America's Highest-Paying Companies

Known for its raunchy Super Bowl ads, GoDaddy is an internet domain registrar and web hosting company. GoDaddy’s workforce includes nearly 7,000 full-time employees worldwide, which service 21 million customers. The company reported revenue of $3.8 billion in 2021, and employees got a solid slice of the pie.

Experian is a multinational consumer credit reporting company that collects and aggregates information on over 1 billion people and businesses. Roughly 18,000 employees take care of this massive task, and they are duly compensated. Even though software engineers make an average of $72,000 a year and account executives make $88,000, there is a sizable pay upside as you move up the job ladder.

Smartsheet was founded in 2005 with only nine employees and $4 million in funding at the onset. Since then, the company has exploded to more than 2,600 employees, raking in more than $385 million in revenue in 2021. Smartsheet employees get a nice cut of the pie as well with an average salary of $95,000 apiece.

Founded in 2002, Tenable is a cybersecurity company known for creating the vulnerability scanning software, Nessus. Tenable pays the 1,300 employees on the books an average salary of $96,000. Principal software engineers can make up to $173,000, while software engineers can make up to $114,000.

Appian is one of the smaller cloud computing companies to make the list with just under 2,000 employees. Salaries at Appian Corporation range from an average of $64,000 to $148,000 a year, depending on the position. Appian employees with the job title software engineer make the most with an average annual salary of $107,000.

Intel is the biggest semiconductor company in the United States, employing just over 121,000 full-time employees. The company was incorporated in 1968 and has reigned as one of the major tech companies ever since, even occupying a spot on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. With this prestige, Intel has to hire the best and the company’s compensation reflects that.

Peloton took the stock market by storm when it went public in 2019, but since then the company has fallen on hard times. Even market commentators like Jim Cramer on CNBC would suggest the bikes aren’t worth buying just to have another place to hang clothes. Regardless of the current investing climate, Peloton pays pretty well, with the average employee clearing just north of a six-digit salary.

Calix may be one of the lesser known names on this list. The company provides cloud, software platforms, systems and services to communications service providers. With just under 1,000 employees, Calix compensates very well, with senior software engineers making an average of $142,000.

After COVID-19 hit, Zoom Video quickly became one of the biggest names out there — it even became a verb, somewhat akin to “google.” After going public in 2019, the company had to rapidly expand to deal with the rising demand from the pandemic. Currently, Zoom has just under 7,000 employees.

SAP develops enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Employees with the job title senior software engineer make the most on average at sap with a salary of $134,000, while support engineers make the least on average at roughly $72,000.

With just over 280,000 employees, IBM is one of the biggest names on the list. IBM is known for producing and selling computer hardware, but recently it has been moving into artificial intelligence and cloud computing. In order to expand into new fields and be competitive, IBM has to hire the best.

UiPath is an up-and-coming software company that specializes in robotic process automation software. The company was ranked No. 2 overall in the Financial Times fastest growing companies of 2020, and to keep up this growth UiPath has to hire the best employees. Data engineers and solutions architects are making a comfortable living here with over six digit salaries.

Adobe produces some of the most popular creative software available online, including Photoshop — which, according to the company, is used by over 90% of the world’s creative professionals — and After Effects. Adobe employs products, communications, and accounts managers, among others. Management positions at the company typically pay in excess of $100,000. In addition, the company also employs well-compensated software engineers and computer scientists who develop its software products.

Like many other big names on this list, Medallia operates in the tech sector with the distinction of being a software-as-a-service (SaaS). It may be one of the lesser known names on the list but Medallia is one of the highest paying, on average. Software engineers do especially well at this company, and they can expect to make roughly $140,000.

Though Alphabet has many businesses, it is most identified with its search engine, Google. But like its dominant position in search, Google also holds the largest market share worldwide in its other products, such as Chrome browser and Android operating system. To keep its No. 1 spot, Google constantly improves on its products and services. To do this, Google pays its software engineers, technical program managers, and sales engineers in excess of six-figure salaries.

Microsoft has about 221,000 full-time employees around the world. The 122,000 who work in the United States earn an average of $123,000 a year. This relatively high pay is mostly attributable to software engineers and IT managers as well as the various program and account managers needed to keep such a large company running smoothly at all levels.

Palo Alto Networks is one of the biggest names in the cybersecurity industry, and it reached this prestige in part thanks to its nearly 12,000 employees. With cybercrime on the rise and more Americans working from home, demand for Palo Alto Networks’ services has seen a steady rise. To stay on the bleeding-edge of technological development, the company has to attract the best and brightest.

VMware is a software company that aims to help businesses better launch and maintain their online presence utilizing cloud computing technology. This type of business requires a large team of software developers — one of the most in demand and highly compensated career fields in America. Most of these workers nationwide make at least $100,000 a year, and VMware, which is located in one of the most expensive parts of the country to live, must compensate its developers even more to account for the high cost of living.

Even in Silicon Valley, the salaries at Meta’s Facebook for software engineers stand out. Software engineers earn nearly $132,000 on average working for the social media giant. Its senior software engineers are even better paid, with an average annual salary of $156,000. As a social media platform that thrives on user experience and collects vast amounts of user data, Facebook also employs user experience researchers and data engineers.

Credit Karma ranks No. 1 on this list while having perhaps the lowest number of employees out of any company previously mentioned. With only 700 employees, this personal finance company pays employees about $144,000 on average. Credit Karma is best known as a free credit and financial management platform.