I agree with you that they're not small in absolute terms, but I think these offices wouldn't make the mental list of top 4 tech employers in the Bay Area, and there's a very steep drop off after that. Maybe it would be better to say it feels like there are 4 big employers and almost nothing after that. All of this is hard to research - I tried doing some googling for numbers to validate my gut feeling but I wasn't sure how reliable they are.
Seattle metro is also a lot smaller than Bay Area metro -- and the Bay is probably the densest of all tech areas.
That said, Seattle does also have a good collection of "minor" companies, such as PACCAR, Expedia, Zillow, Tableau, F5. And I think Apple also has an office in Seattle (although probably really small).
Unless you want to work for one of the "brands", there are some good choices in Seattle.
Yeah, for sure. After all, it's a Tier 1 city in the United States. It's just different in the Bay, but it's different than anywhere else in the world.
