostgreSQL, MySQL):  Rails developers work with databases to store and manage application data. Proficiency with databases such as PostgreSQL or MySQL is essential for building efficient and scalable applications. In interviews, ask candidates to describe their experience with schema design, indexing, and database optimization.
• RESTful APIs: Developers must understand how to design and implement RESTful APIs, a key aspect of most modern web applications. A developer skilled in APIs can provide smooth communication between your app and third-party services. Candidates should be able to explain their approach to building and consuming APIs in a Rails environment.
• Familiarity with testing frameworks (RSpec, Minitest): A great Rails developer will be proficient in testing frameworks like RSpec or Minitest. Strong candidates will be comfortable writing unit tests and integration tests to verify the application’s reliability.
• Git/version control: Version control is essential for collaborating on software projects. Candidates should be familiar with Git and have experience using it to manage code repositories, handle branches, and work in teams. Look for candidates who understand common Git workflows and can discuss their experience with collaborative coding.

Critical soft skills

While technical expertise is essential, soft skills are just as important for Ruby on Rails developers.

Successful candidates will excel in the following areas:

• Clear communication: Whether working in-office or remotely, clear communication is vital. Rails developers need to articulate complex ideas to cross-functional teams, including product managers, designers, and other developers. Look for candidates who can explain their past projects in simple terms.
• Problem-solving mindset: Rails developers often face challenging problems that require creative solutions. A good developer will be able to think critically and troubleshoot issues efficiently. Ask candidates about a difficult bug they’ve solved or a performance bottleneck they’ve addressed.
• Attention to detail: Rails development requires precision, especially when dealing with database queries, security, and user authentication. Candidates should demonstrate how they catch errors early in the development process and maintain high code quality.
• Accountability: Developers must take ownership of their work and follow through on commitments. During interviews, listen to how candidates describe their role in past projects and whether they take responsibility for their contributions.
• Collaboration with product and design teams: Rails developers frequently collaborate with product teams to understand the application’s requirements and with designers to provide a seamless user experience. Look for developers who can discuss their role in collaborative, multidisciplinary teams.

Nice-to-have strengths

While not required, the following skills can give candidates an edge, especially in fast-growing or specialized environments:

• Experience with JavaScript front-end (React, Vue): Although Rails is primarily a back-end framework, having knowledge of front-end technologies like React or Vue.js is a bonus. Developers with full-stack skills can handle both front-end and back-end tasks, making them especially valuable in smaller teams.
• DevOps exposure (Docker, CI/CD Pipelines): Familiarity with tools like Docker or continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines is beneficial for improving deployment efficiency and providing smooth, automated workflows.
• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum: Rails development teams often work in Agile environments. Developers with experience in Agile or Scrum methodologies are comfortable with iterative development and can adapt to changing requirements and timelines.
• Prior work on scalable SaaS platforms: Developers with experience in building scalable SaaS applications can bring valuable insights into handling high-traffic applications, multi-tenancy, and complex data structures.

Where Can You Find and Hire Skilled Ruby on Rails Developers?

Hiring a Ruby on Rails developer starts with two important decisions: where your developer will be based and how you’ll find them.

Each option comes with trade-offs that affect cost, collaboration, and the size of your available talent pool.

Choosing the right location (local, remote, or international)

Ruby on Rails development doesn’t require in-person work. Unless your team is fully office-based, there’s no real reason to limit your search geographically.

That flexibility makes it ideal for outsourcing Ruby on Rails development. What matters most is aligning your hiring strategy with your business goals.

Here’s how each location-based approach compares:

• In-office, local hires: Hiring locally allows for face-to-face collaboration and easier integration into team rituals like standups or whiteboarding sessions. It also simplifies onboarding and payroll. But the candidate pool is limited to your region, and salaries will match local cost-of-living benchmarks. This is especially high in tech hubs like New York or San Francisco.
• Remote US-based developers: You’ll get access to a broader pool of experienced developers without the need for relocation. US-based Rails developers typically understand business norms, timezone expectations, and security regulations. However, compensation still matches US market rates, which can make scaling your team expensive.
• International hiring: Going global opens up access to highly skilled developers at more sustainable rates. Latin America (LatAm), in particular, is often the best choice over more distant regions. This is because developers in the region work the same hours as US teams, have strong English proficiency, and bring a deep understanding of modern development practices.

Other strong international options include Eastern Europe and Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines. These regions offer a large number of technically skilled developers, but time differences may make real-time collaboration harder. If async communication is something your team already handles well, these can be cost-effective solutions.

Choosing the right sourcing channel

Once you’ve identified your preferred location, the next step is deciding how to actually find qualified candidates. Each sourcing method has different strengths depending on your hiring goals.

When venturing into offshore hiring for the first time, working with a specialized recruitment partner can help you save significant time and missteps (which we’ll cover a bit more later on).

How to Hire the Best Ruby on Rails Developers: Best Practices

Hiring a Ruby on Rails developer isn’t just about filling a seat. You want someone who can solve real technical problems, move quickly without cutting corners, and collaborate well with the rest of your product team. That kind of hire doesn’t happen by accident.

