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The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously once said, “Software is eating the world,” describing how technology is permeating every industry and nearly every facet of our lives. As it turns out, this hasn’t been a bad thing for the sales community, with hundreds of thousands of high-paying sales jobs having been created in the software sector, leading to some of the most competitive wages in the profession. 
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We wanted to pull back the curtain to find out just how much the top companies in tech were paying their salespeople, so we reached out to RepVue, a platform where you can discover 1000s of peer-rated and top-paying sales orgs, to get some hard figures. 
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A few things to note: The following data only covers tech organizations, that is: IT, software, and internet companies. Of the top five paying tech companies, four are Enterprise roles, while one is a SLED (selling to State, Local, and Education government agencies) role. The data only covers individual contributors, self-identified as Sales/Account Executives, and does not include producing sales managers. Lastly, the top earner figures are an average of what the respondents report top performers can earn in the role, and are not a definitive figure. 
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The numbers. Here are the top five paying companies in descending order: 
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5. Cloudera (software). This is the only SLED role that managed to crack the top five, with a base of $151,000, and OTE (On-target earnings) of $302,000. The average deal size is $285,000. Quota attainment (no pun intended) is at 67%, which means over two-thirds of the sales team is hitting quota, and (according to reps on the Cloudera enterprise team) the top earner can earn $872,000 (or more). 
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4. BigPanda (software). Coming in at number four, an AE at BigPanda has a base of $153,571, and OTE of $307,142. Quota attainment is a bit low, at 52.1%, and average deal size is $327,500. And, topping out the list in this category, the top earner at BigPanda can make a whopping $907,142. 
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3. CyberGrants (IT). AEs at CyberGrants can expect a base of $133,750, and OTE of $308,750. The average deal size is $85,000, and quota attainment is at 60%. Coming in with the lowest income on the list, a top earner at CyberGrants can still make a very respectable $555,000, putting this role smack dab in the middle at number three.
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2. Auth0 / Okta (software). As the second-highest-paying tech sales role, an AE at Auth0 has the highest base pay on this list, coming in at $156,666. Total OTE is $310,000, and quota attainment is the highest on the list at 60.8%. The top earner at Auth0 can make $818,333, and the average deal size is $125,416. 
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1. Google Cloud (IT). To no one’s surprise, tech giant Google made the top of the list, with AEs earning a base pay of $148,750, and OTE of $313,333. Average deal size is an astounding $466,875, and quota attainment is 54.6%. The top earner at Google Cloud can make $797,500. 
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A few more things to note. If you look closely, you’ll notice that every organization on this list has OTEs over $300,000. 
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You might also notice the correlation between high earnings and high average deal size -- only one organization has an average deal size under $100k. These companies pay their sales reps well because they’re pulling in extremely large (and complicated) deals. 
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Lastly, every one of these organizations has a high RepVue score, meaning they’re great places to work, at least according to their employees. So if you’re thinking about making a career move and want to max out your income, these five companies would be perfect targets. But, as you can expect, the competition to get in the door will be pretty stiff.