Top and bottom cities for launching a successful tech career

In the competitive world of corporate careers, many professionals assume that personal attributes like intelligence, temperament, and drive are the primary factors in determining how far one advances. However, growing evidence suggests that where a person works and the support they receive from their company play a significant role in career progression. For job seekers, knowing whether a company actually fosters career growth, invests in mentorship and training, or tends to promote from within has always been a challenge - surface-level reputation often doesn’t reflect what happens within specific departments or roles.

To address this gap, two nonprofits, the Burning Glass Institute and the Schultz Family Foundation, conducted an extensive study to identify where the best jobs are for career advancement. Analyzing the career histories of 12 million workers across 1,750 of the largest employers in the U.S. between 2019 and 2024, the organizations used data aggregated from platforms like LinkedIn and Glassdoor. Each occupation within each company was evaluated on three critical factors: the likelihood of internal promotion within five years, the percentage of employees who stayed at least three years, and the role’s salary.

The findings highlight that disparities exist not only between companies, but also within them - depending on the specific job. At the typical employer, there is an 81-point gap in percentile ranking between the best and worst roles when it comes to promotions and retention. For instance, at Chanel, fashion designers are retained at the 97th percentile relative to their peers nationwide, whereas project management specialists fall in the 16th percentile.

Focusing on prominent tech occupations - software engineering, data science, quality assurance, security engineering, IT project management (including product managers), and systems analysts - the data reveals that certain tech giants stand out. Amazon and Salesforce emerged as clear leaders in promoting well-rounded job experiences for tech employees, combining top-of-market salaries with strong advancement and retention rates. At Salesforce, software engineers are in the 97th percentile for promotions, 98th for retention, and 96th for pay.

Adobe, Google, and Microsoft also ranked highly, although nuances emerged for companies like Apple, where employees enjoy strong retention but relatively few promotions. Uber, by contrast, sees faster promotions but struggles to retain tech workers. Meta generally posts middling results for advancement, with retention varying sharply by role.

Outside Silicon Valley, companies such as Liberty Mutual and USAA have risen above expectation. Liberty Mutual’s software engineers, for example, are promoted nearly four times as often as their peers at Meta. Yet, their pay lags the elite tech firms. Other companies like John Deere, Northwestern Mutual, and Mayo Clinic stood out for career longevity and advancement, even as they paid less than the industry’s top earners.

The analysis also points to less favorable environments. For tech workers at Goldman Sachs, high salaries are offset by limited internal mobility and poor retention, a pattern echoed at Deloitte in several technical roles.

These findings come at a time when tech professionals are shifting priorities toward stability and secure growth, a sharp contrast to several years ago when frequent job switches were common. As hiring slows and layoffs continue, many now seek employers that offer genuine career paths and long-term engagement. According to Aki Ito of Business Insider, the Burning Glass Institute’s data demonstrates that, despite the changing economic landscape, companies offering real career growth and stable work environments still exist, if candidates know where to look.