Top 10 Tech Companies to Work For in 2026 (By Growth, Pay, and Culture Signals)

Table of Contents

• How to use this Top 10 (your highlighter guide)
• NVIDIA
• Microsoft
• Google
• OpenAI
• Salesforce
• Adobe
• Cisco
• Databricks
• GitLab
• ServiceNow
• How to turn this Top 10 into your Top 3
• Frequently Asked Questions

NVIDIA

On your printed list, NVIDIA is the one that almost dares you not to circle it. It sits where AI, hardware, and cloud collide, and in recent rankings of global tech leaders, it keeps showing up at or near the very top for innovation and impact. Analysts at IE University’s overview of top tech companies in the world call out how its GPUs underpin everything from autonomous vehicles to massive data centers, which is exactly why your “growth” highlighter practically glows here.

Why NVIDIA is a growth magnet

NVIDIA’s GPUs are the engine room for generative AI, large-scale training clusters, robotics, and high-performance computing. In one multi-signal analysis of elite software employers, researchers noted that NVIDIA was consistently ranked #1 in 2025 for leadership and innovation, with employees citing “trailblazing technology” and “abundant rewards” for ambitious work. Another expert summary on PerceptionX describes it this way:

“As generative AI continues to grow, Nvidia is a pioneer in the field... committed to using sustainable computing.” - PerceptionX AI, Top 10 Software Companies to Work For

Translated to your kitchen-table worksheet: if you’re optimizing for growth in AI and systems-level engineering, NVIDIA is one of the clearest green-highlight entries. The flip side is intensity - high expectations, complex problems, and an interview bar that matches the compensation and prestige.

What NVIDIA actually hires for

Instead of imagining some vague “AI job,” think in concrete teams and titles you might scribble next to NVIDIA on your printout:

• Software engineer working close to the metal (C++/Python), drivers, or high-performance libraries.
• AI/ML engineer or research engineer focused on training and deploying deep learning models on GPUs.
• GPU architect or systems architect designing how hardware, firmware, and software fit together.
• Data scientist / data engineer building analytics and ML pipelines on top of NVIDIA platforms.
• Developer relations / performance engineer helping other companies squeeze more from NVIDIA hardware.

These show up across core GPU products, automotive, cloud services, and research labs, which means there are multiple doors in - if you can prove you understand performance and systems, not just “Hello, World” apps.

Pay and how it compares

On the money side, NVIDIA consistently sits in the top compensation tier among large public tech companies. Aggregated compensation reports such as the Levels.fyi End of Year Pay Report place it alongside the highest-paying firms globally. For U.S.-based mid-level engineers, that usually translates to low-to-high six-figure total compensation (base + bonus + stock), with senior AI and GPU-architecture roles going higher, especially in major hubs. The catch - this is your margin note - is that such pay usually comes with a rigorous hiring loop and a strong expectation that you’ll keep pushing the performance envelope.

How to make NVIDIA say “yes” (even as a beginner)

Next to NVIDIA on your printout, the margin note to write is: “Prove I can squeeze performance from hardware.” For a career-switcher or new dev, that means building at least one serious project that uses GPU computing and then telling the performance story clearly.

• Pick a project like training a deep learning model with CUDA, building a real-time graphics demo, or optimizing a numerical simulation.
• Implement it in C++ or Rust plus CUDA or another parallel framework, and document how you improved throughput, latency, or memory usage.
• Publish your work in a detailed GitHub repo with benchmarks and a write-up on design trade-offs and profiling results.
• While you’re learning, shore up the theory: linear algebra, numerical methods, and the basics of GPU architecture.

When you eventually hit “submit” on the NVIDIA careers site, you want your resume and portfolio to read less like “I’m excited about AI” and more like “Here’s where I took a model, rewrote kernels, and cut training time by 30%.” That’s the kind of concrete story that turns a green-highlighted dream into an interview invite.

