Analysis of Hired’s 2023 State of Software Engineers Report: “Ruby on Rails is the most in-demand skill.”

Start learning Ruby today and be happy, especially for QA engineers.

In-demand skills ranking by Hired.

On 2023–02–28, Hired, the leading hiring marketplace matching tech and sales talent with top companies, released its annual report, Big Transitions in the Tech Industry: Hired’s 2023 State of Software Engineers.

Table of Contents:
· “Ruby on Rails is the most in-demand skill”
· “But from my observation, Ruby or Ruby on Rails is not popular? ”
· The second most-in-demand skill: Ruby
· Why is Ruby in demand again?

“Ruby on Rails is the most in-demand skill”

“The most in-demand skill was Ruby on Rails, with engineers skilled in this framework and scripting language receiving 1.64x more interview requests compared to the marketplace average. Ruby on Rails bumped Go from first place in 2022’s report to fourth this year.” — Hired

“Ruby on Rails (RoR) is a very mature and easy-to-use framework, which leads to its popularity among engineers and engineering leaders. It allows for faster coding (or increased productivity) which helps engineers deliver minimum viable products (MVPs) and features at a higher pace.” — Hired CTO Dave Walters

The full list of “Hottest Software Engineering Skills”:

“But from my observation, Ruby or Ruby on Rails is not popular? “

Yes, the observation is true, which is also reflected in the Hired’s report.

Here is the explanation from Hired.

While “hot” skills such as Ruby, Kotlin and Go were in demand by employers this year, many were not as commonly listed on candidate profiles. In other words, it was a specialist market this year. Jobseekers with specialized or “hot” skills, received more interviews this year versus generalists.

Allow me to recount the tale of my close friend who struggled to secure a job despite possessing an IT degree and experience after immigrating to Australia. When I proposed that he search for job opportunities in Canberra, he dismissed the idea, insisting that there were more job advertisements in Sydney. It was indeed accurate that Sydney has around four times the number of IT job ads compared to Canberra, but it’s important to note that Sydney’s population is also thirteen times larger.

Perceptive readers will grasp the underlying point. The probability of securing an interview is of greater significance than the popularity of a language or framework.

The second most-in-demand skill: Ruby

A common misconception is that Ruby is equivalent to Ruby on Rails.

The inclusion of “Ruby” in the framework’s name is a tribute to the language that the creator adores. The same rationale applies to Watir, which stands for Web Application Testing in Ruby.

Ruby is a versatile, object-oriented scripting language that has reached maturity (in fact, it recently celebrated its 30th anniversary). Its application is not confined to Ruby on Rails, as it has also been employed by numerous renowned companies, such as GitHub, Hulu, Shopify, BaseCamp, and many others.

Besides web development, Ruby can be used for other purposes:

• Deployment
  You might have heard of Chef.
  By the way, the new deployment tool MRSK, created by BaseCamp, could be a game changer. (AWS and Azure engineers might want to take notice of this). Check out this impressive demo by DDH:

• Test Automation

I think Ruby is the best language for scripting automated end-to-end tests (API and GUI, such as web).

I am more objective than most, as My Selenium Recipes Book series covers all these five languages.

Why is Ruby in demand again?

The Hired report did not elaborate on that. I will share my views.