Technology companies are well-regarded as having highly desirable workplaces, with the tech industry often the most represented industry on Glassdoor’s annual Best Places to Work and Top CEOs lists. These tech companies are known for having positive work cultures, often including unique perks such as catered lunch and dog-friendly offices to attract and retain top employees.
When we think of employees at tech companies, what usually comes to mind are software engineers and data scientists — people with technical skills such as coding and machine learning. But, tech companies aren’t solely hiring for tech roles. They are hiring non-tech workers as well. In today’s job market, you no longer have to be a tech worker to work in tech.
Which are the top non-tech jobs tech companies are hiring for right now? Are the majority of open roles at tech companies tech-related, or are they non-tech jobs related to marketing, sales or business operations? How does base pay compare for these tech and non-tech positions?
To explore these questions, we use Glassdoor data to look at millions of online job postings in the U.S. to show the tech versus non-tech breakdown among roles that today’s largest tech companies are hiring for right now.
What We Did
For this analysis, we gathered a sample of tech companies with at least 100 job postings on Glassdoor as of June 26, 2018. Using this list of employers, we categorized their open jobs as either tech or non-tech. For tech roles, we defined them as positions requiring knowledge of code, software or data.
To hone in on the open roles U.S. tech employers are looking to fill directly, we removed all jobs from third party IT outsourcing and staffing firms. Finally, for insight into the expected salaries for these tech and non-tech roles, we used the technology powering Glassdoor’s Know Your Worth tool to estimate the average base pay for each job opening we found.
First, let’s take a look at the breakdown of open jobs tech employers are hiring.
Tech Jobs Breakdown by Employer
Out of all the open positions at tech companies on Glassdoor today, just over half are tech roles (57 percent or almost 71,000 open jobs). The remaining 43 percent are non-tech roles, or almost 53,000 open jobs. As today’s tech giants have matured into large employers, their hiring base has diversified as well. Long gone are the days when all tech hiring was exclusively for software engineer and data scientist roles.
Among tech employers, the percentage of hiring for tech versus non-tech roles varies widely. In the figure below we show the percentage breakdown for 15 major tech employers in our sample. Overall, Intel, Microsoft and Walmart eCommerce were hiring the highest percent of tech roles compared to non-tech roles, with 78 percent of their open roles being tech roles. Another tech company hiring predominantly tech workers was Amazon, with 72 percent of the roles on Glassdoor being categorized as tech roles. Despite having a large network of warehouse and logistics operations, tech giant Amazon is still mostly a tech employer.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, only 28 percent of Workday’s open roles were tech-related, with 72 percent being for more traditional non-tech jobs. The majority of job postings at IBM, Salesforce and Verizon were also for non-tech roles. Among Salesforce’s open roles, 41 percent were tech roles while 59 percent were non-tech roles. Similarly, Verizon had about 45 percent tech roles and IBM had 46 percent tech roles open out of their total openings. Uber’s job postings were split down the middle, with 50 percent of the roles being tech positions. These data show that not all tech companies are hiring primarily tech positions today.
Most Common Non-Tech Jobs in Tech
The table below shows the 10 most common open job listings for non-tech jobs at tech companies on Glassdoor. This sample, along with the subsequent job and pay analyses, includes all tech companies on Glassdoor with at least 100 job openings as of June 26, 2018, as we take a look at more than just a few specific major tech employers. Account executive is the most common non-tech role that tech companies employee, accounting for 1,713 roles, or 3 percent of all non-tech jobs for tech employers. Project manager job openings make up 2 percent of open non-tech roles being hired by tech employers. The rest of the top 10 include sales, marketing and management positions.
Taken together, these 10 jobs account for about 18 percent of all non-tech open jobs for tech companies. This suggests there are open non-tech positions available in a multitude of different roles. Rather than being concentrated in a few distinct roles, a job seeker looking to work in tech can find jobs spread across many different titles.
As tech companies grow and mature, they begin to require a variety of more traditional non-tech roles to help transform their technology into revenue. Sales, marketing, business operations — these are the roles that can help scale a company in any industry, creating the opportunity for a variety of positions to work at these coveted tech employers.
Most Common Non-Tech Jobs Being Hired Today by U.S. Tech Companies
| Non-Tech Job Title | Open Jobs on Glassdoor at Tech Companies | Percentage of Open Non-Tech Roles at Tech Companies |
| Account Executive | 1,713 | 3.2% |
| Project Manager | 1,192 | 2.3% |
| Sales Representative | 1,073 | 2.0% |
| Operations Manager | 930 | 1.8% |
| Account Manager | 914 | 1.7% |
| Product Marketing Manager | 909 | 1.7% |
| Marketing Manager | 894 | 1.7% |
| Financial Analyst | 789 | 1.5% |
| Sales Manager | 719 | 1.4% |
| Outside Sales | 711 | 1.3% |
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research (glassdoor.com/research)
Most Common Tech Job Titles
Below is a table that shows the top 10 most common tech job titles being hired by tech employers today. Not surprisingly, software engineer is the most in-demand tech job across tech companies. Software engineer job openings account for almost 13 percent of the open tech roles in our sample, by far the most prominent role across tech and non-tech positions.
The second most common tech job hiring today is software development engineer, which accounted for almost 9 percent of open tech roles. Product manager and program manager are also common tech roles, accounting for 3.9 percent and 3.4 percent of all tech roles, respectively. Data scientist roles account for almost 2 percent of open tech roles at tech companies.