Microsoft

If you’re sitting at the table thinking, “I want big tech without burning out,” Microsoft is probably one of the first names you underline. It has the scale and brand of a tech giant, but it also shows up over and over in workplace rankings for stability, learning, and benefits. On Forbes’ 2025 list of America’s Best Employers for Tech Workers, Microsoft comes in at #1, backed by employee ratings for culture, development, and flexibility. That’s your first hint that this isn’t just a prestige logo; it’s one of the safest “big swings” you can highlight in blue for culture and green for growth.

Why Microsoft stands out in 2026

The thing that makes Microsoft different from more volatile AI rockets is the mix of innovation and resilience. Azure, Microsoft 365, GitHub, and its AI offerings give it recurring revenue and frontier tech at the same time. Market analysts point out in pieces like The Globe and Mail’s coverage of Microsoft as a dividend-paying Dow growth stock that it’s positioned to “crush the S&P 500 (again) in 2026,” even if there’s an AI-specific slowdown. Internally, the company leans hard into a “growth mindset” philosophy and is known for manager training, internal mobility, and a culture that generally doesn’t expect you to live at the office to have impact.

Where you might fit: roles Microsoft actually hires

On your printout, Microsoft shouldn’t just be “Big Tech.” It should be a cluster of concrete options. Common paths include software engineer roles across products like Office, Teams, Xbox, and GitHub; cloud engineer / solution architect positions on Azure; data engineer and data scientist roles powering analytics and AI; plus product manager, program manager, security engineer, SRE, and UX designer positions. For career-switchers, there are structured on-ramps such as the Microsoft LEAP program and university/early-career pipelines that look for potential and learning speed as much as long resumes.

Pay, trade-offs, and how it compares

From a money perspective, Microsoft sits in the upper tier of big tech compensation. Mid-level software engineers in the U.S. often land in the mid-six-figure total compensation range when you combine base, bonus, and stock, with more upside at senior levels and in high-cost hubs. It’s not trying to outbid a frontier lab like OpenAI on raw cash, but it usually beats smaller shops on both pay and benefits, especially when you factor in health care, parental leave, and retirement matching. If you sketched it on your highlighter chart, Microsoft would sit between “maximum pay at any cost” and “chill but underpaid startup” - strong financial upside with fewer lifestyle surprises.

How to actually get in (especially if you’re new)

When recruiters say Microsoft looks for a “growth mindset,” they’re not being fluffy. They want people who can nail coding fundamentals and also show they learn fast and work well on big, cross-functional teams. For you, that means practicing data structures, algorithms, and basic system design, then backing it up with stories like “I taught myself Azure Functions and shipped a serverless API in four weeks” or “I moved from manual QA to building an automated Cypress test suite.” If you’re early in your journey, aim your margin note at roles and programs that explicitly welcome non-traditional backgrounds - LEAP, new grad roles, or internships - and use your projects, bootcamp work, and community contributions to prove you can ramp up quickly in a massive codebase.

Google

Google is probably the name your pen drifts toward when you first spread this list across the table. It’s the brand you’ve heard about since high school, the one that feels like “making it” if you can just get past the interviews. But if you slow down before circling that big #1, it helps to see what Google actually offers in terms of growth, pay, and culture - and where it might not be the automatic winner for your specific life.

Career-growth engine, not just a logo

Google shows up at the top of a lot of serious career-growth lists, not just hypey blog posts. In LinkedIn’s Top Companies rankings for U.S. tech and media employers, it’s highlighted for internal mobility, skill-building programs, and leadership development. Forbes’ coverage of that data calls Google the #1 company for career growth in 2025, pointing to how often employees move across teams and how much the company invests in training. For your highlighter chart, that’s a thick green line in the “growth” column: once you’re in, there are a lot of ways to evolve - backend to SRE, individual contributor to tech lead, or even engineer to product manager.

Where you’d actually plug in

On your printout, don’t just write “Work at Google.” Write down real roles you could see yourself in. Common tracks include software engineer (backend, mobile, frontend) across Search, Ads, YouTube, Cloud, and Android; site reliability engineer (SRE) keeping massive systems healthy; ML/AI engineer or research scientist on model training and applied ML; plus data scientist, UX designer/researcher, product manager, and security engineer roles. All of them share a theme: operating at huge scale, with a heavy emphasis on clear thinking and collaboration - what Google calls “Googliness.”

