It’s nearly impossible to work in corporate America today and not touch some manner of technological innovation. It’s embedded in how we communicate, sell products, and manufacture goods. But working with technology does not a “tech worker” make. True tech professionals are those on the front lines of such IT functions as software development, data science and analysis, cybersecurity, networking and infrastructure, and AI programs including large language models.
While we typically think of employees with this expertise as working at tech firms—and they do—tech workers are also critical to companies across all sectors, from healthcare to retail. And given the waves of layoffs within Big Tech over the past two years, companies in less volatile, non-tech sectors are increasingly attracting top tech talent.
“Stability is becoming more and more of what’s on the minds of tech workers,” says Jason Pile, president and managing director of Harvey Nash USA and Canada, a technology recruiting firm. And while many tech workers still gravitate toward higher-risk tech firms—from startups to Fortune 500 corporations—Pile notes that there are plenty of tech workers who are happily employed within other industries at companies that offer competitive pay and benefits packages, flexible and hybrid workplace options, and stimulating work. “There’s an immense amount of opportunity for tech workers to make a big difference in other sectors like the healthcare space, finance, energy, renewables, manufacturing and retail.”
So, which employers do tech workers recommend most? Forbes teamed up with market research firm Statista to find out. The result is Forbes’ first-ever ranking of America’s Best Employers For Tech Workers.
To create this inaugural list, Forbes and Statista surveyed more than 25,000 tech workers in the United States who were employed at companies, across all sectors, with at least 1,000 people in the country. Tech workers were defined as professionals who identified themselves as having a job focused on “tech” or “IT functions,” including software development, cybersecurity, cloud computing, data project management, technical support and more.
Survey respondents were asked how likely they would be to recommend their current employer, their previous employer (within the past two years) and companies they knew through peers in their industry, or through friends or family who worked there. Current workers were also asked to evaluate their employers on criteria such as: salary, professional development opportunities, workplace flexibility, the ability of employees to express ideas and opinions openly, and if the company has a reputation of being technologically progressive. Data from the past three years of Forbes-Statista employee surveys was included.
Responses were tallied and analyzed, with data from current employees weighted more heavily than older data or than responses from past employees or from those who had never worked at the company. Each employer was then given a score, and the top 200 companies made our list of America’s Best Employers For Tech Workers 2024.
As one might expect, tech companies (those in the category of IT software and services) dominated the list, earning 18.5% of the spots, including four in the top 10: Salesforce (No. 4), Google (No. 5), Microsoft (No. 8), and Businessolver (No. 10). The second-most represented sector on our list was retail and wholesale (comprising 11.5% of the list), followed by banking and financial services (8.5% of the list).
The top-three-ranking companies, however, did not come from any of those industries. Rather, No. 1 went to the U.S. Department of Commerce (government services), while No. 2 went to ibex (business services and supplies) and No. 3 to Chevron (construction, chemicals and raw materials).
Lori Mix, senior vice president of talent acquisition at ibex, which provides clients with outsourced customer experience services, credits the company’s investment in their employees as a large part of the reason ibex scored so well. “We invest significantly in ensuring our employee experience is like none other, from rewards and recognition to world-class training and career development,” Mix says. “Employees get the latest training, technology, and tools to be successful and achieve their career goals, [and] as a global company, employees have endless career and development opportunities.”
These opportunities matter. Though job candidates may join a company primarily for its pay, benefits, and work environment (such as a hybrid, flexible arrangement), Pile contends that “the reason people stay with a company is career progression and those learning opportunities and development. If you’re working in an organization and not really growing, or not really learning some of these leading technologies, then it becomes an issue, and you’re going to start looking around for where you can get that.”
Consider insurance company MetLife (No. 114), which nurtures employee growth and learning in numerous ways. For one, the company has a digital internal talent marketplace—called MyPath—that enables employees to take ownership of their career development by networking, joining, or initiating projects. “It’s an amazing way to empower our talent and put them in the driver’s seat,” says Bill Pappas, MetLife’s executive vice president and head of global technology and operations. “The platform provides AI-based recommendations to match people in the organization with people, projects and positions based on their skills, experiences and ambitions.”
Then there’s MetLife’s Hackathon, which Papps says drives employees to experiment and innovate—noting that this year, “the teams spent four weeks hacking, and developed more than 350 unique, tech-forward solutions designed to transform customer and employee care.”
Employees at MetLife even get the chance to be part of a wider tech community outside of the office. At the company’s global technology campus in Cary, North Carolina, MetLife recently partnered with the nonprofit NC Technology Association (NC TECH) to create the Center for Technology Workforce Innovation—a place for employers and employees in the area to exchange knowledge and develop their skills.
Still, tech workers are not just focused on coding, data and computing. “Tech workers are attracted to opportunities around technology that will make an impactful difference in the organizational world,” Pile says. And for employees at online retailer eBay (No. 58), that impact is based on the notion that their “technology powers economic opportunity for all,” says Parantap Lahiri, eBay’s vice president of network and data center engineering. Lahiri says that employees take pride in the fact that the company is also committed to prioritizing “the ethical use of AI, ensuring safety and trust while meeting the needs of our community,” including a focus on sustainability, which has the company on track to achieve 100% renewable energy in its data centers by 2025.
Perhaps, suggests Pile, the spate of recent tech layoffs have come with a silver lining: “They’ve allowed tech workers take a step back, get a fresh perspective and cast a wider net, and say, ‘technology investment is everywhere, and even if I might not be at a tech firm, I’m going to be doing what I love to do, and doing some exciting work.”
For the full list of America’s Best Employers For Tech Workers, click here.
Methodology
To create this inaugural list of America’s Best Employers For Tech Workers, Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista and surveyed more than 25,000 tech workers in the United States who were employed at companies across all sectors with at least 1,000 people in the country. Tech workers were defined as professionals who identified themselves as having a job focused on “tech” or “IT functions,” including software development, cybersecurity, cloud computing, data project management, and technical support.
Survey respondents were asked how likely they would be to recommend their current employer, their previous employer (within the past two years) and companies they knew through peers in their industry, or through friends or family who worked there. Current workers were also asked to evaluate their employers on criteria such as: salary, professional development opportunities, workplace flexibility, the ability of employees to express ideas and opinions openly, and if the company has a reputation of being technologically progressive. Data from the past three years of Forbes-Statista employee surveys was included.
Responses were tallied and analyzed, with data from current employees weighted more heavily than older data or than responses from past employees or people who had never worked at the company. Each employer was then given a score, and the top 200 companies made our first-ever list of America’s Best Employers For Tech Workers.
As with all Forbes lists, companies pay no fee to participate or be selected. To read more about how we make these lists, click here. For questions about this list, please email listdesk [at] forbes.com.
