Compensation Q&A and Videos

I'm a well paid software engineer at a big tech company but I'm based in Canada. The US market is much more lucrative, and my company allows internal transfers to the US and is willing to adjust pay accordingly. However I'm concerned my RSU grant will still be the same, so is my only option to switch companies or perhaps boomerang back in the US? I'm relatively new to the company, so I wouldn't consider moving to the US till I hit the 18 month mark.

Thoughts?

I was under the impression that in the past (before Q3 of 2022), it was often possible to get exceptions to location-based comp ranges and to get an offer that was average for the role even if in a low-COL area working remotely. I've talked to other developers in my area who have said they experienced that.

Has this become more difficult in this market? I was evaluating an offer and the recruiter initially seemed optimistic about exploring going above the location-based pay bands in order to compete with my other offer and current comp, but then I didn't hear from him for two weeks (during Christmas) and then he got back to me saying it was entirely impossible.

As an intern undertaking my first industry-relevant experience, I often find myself drawn to continue working on projects beyond my scheduled work hours. Should this extra time be considered overtime and discussed with my manager, or is it expected to be unpaid and regarded as a personal choice?

I recently received an offer from a series D unicorn. They are giving me the option to trade off base salary and sign-on bonus for more equity and vice versa.  I’ve heard conflicting opinions about whether you should optimise for cash or for equity (some say optimise for equity, others say optimise for pay), so I want to get a good understanding of what factors I should consider when trading off pay for more equity?

I'm fortunate enough to have come from a decent background, so I don't need to worry about paying off debt or anything like that. It also happens that I live near family so cost of living isn't too big of an issue. So this is more about maximizing my compensation without having to worry about anything else.

Also, this company told me that they don’t negotiate, but I told them that I had a competing offer that paid me 15K more base. They gave more reasons about why they don't negotiate but said they’d see what they can do. I ended up getting the 15K. In previous calls, they definitely showed that the really wanted me (can tell through their language), so I was wondering if I could’ve gotten more? There’s a lot of factors/details that I left out to preserve anonymity but I’m happy to (carefully) provide any details left out.

Hi everyone, compensation discussions are happening at Google right now, and I'm looking for advice on how to make the most of the conversation. I'm trying to move beyond simply saying 'I deserve more' or 'the increase is less than expected,' which I know isn't very effective.

Instead, I want to ask targeted questions that will help me understand the rationale behind my compensation and potentially identify areas for future growth.

For those who have successfully navigated these discussions, or have experience in compensation in general, what are some specific questions I should ask?

Any insights, examples, or specific question phrasing would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

For the record, I’m not personally interested in game development - I’m just quite curious.

Everyone hears the following complaints across the gaming industry in general:

• Crunch time

• Lower TCs

I find this quite curious, because I imagine there’s a lot of technical complexity in building games and the numerous tools and engines needed to make them. 

Games are interdisciplinary, combining art, music, sound design, acting, writing, and game design, to create interactive entertainment software - so I would imagine this presents a unique world of challenges that make it just as complex as “regular” software. 

Plus, MMOs and games like Fortnite or Counter-Strike have to deal with all the technical complexity of ensuring a good player experience while having millions of players (clients) playing concurrently.

In fact, Gergely Orosz has on the subject that I found fascinating.

Yet, game developers typically complain of lots of crunch time and being underpaid - and, subjectively, the game dev industry is less “prestigious” than SWE.

Also, I’ve almost always seen devs listed as “game programmer” or “UI programmer” in the credits, as if their primary job is to just write code (and not build good, complex software at scale).

What might be the reason for the differences between game development and regular software engineering?

Thanks a lot for the wonderful content at Taro. It really helps me understand the expectations as a software engineer.

Both Alex and Rahul had a wonderful salary increase from 100k to 750k in 7 years. After each performance review cycle, did you explicitly have to ask your manager for a salary increase, or did your manager automatically increased your salary every time?

If you do explicitly ask for a salary increase, do you generally ask for a specific number, and do you ask only when you get "exceeds expectations" rating?

I'm a Senior 2 Engineer who received 'Exceeding Expectations' followed by 'Defining New Standards' in my last two review cycles, demonstrating consistent Staff-level performance.

About a month ago, I initiated compensation discussions with my manager, who has escalated this to the CTO. Today, I learned through informal channels about another team member's who got promoted to Senior 2 compensation being higher than mine.

• How do you professionally handle compensation discussions when you've discovered pay discrepancies through informal channels? Is it appropriate to bring this up with management? I wonder what to do because the conversation about a raise started about a month ago before I knew about my other colleague new salary.
• What's the best way to balance showing I'm serious about needing an adjustment without overplaying my hand, given I don't have another offer yet?
• For those who've been in management: how do you prefer engineers approach these conversations, especially when they've already expressed they might leave if compensation isn't adjusted?

A realistic example would be if you are offered at a time the stock price of a company is 50% below it's all time high. Do they try to offer someone 50% less in stock grants in USD. Keeping the number of units of stocks given the same?