• If you love debugging complex outages and thinking in SLIs/SLOs, SRE is a strong fit.
• If you enjoy product decisions as much as code, PM or UX might be your long-term destination.
• If data pipelines and experimentation excite you, data science and analytics roles are the path.

Pay, prestige, and the trade-offs

On compensation, Google reliably lands in the top-tier pay bracket among big tech. Mid-career median pay for many technical roles has been reported around $151,600 base, with total compensation (when you add bonus and stock) reaching the mid-to-high six figures for U.S. mid-level software engineers. Independent breakdowns like e-GMAT’s analysis of top-paying tech companies regularly list Google alongside the best-paying employers worldwide. The flip side, and this is worth a margin note, is that the interview bar is high and the work can be intense in some orgs - especially revenue-critical areas like Ads and Cloud - so you’re often trading effort and stress for that combination of pay and prestige.

How to aim at Google as a beginner or switcher

To make Google more than a wishful circle on the page, you need two things: solid fundamentals and evidence you think clearly at scale

OpenAI

On your printed list, OpenAI is the one you probably circle in bright yellow for pay and scribble a big asterisk next to. It’s the frontier AI lab that turned large language models into everyday tools, and working there means your code shapes how billions of people interact with AI. But it’s also one of the most intense, selective environments in tech, which is why you should treat it as a long-term target, not “Job #1 right after my first bootcamp.”

Why OpenAI sits at the extreme end of the chart

Among top software employers, OpenAI is an outlier on compensation and impact. In the PerceptionX AI roundup of top software companies to work for, OpenAI is highlighted for a median total compensation around $875,000 in 2025 for some roles, putting it in a completely different bracket from most public tech companies. Analyses of top-paying employers and videos breaking down offers for elite AI labs, such as this YouTube deep dive into top-paying tech companies, consistently place model labs and infra teams like OpenAI at the very top of the pay stack.

“OpenAI leads the industry in compensation, with median total pay reaching approximately $875,000 in 2025.” - PerceptionX AI, Top 10 Software Companies to Work For

That kind of money doesn’t come without trade-offs. Headcount is small, expectations are sky-high, and the work is deeply specialized. This is your margin note moment: OpenAI is where your yellow highlighter (pay) and green highlighter (frontier growth) both go off the charts, but the bar to get in is correspondingly extreme.

What OpenAI actually hires for

Instead of thinking “I want an AI job,” look at the concrete roles OpenAI leans on. Most are senior or at least mid-level, and they all blend deep technical skill with product or safety impact:

• Research engineer / research scientist working on model training, reinforcement learning, alignment, and safety.
• Applied AI / product engineer building APIs, tools, and user-facing features on top of large models.
• Platform / infrastructure engineer focused on distributed systems, GPU orchestration, and reliability.
• Security engineer, particularly around model misuse, data protection, and cloud security.
• Policy, safety, and red-teaming roles stress-testing models and shaping how they’re deployed responsibly.

True entry-level roles are rare. Most successful candidates already have a track record: shipping complex ML systems, publishing research or strong technical blog posts, or leading infrastructure at other high-scale companies.

How OpenAI compares to other “rocket ship” employers

If you sketch OpenAI on your growth/pay/culture table alongside other AI-heavy companies, it looks something like this:

On your kitchen-table printout, that means OpenAI isn’t just another option; it’s the far edge of the spectrum. Great to aim at, but not something to beat yourself up over if it’s not your first or even second tech job.

Turning OpenAI into a long-term target (not a day-one obsession)

If you’re early in your career or switching into tech, think of OpenAI as a north star. The question in your margin shouldn’t be “How do I get hired there right now?” but “What kind of engineer would they hire in three to five years, and how do I start becoming that person?” For OpenAI, the answer usually looks like: deep ML + serious systems + visible impact.

