Top destinations for computer engineering careers

• The San Francisco Bay Area, with its proliferation of top-rated engineering colleges and the presence of numerous venture capital firms, is often regarded as the birthplace of modern computer innovation. Indeed, this region has headquarters of the giants of computer industry -- more than 20 Fortune 1000 corporations like Intel, Cisco, Oracle, Google and Apple are based here. High-tech workers in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area region were the nation's highest-paid, according to a 2008 report published by the American Electronics Association. With almost 400,000 computer industry jobs, it's no surprise that this area is the top destination in the country for computer engineering careers.
  
  The New York metropolitan area vies for a close second spot. With more than 20,000 high-tech companies employing almost 315,000 workers in diverse categories spanning telecommunications services, Internet services, computer systems design and financial information technologies, this region offers a wide array of opportunities for computer engineering career development.
  
  Two major hubs of computer engineering-based businesses are located in the Pacific Northwest part of the United States. Portland, Ore., is home to the largest headquarters of Intel Corporation, the world's leading semiconductor manufacturer. Intel is the largest employer in the Portland metropolitan region with more than 16,000 employees and an annual payroll of $1.5 billion. More than 1,700 other high-tech companies play an active part in the Portland computer engineering industry.
  
  In the neighboring state of Washington is the city of Redmond, headquarters of the world's largest software products company, Microsoft Corp. More than 30,000 full-time workers are employed by Microsoft in a vast range of computer engineering disciplines. The nation's largest online retailer, Amazon.com, is also based in Seattle. The Cybercities 2008 report released by the American Electronics Association lists Seattle as having the highest high-tech growth, adding 7,800 jobs in 2006.
  
  Austin, Texas, is another well-established nucleus for high-tech companies. Headquarters of the one of the world's leading computer system manufacturers, Dell Inc., Austin is also home to several other notable computer engineering companies such as AMD, Sun Microsystems and Samsung. There are more than 3,000 high-tech corporations in the Austin metro area with a collective employment of more than 100,000 in a variety of computer engineering specialties like semiconductors, software and wireless technology.
  
  The Research Triangle Park in North Carolina is the largest research center in the United States. More than 40 of the 170 corporations based here have computer engineering as their core business. IBM, Cisco and Lenovo are a few of the top employers in this 7,000-acre research and industry center.