I'm a senior consultant (mostly rails) and I find much easier to find clients in the US (CA, NY) and Europe than locally. Local rails boutiques are charging $60/h and senior/experienced developers/architects have a hard time finding startups that could afford hiring "competitive" people.

p.s. by "competitive" I mean experienced people that could be hired remotely at SF rates.

it seems like everyone is either already working for multinational companies or working as contractors for better pay.

btw, i know a couple of guys that are interested in rails work here in SP if you need some help. you can contact me at fernando.takai at gmail.