Compensation Q&A and Videos

These are questions for Rahul since he put together a great negotiation course that I completed the other day.

I recently skimmed the Design Guru's course on negotiation, and two questions came up

1. How/when do you negotiate? - Live on a phone call/in-person right after the interview, after the interview via email or via phone? What is the most ideal? Design Gurus said email is the best mode.
2. What do you do if they explicitly ask you what your salary # amount is? - They actually asked via email (hiring manager at Meta) before my phone screen what companies I was interviewing at (to name them). Is there a script to be able to not disclose this?

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.

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?

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?

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

I'm wondering what does it takes to go from an average senior software engineer to a top senior engineer making more than 500k. Any recommendations on a step by step guide that I can leverage to reach my goal.

Thanks

About Company: growing mid-size startup, great tech culture, talented people to work with, pays well

Promoted in recent appraisal cycle (2 levels above entry level, similar to L6 at Amazon) but the increment is not attractive compared to what is normally paid at that level (within company). Performance review was great but manager does not have much say in deciding increment percentage. I do see learning opportunities here in future but demotivated by this bias.

How do I renegotiate salary? How to have this discussion with skip manager?

Hey folks,

I'm currently facing a tough decision - whether to ask for a raise at my current company. I am unsure if it's the right time to do so or not. Here's a little context to help you understand my situation

My timeline in the company:

• In 2023
  • I joined the company as a Sr SWE II (L4)
  • I joined the company nine months ago on August 23'
  • I made it to the second review cycle of the year (mid-October), and I got a "Consistently meeting expectations." My manager then said that he was very impressed that I managed to get so much done in that short time and that he could see strong signs of a Staff Engineer (L5) in me.
  • I shipped the most important project in Q4, 2023, on time. I even ended up as the technical lead of that project (the Staff engineer in that project got pip-ed, but that's another story)
• In 2024:
  • I mentored a Sr SWE I (L3) on her first project as a lead.
  • I'm the lead of the web working group
  • I'm interviewing candidates almost on a weekly basis
  • I'm one of the owners of the Design System initiative
  • I just got a "Consistently exceeding expectations" in our current review cycle. I've been praised for how easy it is to work with me, my technical quality, my communication skills, and my thoughtful PR reviews. And that I should keep working on my influence across the organization.

How things are right now:

• My previous manager quit to join another startup, and I got an interim manager (we're hiring another manager for my team)
• I ended up talking about salary adjustments with my previous manager the other day (there, I didn't ask for a raise; it was just a casual conversation). He told me that the company does a compensation review every January and that I wasn't considered for the one that happened in January 2024 because I didn't join earlier than July 2023.
• The next performance review will happen in mid-Oct 2024.
• I will be leading a new tiger team (6 engs) until the end of Q2.

Questions I have right now:

• Is this the right time to ask for a raise?
• I've never asked for a raise.
• I know for a fact that an L3 has a pretty similar (<5%) salary to me, and I know that another L4 has a >5% salary than me.
• Should I wait until I finish this new project, the next performance review, or my first anniversary?
• We're in the hockey stick growth stage.
• I also really like working here, and the market has been bad lately.

Thanks!

From what I have heard so far, Staff is: The person needs to be technically very sound, guide the folks, find projects, carve solutions, and lead without authority.

Engineering managers on other hand: Would work these folks to approve/disapprove these projects, get resources, manage the people (promotions, growth of team - product as well as people).

From this I derive that managerial role is subset of staff + people management. But I am sure I am missing something, what am I missing? Why do people choose to be staff over manager, expect for passion to stay IC (not manage people)? Also, is there a pay difference?

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?

Every year, there's a mandatory compensation one on one with my manager. I find the session mostly informational and it's not really a bargaining / negotiation process. Usually when the compensation conversation happens, the performance review was set in stone a few months ago. There's limited things a manager can do.

What do you ask during the compensation discussion? The nitty-gritty of compensation of my current company is thoroughly discussed over different forums and there's more information over the Internet than what my manager could officially tell me. Should I just quickly close the comp one on one to save time for both of us?

After finishing my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and and working as a Machine Learning Engineer for ~5 years I'm looking for something new. So far, I've been mostly focused on building software for real time systems, deployments, basic modelling, information retrieval (search) and troubleshooting "legacy" code and systems.

I'm now preparing for a new round of interviewing and I hope to make the jump to a highly paid job, possibly in the US (I'm based in Europe).

After assessing my skills and profile, I noticed that my data engineering skills are really superficial and I'm absolutely not confident in this area. E.g. I know basic SQL, but haven't build a data pipeline or ETL, I don't know hadoop etc.

Now, my question is if it would be wise to do Zach Wilson's  Boot Camp.

What I'd hope to gain from it: data engineering skills, more confidence in this area, and a higher chance of succeeding in (finding) a high paying job.

Do you think it's worth the investment, both in terms of time and money? Or do you think I should direct my focus elsewhere?

I'm at the 2nd round of interviews with an ~80 person company. I did well in the first interview with the hiring manager, hence my getting to the second interview. This one is with the hiring manager's manager, i.e. my would-be skip.

The Calendar invite for the interview has this description:

In this interview, you will be meeting with Jim our VP.  He will talk to you more about the role and answer any questions you may have.  Please be prepared to discuss your salary expectations with Jim during this interview.

How should I handle this discussion? Is this different from handling a recruiter reaching out for a role where it's imperative not to give the first number?

I'm assuming I should:

1. Not give the first number
2. Try to focus on the value I can bring to the company

Anything else?

Thanks!

This whole train of thought started after a coffee chat with a family friend who is an Engineering Manger at FAANG where she told me that she thought I was getting too comfortable and that I needed to start working on harder problems to keep learning.

