Negotiation Q&A and Videos

I am a Senior Software Engineer at a big tech company, and I was reached out by a recruiter at a big-tech equivalent company and decided to give it a shot (also for a Senior SE role). I'm in the final interview stages and expect to receive an offer soon.

My recruiter said I've received excellent feedback overall from all of the interviews. I honestly believe that I would be more suitable for a Staff-level role given the work they are planning to do and has a close alignment with what I'm doing now (working towards a Staff role).

I have a few days until I receive an offer; I'd like to know whether I should kick off the discussion now or post-offer?

I have five years of engineering experience. I joined a product-based company last year as an SDE - I, after six months of working in the organization. I felt that I qualify as an SDE - 2.

I cracked an engineering manager round, which is the final technical round in a different product-based company. On paper, it has more scale and value.
I need help navigating the compensation, which I have to discuss tomorrow.

1. Should one keep multiple offers till a week before the joining date as a safety net?
2. What are the steps one can take when an offer gets rescinded?

We recently wrapped up the performance review cycle and I'll be having a meeting in a few weeks with my manager about my performance review and any potential annual raises. Recently, I was switched to remote status and took a ~12% decrease in total compensation and almost puts me at the junior-level compensation. I was wondering if I should be negotiating for a larger than normal (2-4%) raise in order to make up for the remote status pay decrease. I am bit cautious during these tough economic times but the pay decrease may have been a bit drastic as others in my location pay tier are paid more. Promotion raises are likely unrealistic as I was just promoted a few months ago.

I’m looking for a healthy raise at work of 15%-20%. To that end, I have done 2 things:

1.      Shared a file with my manager last week detailing things I have accomplished in the last year and their business impact.

2.      Asked my manager in our in-person one-on-one last week for a raise

My manager indicated it will be difficult for me to get a raise, both because raise guidelines are largely determined by how well the company is doing overall and because I got a nice raise last year and so the expectations were higher for me this year.

For background, I work at a big, boring, and bureaucratic finance company. I don’t think I did a particularly stellar job last year, but I benefit from being one of the few technical people on our business team, so am very valuable to the team. As a consequence, I can get away with doing a minimal amount of work, and I generally have a few hours during the day to spend it however I want. I am currently applying to different places, but realistically see if taking 3 months, plus or minus another 3 months till I jump ship. I have it set in my mind to only jump ship for a company which compensates at least 50% more than my current TC (which is low, by industry standards).

My question is, is it worth sending a raise request email to my boss asking him for the 20% raise? I’m leaning towards yes, but the counter would be he is already aware of what I want since I’ve asked him in person and shared my “ego file” with him, so I could be seen as overly aggressive. I would also only be recapitulating what I’ve already said.

The raise request format would be taken straight from Josh Doody:

Thanks for the guidance!

I am a senior developer in my company for a long time and performing really well. I switched divisions in this new group about 3 years ago but my managers changed 2 years ago. I see there is a problem of visibility of my work to upper management and I realized my manager is not really helping me grow. I took many initiatives and lead the projects last year but there is politics and they are sort of blaming me that I am not performing well enough though these projects are very important to the success of the company.

On top of this, my compensation is way lower than industry and as well as across my company.. I asked a few friends across the company and it is 25-30k lower than theirs for the same level. I tried asking for a raise to my manager and my 2nd level manager(director) but my manager says that there is a budget every year in the 1st quarter and they allot it based on performance. My 2nd level (director) says my compensation is great and I am same as everyone else here. When I asked about my performance, I was told I am a solid and valuable performer but not outstanding and so you may get accordingly but no guarantees.

Last year there was a new senior director hired from outside of the company in our division and bringing many new processes and changes. The sr.director seems to understand the challenges and problems we face as a product and also the trying to change the way the people are held accountable. But since this person is new, they dont know my contributions in the past 3 years to this product. Many people with senior level titles who are paid more don't really perform at that level and it is seen..and people like me who perform well and paid less. 

