Looking for a job in software engineering? Don't be so quick to assume tech heavyweights like Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook are the place to be.
According to a new Glassdoor report, which charted the 25 companies with the highest-paid engineers, Juniper Networks takes the top spot — by almost $24,000 annually.
The California-based network equipment manufacturer offers employees an average annual base salary of $159,990, beating out big names including LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, and Twitter — all of which round out the top five.
Coming in at No. 2 is professional network LinkedIn, which boasts an average base salary of $137,427 — certainly nothing to sneeze at, but still short of its competition. Meanwhile, Marissa Mayer's Yahoo falls into third place with $130,312, ahead of Google and Twitter, paying $127,143 and $124,863, respectively.
Brands like Apple, Oracle, Facebook, Nvidia, eBay, Amazon, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, Ericsson, and Qualcomm also made it into the top 25 with average annual base salaries between $101,000 and $130,000.
Each of Glassdoor's picks pays higher than the U.S. software engineer national average of $92,790.
And while Juniper Network's big win may have come as a surprise to some, America's job availability likely won't. Major metropolises, like Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Austin, Portland (Oregon), Seattle, and basically the entire state of California, are among the most highly paid — all offering $83,700 or higher.
Those popular cities also claim the most number of employers hiring software engineers, according to Glassdoor's city-by-city comparison. Collectively, California's San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego have 6,700 job openings. Meanwhile, New England and the nation's capital are hot spots for job-hunting software engineers; also think about dropping off a resumé in Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, and Dallas/Fort Worth.
If you're looking for a full six figures, try taking a stab at white-hat hacking — i.e. a top-tier information security analyst or computer programmer, who makes up to $135,600 and $117,890, respectively, per year.
Just make sure you're actually earning that money, instead of outsourcing your work to China and watching cat videos online and perusing Reddit.