In my current role (my first and only job since graduating college in May 2022), I work with prospective F500 Banking & Insurance clients to engineer small scale POCs that prove the value of IBM’s technology, and to hopefully convince them to complete the sale. I was originally hired with the title “Data Scientist” but noticed that my customers were largely uninterested in IBM’s Cloud Platform ML offerings and were already using other hyperscalers. Following the release of ChatGPT, client interest in IBM surged and we have had much more business as clients stand up our Generative AI Studio offering (watsonx) vs others (think Vertex AI, Azure ML, Sagemaker). In January 2024, the business updated my title to AI Engineer to reflect this change, and I work almost completely on LLM related deals now, and almost never with “classical” ML. The primary technologies I am responsible for are: Generative AI Studio, Data Lakehouse (including vector DBs), Data & AI Governance & AI Virtual Assistants (chatbots).

I would say that my role consists of 50% Business Development and collaborating with sales & account teams to develop and progress sales opportunities and 50% hands on the keyboard engineering. None of the POCs we develop are architected with deployment in mind, as IBM also has a consulting business that they promote for that. Ideally the client is billing consulting hours, and my team costs nothing so we should build as fast as possible.

For some context, in college I was largely unsure what I wanted to do afterwards, and joined IBM quite literally because I was a senior who was about to graduate with no job, and I knew someone who worked at IBM sales that offered to help me. That was the first time I ever thought I might go into tech. I went to an Ivy League school where I earned a BA with a joint major in a Social Science + Statistics. The stats I learned were much more applied than theoretical, and despite having the degree, I would say that I lack the necessary mathematical foundation that one would expect of an MLE or Data Scientist, including key topics like Linear Algebra, Stochastic Processes & Discrete Math etc. I did take one intro ML + NLP class, but it was extremely general and not mathematical (although it thankfully helped me fake my knowledge to pass my IBM interview). I also didn’t take any CS courses except one intro Java class.

I know what my classmates at FAANG earn, and their entry level base salaries are at least 50-60k higher than mine. I also do not have any equity in my compensation package, which I know will make the real difference in the long term. IBM is making a concerted effort to reduce our workforce size. Despite being a high performer with consistently good feedback from my manager & colleagues, I don’t think that I will earn that first promotion soon to close that salary gap between IBM & FAANG. Luckily, I don’t see myself getting laid off soon either, so there is no urgency to make decisions.

This company definitely gave me a shot when others probably would not have given my background and Data Science skills at the time. I feel like I have spent the last two years faithfully giving them as much as I can and also learning a lot for myself along the way, but now is the appropriate time to start thinking about where I really want to go in the future.

I feel like the Data Scientist position I was originally hired for required a certain level of mathematical foundation that I had, but that building with pre-trained models definitely does not require. I had skills that were relatively harder to develop and somewhat in value, but now prompt engineering can be taught in almost a day, and one can quickly learn the adjacent tech stack to build and deploy with LLMs without much math. I thus feel anxious about tying my future to this, as my market value would naturally be a function of how hard the skills I have are to acquire. The AI Engineer role requires more of a Software Engineering background to really integrate the LLMs into apps than a math background. I could also keep focusing on learning more math and get into the model training & research side, which is an option I am considering too.

Despite landing here by accident, I learned that I really like big tech, and I think I actually want to end up in a Sales role as well. I am told by my manager that clients give positive feedback about working with me, but I observe that the best sellers who earn the most money in IBM are the ones with deep technical expertise AND who also have the soft skills to become trusted by the clients. These people often worked on product teams or in highly technical roles before finishing in Sales, which is what I think I should do too, as my knowledge base is too broad to really become a technical expert, and the POCs I build are too short to have any knowledge of how to actually deploy these technologies into production.

I would thus like to end up at a FAANG company and make more money, and probably work on an AI product team either as a SWE/Data Scientist or potentially even as an AI researcher (though I’m not interested in a PhD, which I know is important). My question for you all is what would be the best path for me to get there? Should I focus on studying more math and to try for a Data Science/MLE role, or should I try to focus on learning Software Engineering & patching up my math with supplementary self-paced courses.

My initial hunch is go back to school for a 1 year Masters in CS, and take a few math courses beforehand & maybe some more math based deep learning or transformers focused courses while there. This would ideally make me suitable for SWE or DS/MLE/AI Engineer roles, and expand my chances of success. Most American schools require CS bachelor’s degrees and their applications have closed, but this masters program in the UK at Imperial seems open. Does this program look like useful material for someone in my position to learn ()?

I feel like I have half the math and half the programming experience to succeed, but am not knowledgeable enough at either to really do as much damage as I know I am capable of. I would be keen to hear from some of you more experienced veterans out there how you think I should proceed. I have been living at home with my parents and saving money, so I could pay for the masters and assuming I make it into FAANG the extra salary would mean the degree pays for itself in 1.5-2 years. I could go on educational leave and my job at IBM will likely be there for me should I fail to get recruited somewhere else (IBM recently stopped paying for masters degrees unfortunately). I also know that there is opportunity cost of not earning for 10 months while at school.

Given my context and situation, the main questions I want help thinking about are:

• Given the way the industry is moving and my experience, which kinds of roles should I aim for?
• Should I try to earn the masters, or should I try and self-study either math or software engineering while at IBM and recruiting slowly
• If I go the school route, would I have enough time to be able to pass an interview in Fall 2024 when I start (since I would need to recruit right away) if I started preparing now, or should I wait until the next application cycle and start in Spring/Fall 2025.

I know this was long, thank you so much for reading, and thank you in advance for your help. Hindsight is 2020, but I am young and I don’t fault myself for not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up. I know with hard work and patience that I will get there.

With each pay increase by getting a new job or levelling up there is a hugely common tendency to increase your lifestyle as a result of this.

What are some methods to prevent this from happening?