Five of the top 20 companies paying the most in base pay to software engineers are brand names located in Silicon Valley: Google, Facebook, Apple, eBay and Zynga, in that order. Their pay levels were well above the national average of $92,648.

The numbers, which come from Glassdoor, put brand names in the 18th, 19th and 20th slots, as well: Hewlett-Packard, Intel and IBM respectively. Both Intel's and IBM's base pay sits below the national average. Finally, this year's national average ticked up -- 2.5 percent from 2011's survey.