My question is - I dont think it is going to help if I talk again with my manager on this, but I definitely am under-paid and have to address this. So, is it OK for me to setup a meeting with the sr.director and share my contributions to this product, etc in the past years , and say I can bring in lot of value to this product in x, y, z areas and say I am underpaid and would you help with matching up at least to the company standards of 25k-30k more. I dont want my manager think I am skipping levels to talk to the sr.director. Also, the sr.director has the power to allot how much raises each person gets, and I think it will help me to talk directly to them, but I am not sure if that's ok to try that, any advise on how to navigate this is appreciated. Thank you!

I interviewed at a big startup that recently IPO'd and was offered a staff engineer role verbally after the interview loop concluded. I've been in touch with the recruiter to get a formal offer for around 3 weeks now but it just keeps getting delayed.

Questions:-

• Does getting the actual offer take such a long duration (2-3 weeks post verbal confirmation) at relatively bigger companies? I've only worked at startups and scaleups before.
• I have other offers that might expire soon but I don't want to take a call without this offer. I've shared this with the recruiter but I feel it hasn't helped expedite the process. Do I keep following up or give up on this offer and work with the rest of offers?

I recently declined an offer from a company and the recruiter is asking me why I declined and where I’m heading to next. I’m wondering if there’s any benefit (or harm) to disclosing this info? I would love to talk with them again in the future but I don’t think this company is the right choice for me at this moment.

I have to negotiate for my offer from Uber today, verbal offer chat will be today

Context

1. I am SDE2 at Amazon and was promoted so I have the low band base salary
2. Uber is the only interview I cracked, others were a weak yes and didn’t proceed to the offer so no other offers to negotiate against
3. This is what recruiter said which has me confused: They do not pay competitive salary as the other top tech companies, their pay is still in top 70%. Starting base mentioned was less than my current salary.
4. I am not sure if this is a tactic for negotiations or the market salaries right now. (Not the same on Levels fyi and I confirmed from someone working at Uber, their pay was definitely comparable to Amazon band, may be even more)
5. Unsure how strong I should approach it, if I am switching, I need it to be at least a bump in my salary. I want to ask for at least a some bump in base. Previously, when I have negotiated the final offer was a little less than what I asked but XXk+ more than what they first told me at the first call.
6. Would like to negotiate as much as possible, unsure if they consider other competing offers or my currently salary to counter.

I’m currently relatively happy in my current role working on challenging problems, I like my technical peers and management and during my 3 years here I got promoted from entry level engineer to senior engineer (SD1 to SD3).

However, given the scope and impact I provide, it feels like I can potentially make ~100k more (50% increase) with a job hop talking to multiple recruiters.

The worry is that I lose the equity I built in my current role and be exposed to layoffs at the new company. Also, getting promoted to staff engineer for a similar compensation increase would probably take a while. I’m tempted to switch jobs to maximize compensation.

For anyone who stayed in the company during mass layoffs, how was the experience after staying?
The second question is, did you try to negotiate more money? When staying meant missing the exit package and potentially more work in the future. Is there a way to put the case forward for the compensation revisit?

I am currently a mid-level SWE applying for senior roles at various companies. On several occasions, the recruiter who reached out asked what my level is at my current company. This feels similar to asking what my current salary is, and seems like a data-point which can be used to down-level me later in the process.

What's the best way to answer this without coming off as standoffish?

I have received another offer from Company B that is substantially better than my current offer from Company A (which I have signed) in terms of compensation, responsibilities and team. I am curious to know what are some ways to approach this.

1. What is the best way for me to renege the previous offer without burning bridges?
2. Did anyone here show a competing offer to Company A (after signing) and try to re-negotiate or move the needle? Has it worked for you, if you did this in a polite manner?

Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of, in the above scenarios? Please share your experiences, if you have done this in the past.