• Specialize in machine learning and systems beyond tutorials: fine-tune open-source LLMs, build retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems, or train reinforcement learning agents.
• Contribute to open source in the AI ecosystem: libraries, evaluation tools, inference servers, or safety-related repos. Show you can collaborate in the open.
• Write publicly about what you learn: long-form blog posts, technical notes, or even small research-style write-ups that demonstrate original thinking about model behavior and safety.
• Stack experience at strong AI or infra companies first - places like high-growth data platforms, cloud providers, or applied ML teams where you can own real systems and learn from senior colleagues.

If you jot one line next to OpenAI on your list, make it this: “Not just an AI user, but a builder with depth and receipts.” Then let that guide which projects you choose, which jobs you take now, and how you talk about your work long before you ever hit “apply.”

Salesforce

Salesforce is the company that quietly runs a huge chunk of the business world while talking constantly about values, community, and “Ohana.” On your list, it’s not the flashy AI lab or search giant, but it is the one that keeps showing up when people talk about long-term, people-first tech careers. In fact, G2’s influential rankings (covered by JSBC Labs) crowned Salesforce the Best Software Company of 2025, outranking both Google and Microsoft. That’s not about hypey marketing; it’s based on customer and user reviews across their entire product suite.

Why Salesforce is more than “just CRM”

Salesforce is still the dominant name in cloud CRM, but the real story for you is its mix of market leadership, culture, and learning. It anchors a massive ecosystem of sales, service, marketing, and platform tools used by companies of every size. In a roundup of top tech employers, BusinessBecause highlights Salesforce for its “Ohana culture” and commitment to professional growth and innovation. Employee feedback backs that up, with one review calling out “excellent comp and benefits, a ton of training and development resources.”

“Excellent comp and benefits, a ton of training and development resources.” - Employee review quoted in JSBC Labs, Salesforce Crowned Best Software Company of 2025

Where it lands on growth, pay, and culture

On your growth/pay/culture chart, Salesforce is very strong in culture and growth, with solid (if not always absolute top-of-market) pay. U.S.-based mid-level Salesforce developers, admins, and architects often earn solid six-figure total compensation, especially when they’re close to revenue (solution engineers, technical architects, etc.). It may not match the wildest FAANG+ or frontier-AI packages, but it compensates that with stability, values-driven leadership, and a huge internal and partner ecosystem you can move around in for years.

Common roles you can realistically target

Instead of thinking “I have to be a hardcore developer,” look at how many different job types orbit the Salesforce platform. There are Salesforce developers (Apex, Lightning Web Components), administrators configuring orgs and workflows, consultants and solution architects designing end-to-end systems for customers, integration and platform engineers connecting Salesforce to other tools, plus Marketing Cloud specialists, data analysts, and sales/solution engineers. Because so many companies rely on Salesforce, you’re not limited to working at Salesforce-the-company either; partner consultancies and customer orgs are constantly hiring people with platform skills.

How to turn Salesforce into an accessible entry point

For career-switchers and new developers, Salesforce is one of the clearest “study this, get a real job” stories. The margin note to write next to Salesforce on your list is: “Certs + small real implementations = foot in the door.” Start with Trailhead, Salesforce’s free learning platform, and work through guided modules until you’re ready for the Salesforce Certified Administrator exam. From there, aim at Platform App Builder or Platform Developer I if you’re more code-oriented. While you learn, build one or two small but concrete projects: set up a volunteer CRM for a nonprofit, implement a basic sales pipeline, or automate a simple support process. Those real configurations plus a certification do a lot of heavy lifting when you’re trying to convince a hiring manager that, even without a decade in tech, you can already make the Salesforce platform do useful work.

Adobe

Adobe is the company you might not think about first, but you’d seriously miss if it disappeared tomorrow. Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Acrobat, the Experience Cloud - if you’ve ever designed, filmed, or signed something, their tools have probably been in the background. On your printed list, Adobe isn’t the wild, high-volatility rocket ship; it’s the one you highlight when you write “great work, sane life” in the margin.

