9 MIN READ

The 15 best sites to hire R developers in 2023

Updated on March 16, 2024
Platforms to find talented R developers
Toptal

What we liked the most:

  • 98% Hiring Success
  • Fast Matching within 48 hours
  • Risk-Free Trial for up to 5 Days
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Arc.dev

What we liked the most:

  • Vetted developers
  • Fast hiring solution
  • Qualified developers
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Ideamotive

What we liked the most:

  • Holistic Approach
  • Flexible IT hiring and outsourcing
  • Get matched with top talent
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Kelly Wilson
Written by Kelly Wilson

Strategist and entrepreneur, with experience in hiring developers across various industries. Kelly has established herself as a trusted expert in identifying and recruiting top tech talent. She shares advanced tips on how to identify the right talent, create hiring strategies, develop your tech teams and much more.

Expertise: IT Recruiting, Tech, Marketing

R programming language is widely used for statistical computing, data analysis, and visualization. In this guide, we will provide insights on how to hire top R developers and also recommend some of the best talent platforms for finding freelance R developers.

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Here are the top 15 sites to hire freelance R developers:

Based on facts publicly available as of 01.01.2024

1. Toptal

Topal is a service that connects initially qualified R developers with high-profile companies. Developers found on the platform come from all corners of the platform. All are freelancers with the option to engage on a part-time or full-time basis. Both, locally and on a remote basis.

What places Toptal apart from the rest of the list is that it came on the market to serve technical talent. Couple this with a rigorous qualification process, and you emerge with the best human capital for complex projects. Mostly senior R developers.

There are three options when hiring R developers off Toptal.

1. You can engage an individual data science developer with years of experience

2. Solicit the help of a group of computer science professionals to lead

3. Contract an entire development team and data analytics team that manages its own agile process to complete your projects

Key points:

  • Five-step vetting eliminates all but the top 3% of developers.
  • No-questions-asked scaling coordinates your team composition with fluctuating project requirements.
  • On-demand hiring means you can onboard developers in 48 hours.

2. Arc

Arc was formerly known as Codementor. They too have a pre-selection filter aimed at maintaining quality. Predominantly focused on remote talent, Arc's model is such that they bridge the geographic gap between employers and developers.

The location-based salary explorer accessible on Arc's platform is one resource out of a few more to help with the hiring process. They also include a promise to help clients with hiring R developers in 72 hours from first contact.

Key points:

  • Hire skilled freelancers in 72 hours and full-time developers in two weeks.
  • Arc reviews developer performance regularly to ensure quality.
  • AI talent matching saves time by locating your project’s best developer matches.

3. Ideamotive

Ideamotive provides sole R developers, collaborators for statistical analysis, and even entire software development companies to work with. Also on the cards is a transactional approach to solving your R programming and data analysis projects through hypergrowth - where they surround your project with the talent it requires.

To set themselves apart from competition, they propose a holistic approach to your projects. This entails sourcing other departments such as project management, marketing, and sales to help with your chances of success.

Key points:

  • Receive a list of matched, pre-vetted candidates in under 24 hours.
  • Ideamotive has a 7-day money back guarantee.
  • Hire individual freelancers or a fully managed team.

4. Upwork

Unlike the communities we've reviewed so far, Upwork's developers are screened through their experience on the platform over time. A rating-based system qualifies R developers based on the projects they complete with every client they interact with. The same applies to talent that signs up as agencies.

The result is a pool of independent R developers from all over the world, such as the United States, United Kingdom, and more. You pick the contract type, duration of the data analysis project, as well as remuneration rate before contractual agreements. Upwork also provides an Escrow model to handle the financial rewards after milestones are achieved. Every project on the platform attracts commission.

Key points:

  • Upwork’s Talent Scouts perform talent-matching services to streamline your search.
  • You’ll need to screen and vet most applicants; only 1% earn Expert-Vetted status.
  • Fixed-price protection and secure payments safeguard your expenditures.

5. Kolabtree

When you submit your project to the talent pool on Kolabtree, they provide options to help source the best R developers. You maintain control over who gets to send a pitch based on their skills profile and proven experience.

Intellectual property protection clauses and non-disclosure documents are signed by every member of the community when they join. The final cost of any particular data science project is open to the interpretation of your final choice of developers and their expectations.

Key points:

  • Pay developers by-the-hour or for delivering a complete project.
  • Kolabtree developers submit quotes when you post your project.
  • You’ll coordinate with your team directly, but Kolabtree support is available 24/7.

6. R-users

If you want to cut through the aesthetics of polished profiles and platform guidelines straight to the talent, R-users is a viable option. To that end, once you look up the talent, you get direct access to their resumes and qualifications profiles.

All the communication, contractual agreements, and transactions take place separate from the platform. This likens the platform from all too common means of acquiring technical talent such as looking up local directories. However, you reserve the benefit of reaching more resumes that that option provides.

7. Peopleperhour

This platform was originally designed around the hourly project payment model. However, Peopleperhour now allows you to contract R developers and other statisticians on a project basis. The range of talent and rates covers a wide spectrum, from less than $10.00 to anywhere over $50.00 per hour.

The platform requires a deposit upfront for each project. The R developer you choose only gets their financial reward after the project is complete.

8. DevTeam.Space

DevTeam.Space is built around a set of AI tools for project management using the Agile methodology. Unlike most platforms that let you single out a developer for each project instance you have, they supply in teams.

To get started with the hiring process, the platform requires that you submit your project details. Then onwards, they match you with available teams matching the expertise and rates of your choice.

9. Mobilunity

This company is a Ukraine-based group of developers focused on helping international companies hire local R developers. The major premise is that it costs less to place an R developer working remotely from Ukraine than anywhere else in the world.