How do you respond to an email or over a phone conversation from recruiter asking:

1. Recruiter: What leveling would you prefer? L5, L6, etc (This is for Amazon)
   My thoughts: I personally think I'm somewhere in between L5 and L6 (much closer to L6). But I'm not sure what the right response should be.
2. Recruiter: What are your compensation expectations? We have a limited amount of positions open at the moment (but more coming soon.) And we like to know a little more about this from each candidate so we don't waste anyone's time involved, specifically yours :)
   My thoughts: I don't want to give insanely high number to Tier 2/3 since I want to increase my chances of getting interviews. But for FAANG I don't want to give a smaller number either.

Could you please tell how to handle such questions?

Hi my friend’s abilities exceed his years of experience. He passed the interview criteria for a senior level at Microsoft but they’re trying to lowball his salary based on years experience / their arbitrary choices.

They elected to interview him anyway in spite of that so it seems like they’re just flexing their leverage after-the-fact since he’s H1B. What can he do to negotiate? He shouldn’t have to accept a pay cut… I know people from more brand name schools and companies who got treated better and just appropriately compensated by MSFT…

I know that it's in the company's best interest to lowball you: Is there a way to get around this without burning bridges? I'm wary of doing something like getting a counteroffer, since that feels very aggressive.

Adding on to this: Even though we're a startup, we do have a fairly defined career matrix. We have levels (junior, intermediate, senior, etc) and a performance review every 6 months where levels are reassessed and promotions/raise are given where appropriate. So that's a path that can be taken.

Hey there, for context, I completed my first year as Software Engineer.

I joined the company because I was in dire need without checking the company culture, following which I was not satisfied with the designation. I then started to look out for a job.

I got that offer after 4 months of joining with 33% increase in the salary.

When I told my EM he was willing to talk to the HR and match the salary but then the Head of the department didn't promote my role in the light that others in the team will think and ask why in 4 months I got my role upgraded.

The leadership conveyed that I might get the designation in the 6 months appraisal cycle.
In the appraisal cycle they denied my promotion saying my salary doesn't match the orgs designation and they don't know what to do.

I was not happy with the decision and since I didn't had any offers I kept working for the organisation hoping I will get it in the 1 year cycle.

Now I didn't get the review form for 1 year appraisal cycle. I think they will say in the lines of because your salary was revised at the 4 month you are not eligible for this cycle.

Though I don't feel my designation is the right one. But I have some other responsibilities as well like family, commute etc. I'm losing my motivation.

I need help in crafting effectively to EM and HR so that they consider my role and some appraisal so that they inline my career in the organisation else juniors will have a higher role in front of me.

From today I have also started looking out for other jobs, but I don't want to hurry in making decisions.

Hi all. I have a verbal offer for a contract role. The recruiter said that they are going to send the official offer letter tomorrow. This company moved really fast and based on how fast they moved, they probably expect me to sign same day as receiving the offer.

I am in the final stages for a couple of other companies. I sped up the interviews as much as possible but I can't imagine they can get me an official offer tomorrow.

How should I handle this? I would like to finish these last interviews and see if I get an offer but the timeline is not lining up well.

Update:
I decided to take the offer. I talked to one of the companies that I am interviewing with. They said that they need over a week to get an offer out and they have two other candidates for the role. If I get a full-time offer, I will decide if it's worth it to renege the contract role. The market is so brutal that I don't feel comfortable risking my only offer, and I have no clue how the competition looks for the roles I am interviewing for.

Hello folks, hope to get some advice on my current situation.

I have started my job hunting process and a recruiter reached out to me with a open SWE role recently.

We had an initial chat and the compensation range for that role was lower than what I had asked for but the recruiter encouraged me to just go ahead and try anyway. I agreed to it, as I wanted to chalk up some interview experience, and managed to make it through the interview stages.

