Main image of article What's the Biggest Tech Firm in Your State?
What’s the biggest tech company in your state? Analytics firm Utopia recently crunched data from the 2016 edition of the Fortune 1000 list, along with the Inc 5000 list of fastest-growing companies, and generated an infographic of the largest tech companies in all 50 states. (Utopia used the Fortune data to determine the top tech firms in larger states, and the Inc data for the ones in “lesser-populated states.”) In California, for example, the largest tech firm is Apple, which generated revenues of $215.6 billion in 2016, and boasts 115,000 employees. In smaller states, the largest tech company is often a fraction of the size of the behemoths: for instance, Alaska’s biggest is GCI, a communications and telecom firm with $934 million in 2016 revenues and 1,734 employees. While multinational tech conglomerates in big states such as California and Washington boast enough employees to fill a midsize city, many of these “largest” tech firms are actually quite small. In states like Alabama, Montana, North Dakota, and Tennessee, the biggest homegrown firms might boast only a few dozen people. According to the most recent Dice Salary Survey (PDF), different states also offer startlingly different average salaries for tech pros. At the highest end of the range, the average tech-pro salary in California stood at $104,706 in 2016, a decline of 1.3 percent from the year before; Massachusetts came in only slightly behind, at $103,711 (a year-over-year increase of 2.6 percent). Other states came close to breaking the six-figure mark. For example, in Virginia and Washington (two big states with lots of tech-related opportunities), salaries stood at $99,835 and $96,521, respectively. In smaller states such as Alaska or Idaho, on the other hand, the average tech salary is significantly lower: roughly $70,000, in many cases. That’s perhaps a reflection of those markets, which feature fewer and smaller tech firms, and thus less competition for specialized talent. If you’re in the market for a new position, the Salary Survey is worth checking out; you’ll learn about average salaries in your city and state, as well as which skills and industries are pulling down the most cash. You can check out Utopia’s infographic, as well, for the biggest firm where you live: Largest tech company in every state