Image source: Getty Images.
According to a recent report from job search and review site Glassdoor, the 10 highest-paying tech companies in the U.S. all offer median total compensations at least three times higher than the national average annual income of $44,148. The rapid advancement of the tech industry has Silicon Valley companies fiercely competing for the best talent.
While many of these companies have unique ways of attracting talent -- such as unlimited vacation days, free meals, and onsite and nap rooms -- salaries are steadily rising as well. Here's the list of the 10 highest-paying Silicon Valley companies by median total compensation.
Image source: Salesforce.
10. salesforce.com: $150,000
salesforce.com (CRM -1.53%) develops software solutions specifically for customer-relations management (or CRM, hence the stock ticker). However, the company has been increasing its focus on other future industry drivers as well -- most notably, artificial intelligence. Salesforce's median salary, according to the Glassdoor report, is $150,000.
Image source: LinkedIn.
9. LinkedIn: $150,000
LinkedIn is now owned by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), following a 2016 acquisition for more than $26 billion. This career-focused social media-like platform makes its money from talent-solutions sales and premium subscriptions, but Microsoft bought the company seemingly for access to its community of more than 500 million professional members in over 200 countries.
Image source: Juniper Networks.
8. Juniper Networks: $150,000
Juniper Networks (JNPR 0.03%) makes the majority of its money through various routing and cloud-computing products, which are sold to other companies around the globe. While the enterprise-networking industry is evolving to meet the increased needs of our highly connected and fast-moving world, Juniper continues to try to lead that change. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., just outside Palo Alto, Juniper Networks employs nearly 10,000 people.
Image source: Amazon.com.
7. Amazon Lab126: $152,800
Amazon.com (AMZN -0.07%) is based in Seattle. However, the segment of the company responsible for designing and engineering Amazon's growing portfolio of hardware items, called Amazon Lab126, is in Silicon Valley. Amazon has taken a lot of interesting turns in the past decade and is now increasing its focus on hardware such as its Fire tablet, Kindle e-reader, Amazon Fire TV, and, of course, the Amazon Echo.
Image source: NVIDIA.
6. NVIDIA: $154,000
Chipmaker NVIDIA (NVDA 1.37%) currently serves various high-growth industries, from gaming to virtual reality to autonomous vehicles. It can afford to be generous to its employees thanks to its incredible business performance. In its most recent fiscal year, NVIDIA's sales grew by 38% over the previous year, and its stock is up nearly 700% over the past five years.
Image source: Facebook.
5. Facebook: $155,000
In its 13 short years of existence, Facebook (META 1.34%) has become one of the biggest companies in the U.S. by market capitalization. That's a result of the company's massive advertising business, which in 2016 brought in sales of $26.9 billion -- more than five times the company's 2012 sales -- as Facebook prepares to reach a total user base of 2 billion in 2017. To fuel that growth, Facebook is investing in various new projects, such as artificial intelligence and virtual hangouts called Facebook Spaces.
Image source: Alphabet / Google.
4. Google: $155,250
Google, a division of Alphabet (GOOG -0.24%) (GOOGL -0.31%) since the company's restructuring in 2015, has long been a pioneer in designing employee benefit and engagement programs. The company offers valuable perks, such as robust maternal and paternal leave, as well as onsite gourmet chefs and personal trainers. It also offers some of the highest paychecks in the country -- Google's median salary, according to Glassdoor, is $155,250.
Cadence employees in Taiwan. Image source: Cadence Design Systems.
3. Cadence Design: $156,702
Cadence Design Systems (CDNS -1.24%) creates integrated circuits and other technologies that help their corporate clients bring electronic devices to market. Cadence works with companies across various technology subsectors, from electronics systems and semiconductor companies to internet service providers. Shares of Cadence Design are up around 230% over the past five years, bringing them near the all-time high they reached in 1998.
Image source: Splunk's official Facebook page.
2. Splunk: $161,010
Splunk (SPLK) is a data management and analysis company that offers what it calls "the leading platform for Operational Intelligence." With an ever-growing amount of data being collected from billions of connected devices, Splunk's ability to take messy and unstructured data and turn it into valuable insights has made it hugely successful in the past few years. Splunk has also come up with a smart and lucrative pricing strategy: The more data it interprets, the more it charges -- and the amount of usable data is growing exponentially.
Image source: VMWare.
1. VMWare: $167,050
And finally, the tech company with the highest median pay in America, by Glassdoor's calculations, is cloud-computing storage and software company VMWare (VMW). VMWare, which achieved sales of over $7 billion in 2016, was purchased by Dell last year, though it continues to operate as an independent, publicly traded company.
Of course, San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the world: The median home value is more than $1 million. Employees there and in the nearby areas that make up Silicon Valley have a substantially higher cost of living than most areas in the United States. These tech companies can only keep up with their high rents and salaries because they're capitalizing on their industries' incredible growth.
