Negotiation Q&A and Videos

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 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've just completed my onsite with a big tech company. The recruiter told me I can expect to hear back by the end of the week. We had a call where she asked me about any other offers I have and timelines. In this dynamic, does having other offers or at least telling the recruiter I have other offers make it more likely I will get an offer? Should I tell the recruiter I have other offers? I told the recruiter that I can wait till the end of the week but am expecting other offers next week.

Should I try and communicate urgency toward getting an offer sooner rather than later?

And to generalize this question, is there anything else I should do while waiting?

Hey there 👋 For context, I quit a toxic job 2 months ago and I'm back in the job market.

I just finished an interview process with a company I really like, I think it checks almost all the boxes:

• Company size (Series C)
• Culture
• I'll join the team that will be on the spotlight for the next 18 months -> My job will have a major impact.
• I would be able to work on React Native if I decide to (I'm a frontend engineer w/ React expertise)
• I think that I can reach staff level in about a year or two there.
• People I interviewed with are superb.
• Fully remote.

I expect to get an offer from them on Monday (I'm writing this on Thursday night). I know that because the recruiter called me today to touch base and to tell me that things went good! The problem with this company is that the salary is more on the lower side...but it's still on the range I have in mind.

The dilema is that I'm just starting to interview with other companies that pay 50% more, but finishing interviewing with them will take me at least two weeks...and the company I'm getting the offer from probably won't hold the offer for that long.

I have a few thoughts / concerns that I'd like you to help me sort out / discuss:

• I'm thinking that it would be wise to optimize for career growth, I probably could get a better job if I manage to do great things in the company I'm getting the offer from. What do you think? The salary is not as high as the other companies, but it's good money. (FWIW, I live in a low-cost-of-living country)
• I was hoping that I could negotiate a better salary with this company if I had other competing offers, but I got nothing, and I wouldn't get any other offer by next week. Do you have any tips about how to negotiate a better offer even when I don't have the leverage of a competing offer? I understand this might not be possible. I feel that I did a really good interview process though, so maybe I could use that as leverage.
• I really like one of the "slow companies", but they've been just dead slow. I interviewed with their CTO and he said that they will kick off things immediately...but that hasn't happened. Should I ping him? I feel that they should be the ones making the next move, but I'm not 100% sold on that idea.
• The other companies are just fine, honestly, their pay is what makes them more attractive.
• Not sure if this is relevant or not, but I'm 36, I wonder if I should spend my 37-38s working for the company that pays less than the others while chasing career growth.
• I have a good runway, so if don't end up with an offer from any of those companies, I'd be just fine for another 8-12 months.
• I live in Latam, so it's hard to get 100k+ offers, it's not like I have a pool of options to choose from.

Thanks for reading! 😁

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!

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'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.

I have been chasing the SDE-3 promotion from last one year. It was denied in the year end review cycle in December.

In this cycle (Jan - June), I have ticked almost all the checkpoints as per the firm's SDE-3 competency matrix and I have a good amount of documentation around it as well which I have submitted to my manager.

I want to let my manager and skip (Director) know that I will leave if I am not promoted in this cycle as I don't think there are any negative data points against me.

Any suggestions about how should I subtly carry out this conversation?

Hi, I got offers from early stage startup, mid stage startup and established companies. I need to know how I should negotiate between these three to get the best offer for myself. The offer is for location based in india

I got a job offer - It's just the 1 offer, so I don't have much leverage. I suggested a specific amount which I thought was the average salary (which is the amount they offered), but I forgot to take into account inflation going on in Netherlands/Europe. I want to negotiate for a higher salary and less working hours (which is negotiable). I have to negotiate it soon so would appreciate any tips ASAP.

What I'm thinking of saying is the following:

I would like to receive xxxx amount because that would make me feel very appreciated and motivate me to work extra hard. I forgot to take into account inflation for the amount I suggested.

"I would like to work 32 hours. This way I can spend more time on my hobbies and start well rested with the work week after a long weekend.

Does this make sense?

Follow-up questions:

• How are my arguments for salary negotiation?
• Is it better to ask for slightly higher so they can counter offer and we can meet in the middle and maybe get lucky and get paid even more?
• Not sure whether working hours negotiation makes sense outside of Europe - Is it common outside of here?
• If I ask for too much will they rescind the offer?

All in all the current offer would be great for my current situation, but for the long term, the salary would be kinda low with inflation going on.

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 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’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!

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?

I felt under-leveled and undervalued in my existing org so I interviewed in a top product company and landed an offer. Once I viewed the master class on Taro. I feel it's more than the compensation it's the team and leadership.

How do I politely deny the matched offer?

I am in the very fortunate position to be choosing among some great offers. My question is how to properly choose between

1. A company with an industry-leading reputation (eg Citadel, Two Sigma, DeepMind)
2. A “lower tier” company with less brand recognition/lower quality bar but is able and willing to outbid company (1) on comp.

If comp were equal going to company (1) would be a no-brainer, but how much of a premium should I place on the brand of a company? Put another way, how can I place a number on things like exit option value, social/engineering prestige and so on.

I was fired from my previous company due to bad performance on the job. What to tell to potential recruiters about my employment status? Will letting them know that I don't have a job make them lose interest in pursuing with me? Will it reduce my ability when it comes to negotiating the salary/benefits later?

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.

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.

Other folks on my team were prioritized for promotion over me, I was promised a comp adjustment in mid-cycle review and promotion at end of year. But this promotion would still not hit the compensation number I told them i'd need to stick around long term.

I Interviewed around, and got an offer above the compensation I was requesting from my current company, at the promoted level.

Seeing as I do enjoy where I work and what I work on, and money was the only issue (me not being valued where I thought I should be), is it worth listening to a counter offer? What should I consider? Should I share the numbers with my current company, or see if they can come up with the numbers to value me fairly?

I've had a lot of friends tell me that they didn't negotiate their offer, so I'm wondering whether it makes sense to negotiate. What are the costs of trying - Is it possible to lose anything if you try to negotiate and fail?