Negotiation Q&A and Videos

Hi All, I have a question on competing offers. Do recruiters ask to show the competing offer email or letters when I negotiate? I read it is not legal to ask for it or ask for the previous salary. I wanted to find out more on this, do they ask for more details of competing offers and should I plan to show any details for that?  Also, would you mind sharing your experience on how you handled negotiation when trying to switch teams within the same company and negotiating a better salary within same company with an competing offer from outside the company. Thank you!

I recently had an interview and before booking it, they emailed me a list of questions (including my major, university) and "current company and/or competing deadlines (dates/companies): ______"

I wasn't happy about this when I got the email and read I was never to reveal too much information. I felt cornered, pressured, and my family also really pressured me to interview with this company I know was for the wrong role (too junior, wrong focus area). I did it anyway and now I regret even taking the interview, it was actually a huge waste of my time.

What should you do if a recruiter emails this and says they require this (and a long list of other questions) within a 24 time period? Something I'm thinking about in the future if this happens again.

The recruiter was internal to the company and not 3rd party. By the way this was considered a "pre-screen" interview and normally I don't talk about other competing deadlines or offers until like the very LATE stages of interviewing (meaning you've already gone through like at least 3-6 rounds, not the pre-1st round which I found SO odd).

This is the list of questions I was sent:

"[ACTION] Complete this Questionnaire within 24 hours [copy & paste answers to the below in an email reply]

• current company and/or competing deadlines (dates/companies): ______
• motivators (when deciding on multiple offers, what is most important to you i.e. mission, culture, team selection, location, etc.): ______
• please note that all x y z city headcount has been filled. Rank remaining locations in order of preference * xyz, CA, x y z city, state): _____
• are you open/available to start on September 9, 2024: ______
• preferred name: ______
• pronouns (i.e. he/him, she/her, they/them, etc.): ______
• graduation date (month/year): ______
• degree (level & major): ______
• university: ______
• hobbies/anything else you’d like me to know (optional): ______

During my recent job search process, I couldnt time my interviews well, so i ended up securing offers at different times. My first offer was from a high speed startup and they offered me a very good pay.

The recruiter was very pushy though. She gave me a weekend to decide whether to accept the offer or not. She got to know about my last working day in my current org and pushed me to join a day after that. She also said i should not interview at any other companies if i sign this offer. She insisted i meet with my potential boss at the office and do so only if i am 100% sure of accepting the offer.

She was not just pushy, she was disrespectful and crossed a lot of boundaries. It was my first job offer and i couldnt give a definite yes. Also i felt really uncomfortable with how pushy she was and rejected the offer. I thought i couldnt focus on other interviews with this guilt and fear hanging over me if i accepted the offer without being 100% sure.

Before deciding to say no i also looked up culture reviews about this company and it scared me about how poor the work life balance is. I made a snap decision cos i was afraid for my health having worked at a startup before. But now i know that most reviews online are negative and ist so for every single company out there. Plus i am actually ok with such a high speed environment especially for high pay and good work. So i no longer care for these reasons.

Its been a week since then and i think i should have played this a bit more smartly. I should have said yes and continued to interview. Am i right in thinking this way ? Is there any other way to approach this sort of a situation ?

I just finished up my final technical round (went well) and the recruiter reached out wanting to chat about salary expectations before the offer stage. During my initial call with the recruiter, she did ask me about salary expectations. I deferred by saying fit and potential impact are most important to me and that I'd like to defer until I learn more. Now that I've already interviewed, I'm not sure how to handle the conversation with the recruiter. It seems wrong to give a number before getting an actual offer, but at the same time, my initial reason for deferring talking about salary is no longer valid because I've already gone through the interview process. Any advice on what should I do here?

1. What are the pros and cons associated with picking a founding full-stack engineer role at a pre-seed startup over a senior SWE role in a platform engineering team at a decently high-scale late-stage post-IPO startup?
2. Does being a founding engineer make you unemployable even if you have 5-6 years of experience?
3. Will working on larger-scale infrastructure projects make a significant difference in terms of employability?
4. Are there any other career risks associated with being a founding engineer?

Hi, I am at the team match stage at meta for E4 (MLE) role at the bay area loc. What could be a decent TC range (checked levels, I know avg is around 300k?)?

Also, how could I maximize it considering I don’t have a competing FAANG level offer at the moment, but I do have an offer from a tier 2 company of ML in terms of comp? note, I believe I did pretty well in all the interview rounds, the team I am hoping to join has a member who was my labmate in my Phd group and recommended me to the hiring manager, who is quite interested to hire me (as mentioned by the hm himself). Furthermore, I already have my green card, so the company doesn’t need to spend for my immigration. How (if at all) can I leverage these to negotiate?

