The 16 Best Tech Jobs In America

Tech Jobs That Make The Grade

Glassdoor released its annual list of 50 best jobs in America this week and many of the top spots were positions for tech professionals.

The website compiles the list by calculating each job's "Glassdoor Job Score," a number that takes into account the number of active job listings on the website as of Jan. 1, the median salaries earned by people in those jobs, and the overall job satisfaction ratings reported by Glassdoor users. Job descriptions came from PayScale.com, Indeed.com and other employment sites.

This year, 16 of the top 50 jobs were tech industry positions, including four of the top five jobs on Glassdoor's list. And for the second consecutive year the position of data scientist took the top spot as the best job in the country.

Interested in what other positions made the list? Here are the top 16 technology jobs.

Business Intelligence Developer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 47

Overall Job Score: 4.0 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.9 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 837

Median Base Pay: $83,000

Business intelligence developer came in as the forty-seventh best job in America this year, beating construction project manager (No. 50), physical therapist (No. 49) and dental hygienist (No. 48).

BI developers are data experts that work to develop and fine-tune business intelligence solutions by coding, testing, debugging, designing and implementing data analysis tools for organizations. They research and plan solutions to analytical problems within a company and are responsible for building online analytical processing systems.

User Interface Designer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 43

Overall Job Score: 4.1 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.0 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 950

Median Base Pay: $80,000

Coming in at No. 43 on Glassdoor's list, user interface designers broke into the top 50. UI designers are responsible for designing the graphical user interfaces for software programs and shaping how people interact with technology.

Security Analyst

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 41

Overall Job Score: 4.1 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.7 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 2,464

Median Base Pay: $70,000

Security analysts are much sought after by businesses and organizations – not surprising given the growing number of high-visibility IT security breaches in recent years.

Information security analysts help organizations assess potential security threats against an organization's IT network, identifying vulnerabilities and developing IT security systems and policies to guard against breaches. As the complexity of security threats expands, so does the complexity of the job.

Information Security Engineer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 39

Overall Job Score: 4.1 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.7 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 1,247

Median Base Pay: $100,000

Coming in at No. 39 on Glassdoor's list, information security engineers are very much in demand and making good money, which makes sense given that these are the people behind designing the systems and processes that keep companies safe from cyberattacks, natural disasters and almost everything else.

Hardware Engineer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 30

Overall Job Score: 4.2 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.9 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 954

Median Base Pay: $108,000

If you hold a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer engineering and are looking for a new job with good pay, you might want to consider becoming a hardware engineer.

Technical Account Manager

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 29

Overall Job Score: 4.2 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.9 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 1,968

Median Base Pay: $66,000

In charge of high-level technical support for companies and their customers, technical account managers made No. 29 on this year's Glassdoor's list thanks to a large number of job openings and a high job satisfaction rating.

Although the job requires several years of experience and may also demand a number of different IT business and technical certifications, a tested candidate can be eligible with a bachelor's degree in information systems, computer science or similar field.

Systems Administrator

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 27

Overall Job Score: 4.2 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.7 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 4,046

Median Base Pay: $68,000

Being responsible for ensuring that an organization's computer systems are maintained and reliable is an important job, and, according to Glassdoor, a good one too.Systems administrators are one of the top three most in-demand IT careers in the Glassdoor Top 50 best Jobs In America list.

An associate degree in computer sciences or related field and at least some experience are the job requirements. But having a bachelor's degree, more extensive experience and a few certifications under your belt will make the job search even easier.

Mobile Developer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 26

Overall Job Score: 4.3 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.7 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 2,130

Median Base Pay: $85,000

Development of applications for mobile devices is the most active application development area right now, boosting demand for people with the necessary skills for building mobile applications.

Along with being familiar with iOS and Android, the leading mobile operating environments, mobile developers can increase their value by having a strong understanding of C++, objective-C, wireless networks, PHP, MS/SQL, Adobe, Java, HTML and Flash technologies. Many developers hold special software development and configuration certifications.

Software Engineer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 16

Overall Job Score: 4.3 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.5 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 17,085

Median Base Pay: $101,000

Software engineers – the most in-demand job on this list, according to the number of job openings – work with designers to help combine single program functions into a connected program and with coders and programmers to develop project roadmaps.

Generally the job requires a bachelor's degree in computer engineering or computer science and practical experience in programming and coding.

Solutions Architect

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 10

Overall Job Score: 4.4 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.7 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 2,232

Median Base Pay: $125,000

Solutions architects are tasked with translating business requirements into implementable IT solutions, according to a description on Indeed.com, balancing business needs with costs and speed of system delivery.

It's helpful for candidates to be proficient and have experience in software systems such as Microsoft applications, JavaScript and Salesforce.com.

UX Designer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 9

Overall Job Score: 4.4 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.0 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 1,691

Median Base Pay: $92,500

User experience designers are tasked with designing how people interact with a product or system, including an IT system or application. While UX designer is not always a tech job, within the IT industry the focus is on designing software and digital marketing programs.

A bachelor's degree is a standard expectation for this position, but candidates with an associates degree, field certifications and previous work experience are often qualified as well. Many user experience designers also have advanced knowledge in psychology and sociology to better understand users' needs.

Database Administrator

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 7

Overall Job Score: 4.5 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.8 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 2,877

Median Base Pay: $93,000

Database administrator is a position that is similar to systems administrator, but is specifically responsible for keeping an organization's database properly maintained and reliable.

Analytics Manager

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 5

Overall Job Score: 4.6 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.1 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 1,958

Median Base Pay: $112,000

Analytics managers are responsible for developing an organization's strategies for collecting and analyzing data and implementing analytics-based solutions that derive insights from that data. You can expect demand for analytics managers to grow as more companies implement Internet of Things systems that generate huge volumes of data.

Data Engineer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 3

Overall Job Score: 4.7 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.3 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 2,599

Median Base Pay: $106,000

Another job that's in growing demand because of big data and IoT developments, data engineers are responsible for designing, building and maintaining data system architectures that incorporate databases and large-scale data processing systems, according to Hired.com.

Candidates are expected to have a degree in computer science, engineering or a related field, experience with computers – particularly with Linux systems – and about four years of prior work experience, according to Payscale.com.

DevOps Engineer

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 2

Overall Job Score: 4.7 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.2 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 2,725

Median Base Pay: $110,000

DevOps is a hot area in the IT space right now, providing a link between the developers who design and program applications and software systems, and the operational IT people who run those systems.

This isn't a job for entry-level employees, however. Many organizations, according to Payscale.com, prefer candidates with a master's degree and at least three to five years of experience in the field, including experience with a wide range of technologies such as CSS, HTTP, SSL, HTML, XML, Java, Linux, Amazon Web Services, DNS, NoSQL technologies and web application development.

Data Scientist

Rating on Glassdoor's top 50: No. 1

Overall Job Score: 4.8 (out of 5)

Job Satisfaction Rating: 4.4 (out of 5)

Number of Job Openings: 4,184

Median Base Pay: $110,000

Data scientists have the best jobs in America, according to Glassdoor.

This job's satisfaction rating is the highest out of any other job on Glassdoor's list and it's also one of the highest-paying and most in-demand jobs on the list.

Data scientists are "the modern equivalent of data analysts," according to Payscale.com. It's a position that relies heavily on math and computer science skills to break down large volumes of data for analysis. But data scientists' skills must go beyond technology, including understanding the business in which they work and having the ability to examine data from a number of sources and translate it into insights that can give a business a competitive edge.