Why Adobe is a culture-first powerhouse

Across multiple rankings, Adobe keeps bubbling up near the top for how it treats people. Employee Benefit News’ rundown of tech companies with the best culture notes Adobe’s consistently high ratings, with a culture score around 4.43/5 and especially strong marks for work-life balance and benefits, putting it alongside the most employee-loved names in tech (Employee Benefit News culture rankings). In research summarizing Glassdoor’s Best-Led Companies, Adobe is called out for something that matters a lot when you’re thinking long term:

“Praised for its transparent culture and supporting employees’ long-term learning and evolution.” - Glassdoor 2025 Best-Led Companies summary

Translate that to your highlighter system: Adobe is bright blue for culture, with a steady green for growth - the kind that comes from decades of reinventing itself (boxed software to subscriptions to cloud services) without constant whiplash or mass layoffs.

Where you might fit inside Adobe

On your printout, instead of just “Adobe = design,” write down real roles that line up with your skills. There are classic software engineer positions on desktop, mobile, and cloud services; full-stack engineers building Creative Cloud and Experience Cloud; data scientists and experimentation engineers optimizing user flows; plus product managers, UX designers and design technologists, and research scientists working on graphics, imaging, and AI-powered features like Generative Fill. If you lean more creative, there are marketing, content, and experience roles that still sit close to the product. A lot of people stay because the work itself - helping millions of creatives do their thing - feels meaningful.

Pay, stability, and how Adobe compares

Comp-wise, Adobe tends to land in the upper-middle to upper tier of tech salaries. U.S. mid-level engineers often see solid six-figure total compensation, with higher bands in hubs like the Bay Area and Seattle. It doesn’t always chase the absolute top dollar of the most aggressive AI labs, but many employees consciously trade a bit of maximum upside for culture, stability, and reasonable hours. If you sketch it against a couple of peers, it looks like this:

How to stand out to Adobe as a beginner or switcher

The margin note to write next to Adobe is: “Show I care about both UX and engineering quality.” They hire people who think about craft, not just shipping something that barely works. Concretely, that might mean building a browser-based image editor, a simple video editing tool, or a plugin that hooks into an image-generation API - and then obsessing over details like performance, accessibility, and intuitive UI. If you’re more on the non-technical side, you can aim at UX design, content strategy, or marketing-tech roles where you demonstrate deep familiarity with creative workflows and analytics tools. Articles that profile the best tech employers, like CareerFoundry’s guide to top tech companies, routinely flag Adobe as a place where people can grow over the long haul. Your job is to make your portfolio and resume read like you’re already the kind of person who sweats the details of user experience - because that’s exactly what their best teams care about.

Cisco

On your kitchen-table printout, Cisco is the company you circle when you write “real life outside of work?” in the margin. It’s not as noisy as the AI darlings, but it quietly powers huge chunks of the internet through networking, security, and collaboration tools - and keeps showing up in rankings for work-life balance and employee satisfaction. In fact, Cisco is regularly highlighted in roundups like Built In’s list of companies with the best work-life balance, and one review-based analysis placed it at #2 for employee satisfaction based on a notably low frequency of negative keywords in employee feedback.

Why Cisco is a “purple highlighter” company

If you’re color-coding your list for growth, pay, and culture, Cisco sits squarely in that purple “balance + stability” lane. It’s evolved from “just networking hardware” into a hybrid of secure networking, SASE, Zero Trust, collaboration, and AI-enhanced observability, which gives it steady enterprise demand and modern problems to solve. At the same time, it shows up consistently in “best workplaces” and satisfaction lists, not just for perks but for predictable hours and flexibility. For a lot of career-switchers, that combination - modern tech plus adult-friendly schedules - is exactly what you’re hoping to find when you scroll past the hype.

What you could actually do at Cisco

Underneath the brand, Cisco runs on a surprisingly wide range of roles. Technical paths include software engineers working on network automation, security products, and cloud platforms; network engineers and network automation engineers who design and script infrastructure; security engineers and cybersecurity analysts focused on firewalls, threat detection, and Zero Trust; as well as DevOps/SRE roles. On the customer side, there are solutions architects and sales/solutions engineers who blend technical depth with client-facing work. Guides like Coursera’s overview of popular tech companies to work for often flag networking and security as durable, in-demand specialties - which is exactly the lane Cisco lives in.

