Where Are the U.S. Firms That Pay the Best Salaries? Silicon Valley (Mostly)

Silicon Valley cloud service, networking, and data-analytics providers dominate Glassdoor’s latest list of high-paying employers

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An engineer measures himself against a wall-mounted salary chart
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Tech companies in general, and Silicon Valley companies in particular, dominate a just-released list of the 25 highest-paying employers in the United States compiled by on-line recruitment firm Glassdoor. Providers of software and tech services claimed the most spots, but a few hardware providers—like graphics processing chip company Nvidia and network hardware maker Juniper—made the cut as well. Companies involved in networking, cloud computing, and data analytics have a big presence on the list. The only non-tech companies among their ranks, according to this analysis, are in the management consulting business.

As Glassdoor chief economist Andrew Chamberlain explained in a blog post, consulting firms pay high salaries because they want their employees to have established personal contacts and relationships in specialized fields.

“In technology,” he wrote, “we continue to see unprecedented salaries as the war for talent is still very active, largely due to the ongoing shortage of highly skilled workers needed.”

The Silicon Valley companies in the top 25 are:

  • VMware, based in Palo Alto, at number 3 with a median total compensation of $167,050
  • Splunk, based in San Francisco, at number 4 with a median total compensation of $161,010
  • Cadence Design Systems, based in San Jose, at number 5 with a median total compensation of $156,702
  • Google, based in Mountain View, at number 6 with a median total compensation of $155,250
  • Facebook, based in Menlo Park, at number 7 with a median total compensation of $155,000
  • Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, at number 8 with a median total compensation of $154,000
  • Amazon Lab126, based in Sunnyvale, at number 10 with a median total compensation of $152,800
  • Juniper Networks, based in Sunnyvale, at number 11 with a median total compensation of $150,000
  • LinkedIn, based in Mountain View, at number 12 with a median total compensation of $150,000
  • Salesforce, based in San Francisco, at number 13 with a median total compensation of $150,000
  • Synopsys, based in Mountain View, at number 15 with a median total compensation of $148,000
  • Informatica, based in Redwood City, at number 16 with a median total compensation of $147,400
  • Walmart eCommerce, based in San Bruno, at number 20 with a median total compensation of $143,500
  • Visa Inc. (a firm categorized as finance but in many ways behaves like tech company), based in Foster City, at number 21 with a median total compensation of $142,000)
  • Twitter, based in San Francisco, at number 22 with a median total compensation of $142,000
  • Palo Alto Networks, based in Santa Clara, at number 24 with a median total compensation of $140,020.

Tech companies outside the Bay Area that made the high-salaries list included Dimension Data, Broadcom, Microsoft, F5 Networks, and Akamai.

The full list is here.

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