Today I was informed that I got the offer. However, the compensation is too low for me (which is expected). There's not much room to negotiate a substantially higher compensation because it is the budget given for that project (it's a contract role). The recruiter is still trying to encourage me to take up the role and potentially coming across as kinda...pushy. Any advice on how best to reject them? The recruiter has honestly been really helpful and friendly (eg. giving me tips on what the interview could ask etc) so I will still hope to be able to get the help of this recruiter for other roles, but at the same time i really don't want to offend him or make him think that I'm a picky candidate etc.

It's my first time job hunting so would really appreciate advice! Thank you so much

When an EM gives you the word that I'm willing to match the offer and the role. What should you ask the EM to make it official?
A revised offer letter or an appraisal letter, or something else?

Hello! Are there any websites to assist with evaluating startup offers (e.g. salary and equity)? Pave and Carta are focused on providing benchmarks for the offer-givers, not the offer-receivers. seems interesting, but I'm not sure how much I can trust it?

Is it possible to just use Pave / Carta without paying for it?

Thanks!

Now that PSC for the first half at Meta is nearing an end, do you think it makes sense to ask my manager for a raise in our next 1:1?

Or, given that Meta is a big tech company, are raises purely based on rating?

It's performance review time, and I want a nice raise and bonus just as much as anyone else.

Standard procedure for getting a raise seems to be making the case for yourself: keep track of all your accomplishments during the year so you can present them to your boss when asking for a raise/bonus. Simple enough. I'm prepping that list of things right now.

It's also been the case that this past year I turned down 3 offers that each would have paid me more than my current gig - between 20% and 40%. Now, even though I'm underpaid at my current gig, it's also the case that I'm compensated for that by it being super chill - no deadlines, lots of latitude on what to work on, a nice WFH arrangement (1 day in office a week), and pleasant coworkers.

My question is, do I mention that I got the offers in addition to mentioning the things I'd accomplished over the year? There's an element of "hardball" in that, but maybe it's not a bad move. I guess the phrasing of it is the key. So instead of saying "I've got other offers, give me more money or I leave", it's "I really like working here and with you. So much so that I turned down other companies that were offering decently more. Can you see what can be done to raise my compensation?"

Finally, I'm aware that the best way to ask for a raise is :
"I really enjoy working on this team. I want to do more to increase my impact and empower my teammates - What are the steps I need to take to get to that next level?"

I received a written offer from a Series A startup for a FE role over the weekend. I really enjoyed interviewing with some of the team members I met and the Hiring Manager seems to really care about the team and believes in the product. During the initial interview, the HM told me the salary window for the role is 140-195k based on experience and interview performance. After I completed all the interviews, the recruiter told me the team liked me and asked if I would take 140k and stop interviewing elsewhere. The recruiter reminded me that I mentioned months ago that I said 140k was the minimum I would accept for base salary (this is true, I reluctantly gave in and provided a number).

I’m currently working on a take home project for a FE role from a Series D startup that is in an industry I am interested in. I am scheduled to submit it and have the final interview round this week. This company's recruiter said, based on my resume, the anticipated salary range for the role would be 165-175k.

I asked the Series A recruiter to get closer to the potential Series D offer range so we agreed on 155k. Later I received the written offer and the title is for Senior Staff SWE. I was surprised to see that title paired with the 155k base salary (no signing bonus or other cash benefits. Options are on the table but that is just paper money at this stage). For context, in my last role I was a SWE I at a FAANG adjacent company and have 2-3 years of experience (half of that in Big Tech).

I'd like to get advice from the community about how to assess this Series A offer. Startup titles are generally inflated but even so the salary that is presented to me does not align with the title they are giving me. I live in a HCOL area.

If I do get an offer from the Series D company, I've been advised by another more Senior peer with startup experience to take an offer from a Series D company over Series A because the risk of company failure is lower and I will receive more support as a mid-level SWE.

I'd appreciate any insights and questions/topics I should consider to help me assess this situation. Thanks for reading this far :-)