Here are some best practices hiring managers rely on to make stronger decisions when filling this role. 

Stage 1: Before and during sourcing

Clarify what the role actually demands

One of the biggest hiring mistakes is trying to find a developer who can do everything, whether it’s building your back end, managing infrastructure, or owning the front end. Rails developers focus on the server side. 

Seventy percent of workplace disputes are triggered by unclear role descriptions. Stop this before it starts by being specific about the skills and tech stack your team actually needs. If you expect knowledge of React, PostgreSQL, or AWS, list them clearly. Just avoid overloading the role with unrelated requirements.

Write a job description that attracts the right kind of developer

Rails developers want to know what they’re walking into. Be upfront about your stack and team structure and whether this is a greenfield build or an existing application. Include clear expectations around collaboration, ownership, and how performance will be evaluated. 

We have more tips in our guide to job descriptions for software developers.

Stage 2: Screening and evaluation

Go beyond the resume

Rails developers who look average on paper may still be excellent in practice. A GitHub profile or small trial project will give you more signal than a resume ever could. Ask candidates to complete a short, relevant exercise. 

This could be something like optimizing a slow query or refactoring a poorly structured controller. It doesn’t need to be complex, just realistic.

Look for people who think like builders, not just coders

Great Rails developers can explain how they’ve scaled applications, prevented bottlenecks, or handled sensitive data. Ask how they’ve solved problems around load times, background job queues, or authorization logic. 

These are common challenges in production Rails apps, and thoughtful answers reveal more than textbook knowledge ever will.

Assess autonomy and collaboration

Even if you’re hiring for an in-house team, it’s helpful to identify candidates who manage their own workload and communicate clearly across disciplines. 

Developers who are used to working closely with product managers, designers, and QA tend to ship faster and catch issues earlier. 

For remote positions, especially when hiring offshore, evaluate their experience with asynchronous communication.

Ask how they’ve handled time zone differences, what tools they’ve used to stay connected, and how they ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

Candidates who have previously worked with distributed teams will have developed practical strategies for maintaining visibility without constant supervision.

Stage 3: Making the offer and closing the deal

Move quickly and be decisive

According to Stack Overflow’s latest survey, only 5.2% of 65,000 developers reported using Ruby on Rails. Top Ruby on Rails developers won’t stay available for long. 

If you spend two weeks deciding or wait until every stakeholder weighs in, someone else will make the offer first.

Make sure your hiring process is aligned internally so you can move fast when the right person shows up.

Put together a competitive offer that speaks to what developers value

It’s not just about salary. Developers care about the impact of their work, the flexibility of the role, whether they’ll have room to grow, and what benefits they’ll receive.

For example, paid holidays and a clear path for upskilling can go a long way. 

Treat your hiring offer like a sales pitch. Place yourself in the shoes of the developer and start asking questions like:

• What are we offering beyond a paycheck?
• Will they have opportunities to work on meaningful features or just maintenance tasks?
• Is there flexibility around work hours or location?
• Are we providing a clear path for growth or advancement?
• Will they have access to modern tools, frameworks, or mentoring?

Strong candidates often have more than one offer. A thoughtful, well-structured package helps yours stand out.

You can read more about making strong offers to hire and retaining top talent in our guide on the topic.

Top Interview Questions for Hiring Ruby on Rails Developers That Reveal the Right Fit

The goal when interviewing Ruby on Rails developers is to understand how they solve problems, how they approach their work, and whether they’ll thrive in your team environment. 

These questions are designed to surface real-world experience, technical depth, and collaboration habits.

Here are six questions worth asking, and what to listen for in the answers.

“Walk me through a time you improved the performance of a Rails app.”

This tests a developer’s ability to identify and fix real bottlenecks. You want to hear about specific strategies like profiling slow queries, using background jobs, caching views or data, and reducing N+1 queries.

What to look for: Clear thinking, performance awareness, and real metrics or outcomes.

Red flag: Vague answers with no reference to tools like Bullet, New Relic, or PgHero.

“How do you approach building an API for a new feature?”

This question reveals how the candidate plans architecture and considers usability, consistency, and scalability.

What to look for: A structured process that includes identifying endpoints, versioning, authentication, and working with product requirements.

Red flag: Overly simplistic responses or skipping steps like error handling or documentation.

“Tell me about a bug you spent too long fixing. What happened?”

Everyone hits walls. This question reveals a problem-solving mindset and humility.

What to look for: A clear breakdown of the debugging process and lessons learned.

Red flag: Blaming teammates or not being able to explain the bug clearly.

“How do you stay up to date with changes in Rails?”

Rails moves fast. Developers who care about their craft make time to keep learning.

What to look for: Mention of reading release notes, following Rails contributors, subscribing to newsletters, or contributing to open source.

Red flag: “I don’t really follow updates,” or only learning on the job.

“How do you handle situations where you disagree with a product or design decision?”

This tests how the candidate communicates across functions.