The preferred option is that you nearshore an entire outfit and plug in your project requirements. While this helps with team chemistry and communication, it is not always possible. As such, they're open to the idea of providing any one from the teams available to complement the skills matrix required to accomplish big data/deep learning and machine learning projects with R.

10. CloudEmployee

This platform does one better than providing R developers. They also propose aftercare services as your project evolves. Effectively they become a one-stop-shop for R developers and data scientists. They also cater for the fine picking of matching employees.

Terms commonplace among the lines of copy explaining their approach is "zero-risk" and "no set-up costs". To achieve this, they act as a managed IT consulting firm in between a pool of talent and clients. Most of their R programmers are based in the Philippines.

11. Guru

Guru is a community-centric platform that provides R developers from all corners of the world. The platform rates talent based on their in-app reputation. Their pitch to enterprise grade clients is strong on providing affordable talent, optional dedicated assistance to manage interaction with members of the community, and turnkey solutions to R development requirements.

12. Workana

Sticking to the original (work-board and bid) model coined in the early days of remote talent acquisition. Workana resorts to being the non-invasive middleman between clients and a growing pool of some of the best R developers.

You simply provide details of your project along with a tentative budget. Developers provide proposals. Upon communication with developer profiles at your discretion, you choose who to work with along with any attachments and rules of engagement.

13. Teamextension

With seven offices in Eastern Europe, Teamextension's core objective is to be the pipeline between R developers/software engineers and clients worldwide. They hinge their model on the emerging silicon valley clode experience in Bucharest. That is: affordable amenities, skilled human resource capital, and a lower remuneration expectation.

All payments between need and talent go through the platform. A deposit is a prerequisite, unlocking the talent already checked and qualified to start working.

14. Fiverr

Fiverr is a gig oriented talent source. Options when acquiring R developers for your project are spread across different developer rates and past project successes. Depending on how long you'll need to work with an R developer, contracting a developer for hire sometimes means waiting for them to finish serving gigs they have lined up first.

15. Remoteok

Remote ok is a predominantly distanced working focused platform. They bridge the gap between companies all over the world with talent also situated globally. There is no net to filter the depth of talent when a developer signs up for potential placing. As such the due diligence is all in the hands of the potential employer.

Guide to hiring great freelance R developers

What Makes R Programming Important?

With the world fast moving towards better data access infrastructures and algorithms, there is also a spike in the data being produced and the need for more comprehensive data manipulation. The world has moved past Excel and simple MySQL solutions. R is a programming language created for quantitative, statistical computing. It will scour, categorize, and present data quickly.

Speed and good presentation of datasets are built into R programming. However, what makes it stand apart and out from among other statistically competent languages has to be the library it owns.

Through applying statistical libraries (predefined functions that manipulate data variables), R can run operations on arrays of data returning graphical presentation with ease. Analyzing data and visualizing outcomes on beautiful (shiny) interfaces makes it a widely usable language in the workplace. Data visualization, when done right, reduces the decision making time involving large amounts of data. Python is another widely used programming language. It is more generic for data analysis, while R is used more for statistical analysis.

What Goes Into Hiring a Good R Language Developer?

Assuming everyone is in the same geo-location, some considerations activate whenever you're faced with the need for R developers.

  • Their desired payment rate is often a strong deciding factor. Some clients associate low rates with less experience and low-quality deliverables.
  • Consider how the R programmers will work with your other data scientists, data analysts and software developers
  • The turnaround time also holds a strong impact on who gets hired. Urgent project requirements often means vetting fewer R developers
  • Some R programmers only come as part of a team. Even when highly rated, they would have to be part of a package deal. Often more expensive than individual talent-based platforms. You may end up hiring more than one developer in the end.
  • Extra skills are always attractive. Think of the difference between hiring an exclusively R language developer, vs. a complete statistical programming expert.

When choosing the platform to pick a competent R developer from. How long it takes to hire is not important when they have already qualified the freelancers beforehand. You ought to reserve the option to hire as many developers as you need and maintain creative control. It should still be your project when all the work is done.

Hiring R developers - FAQ

How Do I Hire R Developers?

Finding and identifying the best R developers for your project is vital, but those aren’t the initial steps in the hiring process. You must first determine project details, such as:

  • Budget
  • Nature, scope and goals
  • Number of team members and required skill sets
  • Hiring and project completion timelines

Consider the pros and cons of hiring freelancers vs. contract-to-hire, part-time or full-time employees. Your local talent pool may lack some specialized skill sets, but you’ll likely find them using worldwide services such as Toptal or some of the other sites on our list.

Are R Developers in Demand?

Uses for data and statistical analysis continue to evolve as organizations and businesses rely more heavily on data science. The job outlook for R programmers and the field of data science as a whole should rise at a much-faster-than-average rate until at least 2032.

Why Should You Hire an R Developer?

Businesses in multiple industries use R-based software for statistical analysis and data visualizations. Practical uses include:

  • Credit risk and big-data modeling
  • Social media platform user analysis
  • E-commerce and retail marketing strategies
  • Economic forecasting 

This powerful programming language is one of the most widely used for statistical data analytics and machine learning.

An R developer can create cross-platform software using this language, providing meaningful, data-backed insights to: 

  • Increase your organization’s efficiency
  • Make informed decisions 
  • Reduce expenses and increase profits

Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Airbnb use R, so you’ll be in good company.

How Much Does It Cost To Hire an R Developer?
In the U.S., an R developer averages $123,147 annually, or $59 hourly. Yearly totals range from $29,000 to $184,000. Differences in location, project complexity, skill levels and years of experience explain this wide margin.

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