Across 2-3 different slacks I saw positions targeted at women where the pay was something like $150K for these qualifications: 7+ years experience with a Master's to work on GenAI...and I'm like, why are we underpaying women software engineers WAY below market rate? The excuse I heard from one woman founder that posted this on Slack was that they didn't have the money as an early stage startup (understandable it usually is lower than FAANGMULA but this is pretty atrocious), and then another said they were a non-profit. But in general I'm worried that the pay bands for a lot of women engineers I am seeing job postings where the ranges are NOT where they should be and on the extreme low end by 30-50% lower.

Is it really that common that this market sucks so bad that women are taking less than half of a salary that was made in 2019 because "the market sucks right now and layoffs suck?" Meanwhile I can see in my feed complaints from non-technical staff at (former "writers" at Airbnb that they only made $500K a year annually and left last year to found their own consultancy to make even more than that).

What is up with this, why are the pay bands for women that much lower? And overall some people have commented pay bands in general are that much lower and that people are only taking HALF the salaries just to keep healthcare because they don't want to get a retail job or something or sell their plasma (yes all true stories I've heard from people ranging from a PhD (in Physics) who took two years to become an iOS developer that worked at a car wash for 2 years and other recruiters laid off at FAANGMULA that sold their plasma to survive).

This makes me angry and what is wrong with the world? Is this for real the market that we are in?

Should we be applying to roles that don't even list paybands or salary only to find out that we think we should be making like 300K with 8+ years experience or something like at an L4 or L5, only to find out we should be paid like a college junior (BS)?

I took the and found it very helpful. Especially the part where we should create a company list, rank them, and then start applying based on tier. It turns job-hunting into a probability and numbers game and it removes a lot of stress

However, what do you do when you get an offer from a company that isn't high on your list, so you can't accept the offer because you still want to apply to companies higher on the list?

Throughout the interview you have tried to convince them that you are excited for the position, so now how do you tell them you can't take the offer, without burning the bridge or getting blacklisted?

How do you also not feel guilty rejecting the offer when you know you are not as serious about the position as the hiring end?

Other than company future, I'm very happy in my current role.

Have a great manager, good WLB, strong compensation, will likely get promoted soon, brand name of company is strong, really like the work, am learning a lot.

However, I don't see the bull case for the company. Stock has not recovered from the post-COVID drop (down ~80% from peak), and it's increasingly unclear how we would rebound.

How much should I weigh the actual company performance and future stock trajectory (as I see it) vs the otherwise great things? Of course, I could also be misreading the trajectory of the company.

I joined my company 1.5 years ago. When my recruiter asked for my salary expectations, I feel like I lowballed myself. I wanna talk to my manager and ask for a salary increase.

What's the best way of talking to manager? What should I ask? How should I frame it smoothly?

How to negotiate if the manager postpones or doesn't agree? At what cadence can I ask my manager again?

Does the approach vary between FAANG companies, other big tech companies, and startups?

Does the timing matter? Should I wait for performance reviews and ask my manager only if I get a good performance rating? Or should I ask after successfully launching some project? Or can I ask during any 1-1?

Do I need to interview and get an offer from another company before asking my manager? If I negotiate showing another offer, will my manager think bad about me?

When asking for a raise, should I aks for an explicit salary figure, or should I ask for a raise without citing any explicit value?

If my manager actually agrees for a raise, what percentage increase is it okay to ask for?

When my performance rating is good, will my company automatically increase my salary or do they increase only when I explicitly ask for it?

I previously did some hourly development work for a startup, and the founder approached me and asked me to be a CTO on a part time basis until they have enough profit to support full-time employees, since the startup is bootstrapped. Last year they had ~$60k profit. Profit has consistently doubled year over year; they're on track to double this year as well.

There is currently only one full-time employee (other than the founder), with contractors on an as-needed basis. The full-time employee is compensated through profit-share and equity, and the same would be true for me.

I'm meeting with the founder later this week. I've never negotiated a role with a payment structure like this, so I would appreciate hearing about what would be realistic for me to expect.

Thanks everybody! Please let me know if there's any other info that you would need in order to help me land on some numbers for equity and profit share.

Today is my first day at a new role. I am very optimistic about this role.

At the same time, some of the places that I applied are only now following up. One role in particular has the potential for a 100k+ TC increase, or over 30%. This is meaningful to me. What mental checks should I do before accepting the interview?

If I interview and receive an offer, would it be best to accept it and leave or bring this up to my current employer and seek a raise? Would that set a sour tone?

Hello,
I'm speaking to a recruiter at PayPal and expecting to have the compensation discussion with them. I would like to know from folks at Paypal at Taro what is a reasonable range regarding compensation numbers at this level.

tells me there is a high sample point of TC at $473K with the average being $335K . I couldn't find the median, which would have helped as a more representative approximation.

Please share any insights you might have.

Thanks!

When joining a private startup, there is a lot of risk that your stock might become worthless in the future.

Suppose, Google/Meta is offering you $150K stock per annum. For a comparable risk-reward tolerance, how much equity would you ask for a startup? Is there a formula you would use here based on factors such as the latest fundraising round, employee count, revenue, etc?