The 9 best tech companies to work for that are not in Silicon Valley

The 9 best tech companies to work for that are not in Silicon Valley

It's probably fair to call Silicon Valley the center of the tech universe. The Valley is home to more tech companies than any other region, including some of the best companies on the planet to work for (Google, Facebook, Twitter).

But it's also an insanely expensive place to live.

Turns out, you don't have to live there to have a fabulous job at a great tech company. There are awesome companies all over the country.
Business Insider (BI) asked employee crowdsourcing site Glassdoor.com to tell which one of these are the best according to their employees.

1# Company: Rackspace
Employee rating: 3.6 stars out of 5
Location: Windcrest, Texas (San Antonio area)
About the company:
Web hosting and cloud computing infrastructure. Rackspace is going through some challenging times right now, as it faces increased competition from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, HP, and others.

The company's well-liked CEO Lanham Napier surprised the tech world by suddenly resigning in February, when the company announced softer-than-expected growth in its cloud business. Founder and chairman Graham Weston stepped back in as temporary CEO.

2# Company: Microsoft:
Employee rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars
Location: Redmond, Washington (Seattle area)
About the company:
Microsoft just appointed its third-ever CEO, long-time Microsoftie Satya Nadella. The company is already flourishing under his new leadership as he moves Microsoft into the brave new era of cloud computing and making its own devices with its acquisition of Nokia.

3# Company: Texas Instruments
Employee rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars
Location: Dallas
About the company:
TI is a a $12 billion semi-conductor company that consistently lands on the "best places to work" lists. In 2011, it bought its oldest, biggest rival, National Semiconductor.

Today its chips are embedded in countless electronics devices. It is even powering a Kickstarter project that launched a bunch of tiny spacecrafts into orbit with the last the SpaceX mission, the first so-called "personal spacecrafts."

4# Company: CareerBuilder
Employee rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars
Location: Chicago
About the company:
About 24 million people use the CareerBuilder website each month to find new jobs and glean career advice. It was originally launched as a dotcom-era website and went public one-year before the Internet bubble burst.

It barely hung on through the post bubble years, bought by newspaper companies Gannett Co. and the Tribune Company and The McClatchy Company (which owns Knight Ridder).

Today, it represents the online heir to the newspapers help wanted section and is known for its TV commercials featuring monkeys.

5# Company: National Instruments
Employee rating: 3.8 out of 5 stars
Location: Austin, Texas
About the company:
National Instruments was founded in 1976 and is famous for its test equipment that helps engineers build everything from spaceships to tiny wireless devices.

It recently announced a partnership with toy maker Lego where NIs software will be used for building Lego robots. The project aims to excite students about science and technology.

6# Company: Citrix Systems
Employee rating: 3.8 out of 5 stars
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
About the company:
Citrix offers a form of networking software to companies that allows them to run Windows (and other apps) over the cloud, instead of installing it on PCs. It offers other tech management software, too, for doing things like security and managing mobile devices. It is VMwares biggest competitor.

Citrix is currently looking to replace its long-time CEO Mark Templeton who plans to retire this year. He took a leave of absence last summer after the tragic death of his 27-year-old son.

7# Company: CDW
Employee rating: 3.8 out of 5 stars
Location: Vernon Hills, Illinois (Chicago area)
About the company:
CDW is a $10 billion company that sells just about every kind of piece of computer equipment and software under the sun. Its founder story is a bit similar to Dells.

In 1982, a 28-year-old, out-of-work college graduate named Michael Krasny needed cash and placed a $3 classified ad in the newspaper to sell his IBM computer. Offers poured in, he made $200 profit, and Krasny became a computer broker, buying and selling computers for a small profit. The company was born.

8# Company: Qualcomm
Employee rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Location: San Diego
About the company:
Qualcomm is a semiconductor manufacturer most famous for its Snapdragon chips that power many of todays smartphones and tablets.
The mobile revolution, and Qualcomms starring role in it, has fueled the 29-year-old company to massive growth in recent years. It reported $25 billion in 2013 revenues, up 30% from 2012. Cofounder Irwin Jacobs is a billionaire involved in politics. He just hosted President Obama at his home for a $10,000-a-plate lunch fundraiser.

9# Company: Orbitz
Employee rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Location: Chicago
About the company:
Orbitz is a travel-booking website that also owns other sites like CheapTickets and European-focused ebookers. Orbitz began life in the dotcom era as a collaboration by the airline industry. They wanted a piece of the online travel action from rising sites Expedia and Travelocity.

The company hasn been a stock market favorite. The stock has been trading well below $10 since 2008, though it has started to rebound a bit in 2014. For that reason its top executive receives modest pay by the tech industrys standards: $5.3 million in total compensation in 2013, up from $3.9 million the year before.