What to look for: A thoughtful, diplomatic approach that shows they can balance technical concerns with business goals.

Red flag: Dismissiveness or combative responses.

 “Rails is known for its ‘convention over configuration’ approach. How do you decide when to follow convention—and when to break it?”

This question helps you assess architectural maturity and independence of thought.

What to look for: Can articulate why Rails defaults are great for 80% of use cases, but describes a scenario where deviation improved clarity or scalability.

Red flag: “I always follow convention”—this can indicate rigidity or limited experience with edge cases.

Bonus: “How do you build trust quickly when working with a team you haven’t met in person?”

This is especially important if you’re hiring internationally or working with distributed teams. When hiring offshore developers, you need people who communicate clearly, show initiative, and don’t wait to be told what to do.

What to look for: Examples of proactive communication, sharing early drafts of work, and establishing reliability through responsiveness.

Red flag: Waiting on instructions or needing constant follow-up to stay on track.

Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Ruby on Rails Developers

Even with a well-defined process, it’s easy to make choices that slow down hiring or lead to the wrong fit. 

Here are five mistakes that show up often when hiring developers and how to avoid them.

Focusing too much on credentials or degrees

Plenty of strong Rails developers never finished college (or just skipped it entirely).

That’s especially true in regions like Latin America, where many engineers start working before graduating. 

According to our recruiters, if you rely on formal education as a filter, you risk missing candidates who’ve already delivered production-grade work and solved real-world problems.

What to do instead: Focus on skills, contributions to projects, GitHub activity, and hands-on experience. Ask candidates to walk through their actual work instead of just relying on their education credentials.

Assuming Rails Developers Will Also Own the Front End

Rails developers specialize in back-end development—handling business logic, databases, APIs, and performance. While Rails can render views, many modern apps pair Rails with JavaScript frameworks like React or Vue for front-end work. Expecting one developer to manage both stacks (plus DevOps) is often unrealistic and leads to slow progress or poor-quality UI.

What to do instead: Hire for depth. If your front end is JavaScript-heavy, consider hiring a dedicated front-end engineer to work alongside your Rails dev. Or, if you’re sticking with Rails views (like ERB), find a Rails dev comfortable with UI basics—but don’t expect React-level proficiency.

Skipping a technical evaluation

Resumes don’t prove someone can write clean, efficient, maintainable code. Yet some companies hire Rails devs without asking for a code sample, GitHub review, or short test project.

Rails emphasizes convention, structure, and performance. You won’t catch gaps in knowledge unless you evaluate real work.

What to do instead: Assign a short task that mirrors your actual environment. This can be something like building a basic CRUD endpoint with tests included.

Ignoring cultural fit and team collaboration

Rails development rarely happens in isolation. Your developer will need to collaborate with product managers, designers, and possibly stakeholders. If they’re working offshore, asynchronous communication and responsiveness are even more critical.

What to do instead: During the interview process, pay attention to how they write emails, ask clarifying questions, and share progress. Those behaviors matter as much as code.

Why Working With a Recruiting Partner Makes a Difference

Hiring a Ruby on Rails developer on your own is absolutely possible. Especially if you’ve hired for technical roles before and have the time to run a thorough process or if your network already includes strong candidates.

However, many companies don’t have that advantage. If you’re hiring from outside the US for the first time or need to move fast, working with a partner can save significant time and stress.

The right partner brings structure to the search, offers guidance on what compensation looks like in local markets, and helps you avoid common issues around remote readiness and cultural alignment.

A recruiter who knows the Ruby on Rails market can also:

• Surface stronger candidates faster.
• Filter out unqualified applicants before they hit your inbox.
• Support cross-border hiring, including compliance and payroll issues.
• Lower the overall cost of hire by opening up access to lower-cost markets with just as much quality talent as available in the US.

The cost of hiring the wrong developer, especially for a core back-end role, can set projects back by weeks or months. A good recruiting partner reduces that risk and helps you close with the right candidate more efficiently.

It’s not the only way to hire, but it’s often the most practical one when time is limited or when you’re working across borders.

Final Thoughts

The right Ruby on Rails developer does more than write code. They become a key contributor to your product’s success by building scalable back-end systems, solving real business problems, and collaborating with product and design teams.

Finding that person means looking beyond technical skills. You need someone who thinks critically, communicates clearly, and fits your long-term goals.

If you're considering hiring offshore to access a broader talent pool or reduce costs, partnering with a recruitment expert can streamline the process. A specialized firm can help you navigate international hiring, ensure cultural alignment, and connect you with pre-vetted candidates who match your specific requirements.

At Near, we help you hire pre-vetted LatAm Ruby on Rails developers who work during your working hours, integrate easily with your team, and have salary expectations below their US-based peers.

Fill out this form to get a list of developer profiles matched to your needs. You can interview for free and only pay once you make a hire. 

Or to learn more about why hiring from Latin America is becoming such a popular strategy, read our article “Nearshoring: The Smartest Way to Cut Costs & Scale Your Business in 2025.”