#1 Google

Average Salary: $128,336

Google, the search giant is one of the biggest bands a software engineer can work. It stands as the highest paying company in the list. Google also offers some of the best perks in the industry. Plus a chance to be associated with a brand like Google is a bonus in itself.

So you will be wondering how big these tech companies are paying its software engineers. Here is the interesting explanation from Evans about this and the apparent lack of skilled ones: All the tech companies are claiming to hire ‘A-listers’- the highly skilled ones, which is true for some including Facebook and Google. But there is also a big demand for B and C listers. Consider all the skilled ones emerging from the end of a pipeline, where the salaries and incentives drag them towards a company with better paycheck. These “skilled” ones will advance to a point at which they become reasonably happy with the paycheck. In Evan’s words, “they are content to compete with each other for mediocre (but happy-making) jobs, rather than put in the thousands of hours of mentally grueling work required to become really good at what they do.” And what you see at the end is people writing code like a routine, instead of achieving mastery by challenging themselves with new tools, new languages and new objectives.