• Like building and troubleshooting systems? Network engineer or SRE could fit.
• Enjoy explaining complex tech to non-technical people? Solutions engineer is a strong match.
• Want to live in security? Cisco’s security product lines and CyberOps roles are a clear path.

Pay, lifestyle, and how Cisco stacks up

On compensation, Cisco sits in the solid six-figure total compensation range for many U.S.-based mid-level network and software engineers, with significant upside for senior staff and sales-adjacent roles (where bonuses and commissions can boost total pay). It may not always match the absolute top of FAANG+ for raw equity, but when you factor in work-life balance and stability, the trade-off often looks good - especially if you’re juggling family, caregiving, or a late career switch. On your table, Cisco looks like this compared to a couple of peers:

Breaking into Cisco as a career-switcher

The margin note to write next to Cisco is: “Certs + real lab configs = evidence I can own networks.” Unlike some companies that only care about elite CS degrees, Cisco has a very clear skill signal: networking and security certifications plus hands-on practice. That often starts with CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) or baseline certs like Network+ and Security+, followed by more specialized Cisco tracks (e.g., CyberOps Associate) as you go deeper. While you’re studying, build a home or virtual lab: use virtual routers and switches, configure VLANs, VPNs, and firewalls, and script network changes with Python and infrastructure-as-code tools. When your resume shows both certs and concrete lab or project experience, you’re not just saying “I like networks” - you’re showing you can already design, secure, and automate them, which is exactly what Cisco and its customers pay for.

Databricks

Databricks is the one you circle if you’re the person who loves messy data, big pipelines, and making ML actually run in production. It’s the company behind the “lakehouse” idea - blending data warehouses and data lakes into one platform - and it sits right where data engineering, analytics, and AI meet. When you lay your printout on the table and look for a name that promises serious growth in data + AI without feeling like a tiny research lab, Databricks is going to grab your green highlighter fast.

Why Databricks lights up the growth and culture columns

Databricks keeps showing up in “fastest-growing” and “companies to watch” lists. In the StartUs Insights guide to major tech companies reshaping the future, it’s profiled as a key player in the next wave of data and AI infrastructure, not just another SaaS dashboard. Internally, employee-review analyses give Databricks a culture rating of about 4.58/5, which puts it among the highest in tech: strong reviews for leadership, smart colleagues, and meaningful work. For your highlighter chart, that’s green for growth and blue for culture at the same time - a rare combo if you’re trying to avoid both burnout and stagnation.

What you’d actually do at Databricks

On your printed list, don’t just write “data stuff” next to Databricks. Think in real roles and teams you could aim at, especially if you’re coming from a bootcamp or a self-taught background and building toward data:

• Data engineer / analytics engineer: designing ETL/ELT pipelines, building lakehouse architectures, optimizing Spark jobs.
• ML engineer / applied scientist: training and deploying models on top of large-scale data, integrating ML into customer workflows.
• Platform / infrastructure engineer: working on the core engine (Spark, Delta Lake), Kubernetes, and cloud services.
• Solutions architect / field engineer: helping customers design lakehouse architectures and debug performance issues.
• Customer success engineer / technical account manager: sitting between product and customers, making sure deployments actually deliver value.

If you love the idea of helping other teams unlock their data (instead of just building one company’s internal dashboard), this is your kind of playground.

Pay, upside, and how Databricks compares

As a high-valuation, high-growth data company, Databricks typically offers top-of-market salaries for experienced engineers and solutions roles, plus meaningful equity. Anonymous reports for similar data-platform firms suggest that many mid- to senior-level engineers see total compensation comfortably in the six figures, with upper bands that rival other hot SaaS and AI players. On your kitchen-table chart, you can roughly place it here:

How to make Databricks a realistic target

The margin note to write next to Databricks is: “Prove I can build real data/ML pipelines, not just toy notebooks.” That means going beyond Kaggle scripts and into end-to-end systems. Start by learning Apache Spark basics and lakehouse concepts using free community resources, then build projects where you ingest raw data (logs, clickstream, IoT), transform and clean it with Spark, and serve it to dashboards or ML models. Complement that with SQL, Python, and cloud basics, and consider a Databricks-style data engineer certification when you’re ready. Reports like HGS’s overview of in-demand tech jobs keep putting data engineer and ML engineer near the top of the pay and demand charts, which means every serious pipeline you ship now is not just portfolio candy - it’s a direct step toward a Databricks-type offer later.