I have looked at Taro's course on , but looking for more case-specific suggestions, thanks in advance.

Context
I have a potential offer from Google. The job description mentions the following

"The US base salary range for this full-time position is $221,000-$314,000 + bonus + equity + benefits"

I was under the impression that this will be an L5/L6 role. The recruiter didn't really give that information away in the phone-screen. However, just before the team-match call (happens after the onsite), the recruiter told me that the HM had hinted them that this will most likely be an L4 role. During the team-match call, I made sure I demonstrated L5 signals when they asked me about my current job and past experience. The HM even told me that they really see me succeeding on the role and I should hear back from the recruiter shortly on the next steps.

My Question
I am preparing for negotiating with the recruiter. Is this a common low-balling tactic by Google recruiters? Otherwise why is there a mismatch between what is mentioned in the job posting and what they are saying?

Hi folks, I need your help to understand if any action can be taken from my side here.

I gave Stripe interviews recently for SSE (Bangalore) and here is the feedback I received.

Round1 (LLD) - Strong yes

Round2 (Bug Squash) - No

Round3 (Integration Round) - yes

Round4 (Systems Design) - Strong yes

Round5 (Manager Round) - yes

I am aligned with this feedback except Round 2 (Bug Squash). I thought I had a strong yes in that. I was very easily able to navigate the code, find out the bug, fix it, and explain it. We were left with 15 more minutes so she gave me another bug to solve. I reached halfway on that, was able to partially figure out the bug. Didn't solve it but I think the expectation is to solve just one bug.

I have communicated the above with HR with a positive outlook.

Also, I felt that the interviewer wasn't very present and interested from the beginning so I think that the interviewer hasn't given much thought to this.

Current status: They have sent the case to the hiring committee for SSE but the HR mentioned that I might get downleveled. But I have been pretty vocal that I want to be considered for SSE only. Another factor she mentioned is I have a borderline work ex of 5.5/6 years so that might also contribute to this.

I asked the HR if I could reinterview for this round but she mentioned that's not possible and is not part of company policy.

Anything that I can do here?

Context:

• Opportunity:- A month ago, I interviewed at a recently IPO'd startup for a senior SWE position and did well.
• Uplevelling:- The interviews apparently went so well that they suggested I was a good fit for a staff SWE position on the team and made a verbal offer for that.
• Subsequent Downlevelling:- The actual offer was delayed by 2-3 weeks only for the final offer to be a senior SWE offer.
• Compenstion Issue:- The final offer is a bit (~10%) lower than all my current offers on all compensation components (cash, stock, sign on). Also, I'm still awaiting a couple of more offers that could be even better paying ones.
• Recruiter Constraints:- The recruiter stated that this is the best offer they can do for the senior SWE level. This might be true given the ranges available on Glassdoor but I'm not too sure since there was only 1 data point available.
• My Opinions:- I really liked the team, the manager and the kind of work for this opportunity. But I don't want to leave out on a meaningful amount of money being offered by other opportunities.

Questions:-

• Assuming that the offer is genuinely at the top range, can I still attempt to negotiate given that the team believed I'm suitable for a staff SWE uplevelling?
• If I should negotiate, how do I approach it given that they've stated it's the best they can do?
• Do companies offer compensation beyond the high-senior SWE but below the low-staff SWE ranges to good candidates?

I'm a software engineer with a few years of experience. I can choose to join a Big Tech company or a well-backed Series A startup.

What's a reasonable ask for the salary when negotiating with the startup? In percentage terms, how much lower salary can I expect at a startup compared to Big Tech?

Of course, I expect to receive equity/stock options at the startup.

After getting an offer, what's a reasonable amount of time that I have to decide whether to accept or reject? What's the upper limit on this reasonableness?

And how many different (current) members on the team is it reasonable to ask to speak with?

I recently got an offer for a senior SWE backend role.

A little about my background: Sr backend SWE, 8 yrs of experience

Offer:

• Big city in the Midwest
• 190k base
• 152k RSU (38k a yr)
• 12k bonus flat (they don't do performance bonuses)
• 3 days a week hybrid
• unlimited pto

Total: 240k TC

I was told the base goes up to 225k pre-offer so I'm thinking of asking how we can bridge the gap or land somewhere in between. Planning on using the no-performance bonus as a talking point to get more base pay. Overall my interview performances were definitely strong from my perspective. Company and role-wise everything lines up for what I'm looking for in my career. The initial offer exceeds my expectations but I definitely want to maximize my comp.

Any recommendations or tips?