Uber offer negotiation. Confused by recruiter words

Your current role is effectively a competing offer. As long as you make it seem like you're inclined to stay at Amazon (hopefully you didn't complain too much about your current job during the interview), then you have leverage as you can walk away. Amazon is also a top-tier company, and it would be weird if Uber doesn't match or beat your current total compensation. You can say something like:

Appreciate the offer! I'm very excited about working for Uber, but I also really like my team at Amazon and it's hard to justify moving when your current package is lower than what I currently make. Is there any room for adjustment here? If not on salary, can we change the equity component?"

If both salary and RSUs can't be adjusted, maybe you can do a large signing bonus that vests across 2 years or something.

Congrats on the Uber offer 🎉🎉 The first thing I want to mention: don't accept/reject anything on the call you have today.

Whatever numbers the recruiter gives you, just say thank you, followed by an open-ended question to understand their constraints:

Thanks so much for sharing that, I need some time to think about it. I'm curious, what parts of the offer are you most able to adjust?

It's hard to say why the recruiter is calling out the lower salary band for you.

• A big part of the recruiter's job is to get you to convert, so it's advantageous for them to broadcast a low target, and then the candidate feels better when the target is exceeded ("underpromise, over-deliver")
• There could also be some element of the macro-condition impacting the offer, where there is softness in salaries across the industry.

if I am switching, I need it to be at least a bump in my salary

Why is this true? Both Uber and Amazon are large public companies at this point, which means that the equity is fairly stable. If the Uber salary is the same as Amazon, or perhaps even lower, but the equity is substantially more, that'd be a big win.

As I talk about in the negotiation course, here is the ranked preferences for how to negotiate:

1. Leverage counteroffers. This won't work for you since you only have the Uber offer.
2. (if you're employed and your current job pays competitively) Reveal the highest component of your current comp and use that as an anchor
3. (if you're unemployed or not paid competitively) Reference market data such as levels fyi or public data points to justify higher compensation.

My recommendation for you is 2 rounds of negotiation:

1. Once you get data about what parts of the offer are likely to change, make an ask on that offer component.
2. If you're ready to sign the offer, use the tactic of "Closing The Deal" to squeeze out an extra $10-15K