GitLab

GitLab is the one you circle if your margin note says, “I want serious engineering work, but I also want to live where I want.” It’s a DevSecOps platform that’s been fully remote from day one, and in recent years it’s turned that choice into a real competitive advantage: transparent processes, detailed documentation, and a culture built around async work instead of endless meetings. Industry rundowns of distributed-first employers, like Purpose Jobs’ list of top remote tech companies, consistently point to GitLab as proof that remote can scale without turning chaotic.

Why GitLab is a remote-growth sweet spot

On your growth/pay/culture chart, GitLab hits a rare mix: healthy business expansion, competitive remote salaries, and a culture that actually expects you to have a life and a timezone. In the multi-signal research you saw earlier, GitLab is noted for about 29% year-over-year growth in FY 2026, plus an expert assessment that it has “set the gold standard on the fully distributed team model,” showing that transparency and trust can scale with technology. That’s your green highlighter (growth) and blue highlighter (culture) working together. Instead of bolting remote work onto an office culture, GitLab built everything - from its public handbook to its meeting etiquette - assuming people are spread across the globe.

“Set the ‘gold standard’ on the fully distributed team model, proving transparency and trust can scale with technology.” - Industry analysis of GitLab’s remote culture, Top Tech Companies to Work For in 2026

Roles, pay, and how GitLab stacks up

Under the hood, GitLab is all about the developer workflow - planning, coding, testing, security, and deployment in a single app - so most roles are close to software delivery. That includes backend and frontend engineers (often working with Ruby on Rails, Go, and Vue.js), DevOps and site reliability engineers, security engineers, product managers, technical writers, and customer success/solutions engineers. Pay-wise, GitLab aims for competitive six-figure total compensation for many mid-level technical roles in the U.S. and Western Europe, adjusted for location but still attractive for remote standards. If you sketch a quick comparison table on your printout, it looks something like this:

How to actually stand out to GitLab

The note to scribble next to GitLab on your kitchen-table printout is: “Evidence I can thrive async + real CI/CD experience.” The company publishes an enormous public handbook describing how it works, and that’s your cheat sheet: read the sections on values, communication, and issue tracking so your application and interviews show you already “get” async collaboration. On the technical side, build and showcase projects that use GitLab (or similar) pipelines for automated testing, linting, security scans, and deployments - ideally to real users, not just toy apps. Open-source contributions, even small ones, are a huge plus. Lists like Ironhack’s breakdown of the best tech companies to work for often flag GitLab specifically for its transparency and remote culture; your job is to show, through your repos, merge requests, and written communication, that you’re already operating the way their best teams do.

ServiceNow

ServiceNow is the name you might jot down with a question mark - “Isn’t that some kind of IT tool?” - until you realize how many big companies quietly run their day-to-day work on it. Think ticketing systems, HR onboarding, procurement approvals, customer service workflows. On your kitchen-table printout, ServiceNow is the pick when your margin note says, “I like tech, but I also like making messy business processes actually work.”

On its own product overview, ServiceNow describes itself as a “cloud-based platform automating AI, data, and IT workflows.” Industry analysts back that up: ServiceNow has been named a “Major Player” in 2025 MarketScape reports for procurement and workflow automation, and employee-review research gives it a culture score around 4.48/5. It also shows up in regional “best workplaces” lists, ranking as high as #4 in the large-company category for tech workplaces in the Bay Area. On your growth/pay/culture chart, that’s a strong blue streak for culture, with solid green for growth as more enterprises standardize on its platform.

