The guys at Glassdoor have compiled a list of the 25 tech companies with the best salaries for software engineers. Google and Facebook made the list, of course. So did Apple and Twitter. But the company at the very top is a bit of a surprise: networking gear maker Juniper Networks.

Juniper is a solid company, to be sure. The longtime competitor to Cisco Systems makes the big switches and routers that keep the internet humming. It has just under 10,000 employees and $4.4 billion in yearly revenue. And it pays software engineers an average base salary of just under $160,000, according to Glassdoor.

Image: Glassdoor

Compare that to Google, where the average base salary is about $127,000, or Twitter or Apple – both just a shade under $125,000. Juniper's biggest competitor, Cisco, averages just $109,000, according to Glassdoor.

But it's important to remember that base salaries don't tell the whole story, says Scott Dobroski, Glassdoor's community expert. "For example, while Facebook ranks ninth for average annual base salary on this report, Facebook employees receive larger bonuses and more stock options than some other tech companies on this list," he said via email.

Something else to consider: Because Glassdoor only includes companies where at least 50 engineers have submitted salaries, there are some high-paying companies that didn't make the list.

Netflix, for example, often pays engineers far more than other companies, says Scott Purcell, a division manager with national recruiting firm Jobspring Partners. He said there's a certain logic to Juniper's high salaries. "Juniper is a solid company, but they don't have the pizzazz maybe as some of the up-and-coming companies that are competing with them," he said. "It could be that they're going beyond, paying top dollar to attract talent."

Juniper, for its part, says it's happy to be mentioned in the same breath as Google and Facebook. "While the Glassdoor sample may not be comprehensive, it does speak to the seriousness by which we play in the software market," a Juniper spokeswoman said via email.

Purcell blogged recently about how engineering salaries have spiked in the past few years. He's worked with some startups that are paying software developers close to the same salaries as management. Last year he placed a handful of software engineers in the $165,000 range. "Right now it seems like everybody is hiring. There's lots of demand."

This story has been updated to include a quote from Juniper