Most Common Tech Jobs Being Hired Today by U.S. Tech Companies
| Tech Job Title | Open Jobs on Glassdoor at Tech Companies | Percentage of Open Tech Roles at Tech Companies |
| Software Engineer | 9,038 | 12.7% |
| Software Development Engineer | 6,320 | 8.9% |
| Product Manager | 2,798 | 3.9% |
| Program Manager | 2,444 | 3.4% |
| Solutions Architect | 2,135 | 3.0% |
| Technical Program Manager | 1,722 | 2.4% |
| Systems Engineer | 1,650 | 2.3% |
| Software Developer | 1,360 | 1.9% |
| Data Scientist | 1,130 | 1.6% |
| Business Analyst | 1,000 | 1.4% |
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research (glassdoor.com/research)
When combined, these top ten common jobs account for about 41 percent of all tech open jobs for tech companies. That’s close to half of open tech jobs that can be accounted for by the 10 roles in the table. Compared to non-tech roles, there is less role diversity in open tech roles being hired by tech companies.
How Does Pay Stack Up for Tech and Non-Tech Roles?
For this analysis, we focus only on base pay for open jobs for tech employers. We use base pay because it is the most accurately-reported portion of pay for most jobs. Although it doesn’t capture bonuses or stock-related compensation, it’s a useful benchmark that allows an apples-to-apples comparison of pay for different jobs today.
The figures below show the distribution of average base pay for open tech roles compared to the distribution of average base pay for open non-tech roles being hired by tech companies. The horizontal axis shows estimated base pay for the job, and the vertical axis shows the number of jobs in each salary range. In the figure, each green bar or “bin” has a width of $10,000 per year, ranging from zero to $200,000 per year.
Average Pay for Tech Jobs at U.S. Tech Companies
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research (glassdoor.com/research)
Average Pay for Non-Tech Jobs at U.S. Tech Companies
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research (glassdoor.com/research)
For non-tech jobs, most salaries are concentrated in the $50,000 to $90,000 per year range. By comparison, tech job salaries are significantly higher, with the majority falling into the $80,000 to $120,000 per year range. For tech jobs, the average base pay in our sample was $98,400 per year, while the average base pay for non-tech roles was $73,500 per year — a difference in average pay of more than $20,000 per year. While there are some examples of both non-tech and tech jobs with base pay above $150,000 per year, there are many fewer non-tech roles that fall into this category.
Finally, let’s look at some specific high-paying tech and non-tech roles tech companies are hiring today. The table below shows 10 of the highest-paying tech roles from our sample, along with the average base pay for each. The average base pay for software engineering manager openings in our sample was $163,500 per year. They are followed by data warehouse architect ($154,800 per year), software development manager ($153,300 per year) and infrastructure architect ($153,000 per year).
High Paying Tech Jobs Being Hired Today by U.S. Tech Companies
| Tech Job Title | Average Salary for Open Job Postings at Tech Companies |
| Software Engineering Manager | $163,500 |
| Data Warehouse Architect | $154,800 |
| Software Development Manager | $153,300 |
| Infrastructure Architect | $153,000 |
| Applications Architect | $149,000 |
| Software Architect | $145,400 |
| Technical Program Manager | $145,000 |
| Enterprise Architect | $144,400 |
| Devops Engineer | $137,400 |
| Information Security Engineer | $131,300 |
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research (Glassdoor.com/research)
The table below shows 10 of the highest-paying non-tech job titles tech companies are hiring today. Several legal positions top the list, including general counsel with an average base pay of $207,800 per year, as well as corporate counsel ($147,500 per year) and legal counsel ($144,200 per year). The need for legal talent at tech companies has risen along with the need to manage software patents and intellectual property, as well as antitrust and other data-related regulatory issues. Other high-paying non-tech roles in tech companies include many management roles in marketing, finance and strategy, including managing partner ($175,000 per year), strategy consultant ($136,300 per year), product marketing manager ($123,000 per year) and finance manager ($117,200 per year).
High Paying Non-Tech Jobs Being Hired Today by U.S. Tech Companies
| Non-Tech Job Title | Average Salary for Open Job Postings at Tech Companies |
| General Counsel | $207,800 |
| Managing Partner | $175,000 |
| Corporate Counsel | $147,500 |
| Legal Counsel | $144,200 |
| Strategy Consultant | $136,300 |
| Product Marketing Manager | $123,000 |
| Business Process Consultant | $120,200 |
| Management Consultant | $118,500 |
| Finance Manager | $117,200 |
| Commodity Manager | $116,800 |
Source: Glassdoor Economic Research (Glassdoor.com/research)
Conclusion
Based on a sample of open jobs on Glassdoor, we found that 43 percent of open roles at tech companies today are for non-tech roles. The most prevalent non-tech roles included account executive, project manager and sales representative. However, non-tech job openings are spread among numerous job titles, many being in sales and marketing. This shows that the opportunity to work in the fast-growing tech sector today is open to job seekers with a range of skills and backgrounds, from sales and marketing to data science and software engineering.
As tech companies mature and expand, they’ve begun hiring more traditional roles, and the non-tech jobs they’re hiring for have become more diverse. Looking at the breakdown of openings at major tech players today, we found Workday, Salesforce and Verizon are hiring the highest percentage of non-tech workers. By contrast, Walmart eCommerce, Microsoft and Intel are hiring the lowest percentage of non-tech workers.
Despite growing opportunities for non-tech workers in tech, there’s a stark difference in the average salary between tech and non-tech job openings. While some legal and marketing management positions in our sample had high salaries, there are significantly fewer high paying non-tech roles in tech. Instead, many of today’s highest paying and most widely available jobs in tech remain roles like software engineer, developer and technical program manager roles.
