Compensation Q&A and Videos

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 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.

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?

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’ve recently been applying to various jobs, just in case of an unexpected layoff (golden parachute). Lately, I’ve been motivated to upskill as a developer. I’ve now reached the two-year mark at my company. After the reorg, I have a new manager, team, and director, and I really like this team. My performance over the past six months has been better than it was with my old team. Recently, Google reached out to me for an interview, but I haven’t really studied data structures and algorithms (DSA) due to work. My performance hasn’t been great, and now I also have a phone interview with Meta.

On the plus side, my company's stock has surged, and we’ve received bonuses, raises, and promotions. In my last 1-on-1 meeting with my manager, he told me I should be more independent and that my performance is great (hinting at a promotion)—fingers crossed. My family and friends are encouraging me to interview with both Meta and Google, but I don’t really want to leave my current company.

Recently got promoted from SDE1 to SDE2. I was already in the lower range of the SDE1 salary, and was hoping the promotion will change this. However I only got a 10% raise, putting me on a much lower range in comparison with salaries of other SDE2s in the company. I didn't really get a chance to negotiate promotion here and not sure what would've been the best way to go about it.

Is the best move for me to just switch companies? Should I stay in the role longer so that I can interview for SDE2 positions with more YOE? Is it worth to bring up data about co-worker salaries and trying to negotiate a salary increase using that?

Last 2018, I started as a mid level software engineer at my previous company. After one year, I got a chance to lead a team of 6 devs and 3 testers.

So overall, I was leading 9 head counts. The project is a rearchitect and migration to a new implementation that requires a high skill as it requires familiarity of three programming languages, namely, Go Lang, Java and NodeJS. The team members were mostly new to the technology. For my FrontEnd members, they were experienced on ReactJS but the client is using PolymerJS. For my Backend members, they are skilled at Java. None of us knew Go and NodeJS prior to that. However, we are required to learn those because Java and NodeJS are their existing implementation.

Fast forward, the project was stellar and my knowledge went exponentially compared to when I was a mid level. After that, Project Managers love me and I went on full throttle after they give me three projects at the same time. Aside from that I have organizational business contribution:

• Mentored junior, mid-level and senior level
• Taking technical interviews on candidate screening for AWS, Java, Go and NodeJS
• Project estimate for project bidding
• Project Managers asked me to work part time on C# & C++ projects (this one is hell, i cannot explain why)

So the timeline was:

2018 - Mid level

2019 - Senior level

2022 - Tech Lead

2023 - (Present)  Solutions Architect

Given on the scenario above. I would ask the community, how can I gauge my current salary to the market and make sure I am paid well for my skillset? Because I am limited based on the market value in the country I live. And I’m looking at US and AU right now and the market is paying there like crazy. For a solutions architect, it’s like 200K USD (annual) comp for US and 143K AUD (annual) for Australia. Do you think I can find a remote company that pays well based on their market if I stay in my country? Or do you suggest to look for a company that offers a relocation?

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?

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'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?

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!