Under the hood, ServiceNow is a platform company, which means a lot of different roles orbit the same core product. You’ll see platform engineers and application developers building custom apps and integrations; technical consultants and implementation specialists configuring modules for IT, HR, or customer service; solution architects and presales engineers helping customers design and buy the right setup; plus product managers and data/AI engineers focused on workflow intelligence and automation. Compared to pure-play SaaS sales tools or consumer apps, this work is very “business process meets engineering” - a good fit if you like understanding how companies actually run, not just writing code in a vacuum.

Pay-wise, ServiceNow sits comfortably in the six-figure total compensation range for many U.S.-based platform engineers and consultants, with higher ceilings for experienced architects and customer-facing roles where bonuses and incentives add up. The growth story matters too: as more companies adopt ServiceNow as a standard platform, specialists become more valuable, and internal mobility (from admin to developer to architect) becomes a real long-term path. On your printout, that’s a solid blend of growth and stability, especially if you like the idea of becoming “the workflows person” that teams rely on.

The margin note to write next to ServiceNow is: “Platform certs + demo workflows = strong junior story.” Unlike some big names that feel completely out of reach, ServiceNow has a very direct on-ramp: start with its learning portal, aim for the ServiceNow Certified System Administrator exam, then add a specialty (ITSM, CSM, HR, etc.). While you’re doing that, build 1-2 demo apps: an IT ticketing workflow, an HR onboarding flow, or an expense-approval process. Screenshots, short Loom videos, and a clear explanation of the business problem you solved can turn that work into portfolio pieces. When a hiring manager skims your resume, you don’t just look like “another junior dev” - you look like someone who already knows how to make ServiceNow do useful work for real teams, which is exactly why they’re hiring.

How to turn this Top 10 into your Top 3

By the time you’ve read through all ten companies, your brain might be buzzing: “Okay, cool, but which one do I actually chase?” This is where you slide the laptop aside, imagine this list printed out on your kitchen table, and pick up your literal or mental highlighters. The goal now isn’t to find some universal #1; it’s to turn a generic Top 10 into your Top 3 based on the life you’re living and the career you’re building.

Step 1: Choose your priorities for the next 3-5 years

Start by deciding what matters most right now, not forever. Is this next job about maximum learning (growth), paying off debt (pay), or having evenings with your family (culture)? Circle two of those as your main filters. Then, go back through the list and re-rank the companies in the margins just for this 3-5 year window. It’s totally valid if that means bumping a famous logo down because the lifestyle doesn’t fit. Remember, even award-winning employers are ultimately hiring for fundamentals, not brand worship:

“We continue to hire for the needs we think are durable... which include fundamental [skills].” - Ravi Mohan, Chief Technology Officer, Credit Acceptance

1. Write “Growth,” “Pay,” and “Culture” at the top of your printout.
2. Rank them 1-3 for your next 3-5 years.
3. Re-number the Top 10 based on those priorities, not mine.

Step 2: sanity-check your Top 3 with real-world signals

Once you’ve penciled in your personal Top 3, pressure-test them with actual data instead of vibes. Read recent employee reviews for those companies on lists like Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work, look at independent salary guides, and check layoff or growth news. Reports such as Robert Half’s Technology Salary Trends show, for example, that even “unsexy” roles like IT management can command around $168,000 in average pay, which is a good reminder that brand name isn’t the only path to a solid living. As you research, turn what you learn into quick margin notes instead of overthinking:

Step 3: turn each company into a concrete learning and job-hunt plan

With a vetted Top 3, the last pass at your printout is turning “I like this company” into “Here’s how I’m getting closer.” Under each name, jot three things:

1. the specific roles you’d target there (e.g., data engineer, Salesforce admin, platform engineer),
2. the skills and credentials those roles keep asking for (bootcamp portfolio, cloud certs, Trailhead badges, ServiceNow or Cisco certs), and
3. one project you’ll build in the next 60-90 days that lines up with their world. That way, every course you take, every side project you start, and every resume tweak you make is anchored to real job descriptions - not just the vague idea of working at “a top tech company.” When you come back to this table in a year or two, the goal isn’t that you perfectly followed the rankings; it’s that your margins are full of crossed-out names, new priorities, and a trail of deliberate choices that moved you from reading lists to landing offers

Frequently Asked Questions