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Your stock options should have some monetary value based on the company’s latest funding round. But that value probably rises during an IPO so maybe apply some multiplier to it.
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Oct 12, 2021 05:37
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Just dealt with the worst recruiter I think I've even spoken with. Some young lad by the sound of it, a proper throbber. He asked for my current salary and could not grasp the very concept of "I'm not saying" and it ended with me flatly saying "no, stop asking". He told me that I had to say how much I wanted for the position right this second but could provide no details about the role other than its location and the fact there are other sites I would be expected to attend but couldn't say where they are. I mean what the actual gently caress - I told him he is only after the cheapest person possible and don't waste my loving time again. Seriously all recruiters can go die in a fire! drat bottom feeders.
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Oct 12, 2021 11:34
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Drink and Fight posted:Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but: Just ask for how much money you want/think you're worth and add 10-15% (this is basically people's standard response here). Those stock options currently don't factor into your take-home pay at all, aside from the startup probably using them to justify paying you less than they should. Ask for how much money you want to take home. Unless this is one of those situations where your company is literally about go IPO within months and it's a huge deal, odds are that your options are going to end up being worth $0 (or at best a one-time small bonus of a couple thousand dollars that you shouldn't count as part of your salary).
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Oct 12, 2021 14:23
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m0therfux0r posted:Just ask for how much money you want/think you're worth and add 10-15% (this is basically people's standard response here). Those stock options currently don't factor into your take-home pay at all, aside from the startup probably using them to justify paying you less than they should. Ask for how much money you want to take home. Unless this is one of those situations where your company is literally about go IPO within months and it's a huge deal, odds are that your options are going to end up being worth $0 (or at best a one-time small bonus of a couple thousand dollars that you shouldn't count as part of your salary). I realize that stock options are literally worth $0 but quote:this is one of those situations where your company is literally about go IPO within months and it's a huge deal is actually the case, which is why I'm asking this question. I don't realistically know what the estimated IPO value could be because I'm missing a lot of information like shares outstanding for example, but if anyone has any ideas on how I could come up with a number for the purposes of this negotiation that would be great. I'm not in a situation where I'd end up a millionaire but there could potentially be tens of thousands on the table and I just don't know how to evaluate that, I've never been in this position before. Alternatively if anyone knows what information I should look for to get a realistic estimate on IPO value that would be great too.
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Oct 12, 2021 16:34
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I've heard: Make a realistic guess at what your stock options are worth (what the initial public offering would be and multiply it by the chance it'll actually happen). Then spread that money out over 5 years or so, so basically add 20% of that above number to your salary (minus any stock that's vesting from new company in that timeframe). That really works better when you're comparing a larger amount of some future options vs a smaller but more dependable vesting. If it's say 40k in options, and probably a 80% chance of actually happening then I'd say getting an extra 6-7k a year would probably be valid.
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Oct 12, 2021 17:05
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Thanks, that's helpful.
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Oct 12, 2021 17:30
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I'm starting to put out feelers in the IT world, so I imagine I will be having several conversations with external recruiters soon over LinkedIn, phone, etc. Few questions -- would the thread recommend asking the recruiter if they are able to share the compensation range for their job posting, as basically the very first question? Or should I not bring that up until we are further in the process? Does the answer differ if they are an internal vs. external recruiter?
Inner Light fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 02:17
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Inner Light posted:I'm starting to put out feelers in the IT world, so I imagine I will be having several conversations with external recruiters soon over LinkedIn, phone, etc. Few questions -- would the thread recommend asking the recruiter if they are able to share the compensation range for their job posting, as basically the very first question? Or should I not bring that up until we are further in the process? Does the answer differ if they are an internal vs. external recruiter? Only if you're concerned that, after researching the company, they aren't going to pay enough for you to accept the offer. Alternatively if you *do* know what they're likely to offer and you want to be sure you anchor high. Otherwise keep your trap shut
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Oct 13, 2021 02:41
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Yeah if you're unsure of the company give them a gently caress off number to make sure you're not wasting your time. If it's a company you think you might want to work for, you want to get as far in the process as possible before discussing salary. That makes it more painful for them to say no to a counter offer, as you're their first choice. Or their second after the first declines, which makes them increasingly desperate. So like the above poster said, if you know you're above market you can anchor high, but if you're not sure of your negotiation skills then don't blink or say a number and let them put their cards on the table first. As far as external vs internal, I agree with the general thread sentiment that most recruiters are trash. The only difference I'd say is if the person is internal then don't be a dick for no reason, but external you're likely to be dealing with a shitlord and when they cross a line feel free to tell them to gently caress off. Parallelwoody fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 04:52
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Drink and Fight posted:I realize that stock options are literally worth $0 but My approach to this would be a bit different than some of the other advice you've gotten: 1) Ask for a signing bonus that covers you exercising your existing options, along with the tax implications. (If this is impractical because cost to exercise is too high, ask for a reasonable portion of it). This covers some/all of your option upside aside from incremental vesting from current date to IPO and is a one time cost for the new company, so it's usually possible. 2) I'd ask for an extra 20% comp to cover the loss of the upside on top of whatever salary increase you were already thinking. Given it's a family office that could be a bonus, some kind of rev share, etc etc.
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Oct 13, 2021 15:16
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I'm applying to an interesting software engineering job at Stanford and their application form forces you to select a salary expectation between $30k and $300k. I've reached out directly to the hiring manager who is an acquaintance and executive director of the program and he's asked me to apply through the intake. What should I select? Is it bad form to ask for salary range for the position at this time?
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Oct 14, 2021 01:47
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300k
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Oct 14, 2021 02:15
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I'd probably do the minimum. It shouldn't auto boot you and you can very quickly correct their expectation that you'd accept a hilariously low salary in the first conversation, cause they will very likely ask.
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Oct 14, 2021 02:45
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Inner Light posted:I'm starting to put out feelers in the IT world, so I imagine I will be having several conversations with external recruiters soon over LinkedIn, phone, etc. Few questions -- would the thread recommend asking the recruiter if they are able to share the compensation range for their job posting, as basically the very first question? Or should I not bring that up until we are further in the process? Does the answer differ if they are an internal vs. external recruiter? I'm in software and have worked with internal and external recruiters on job searches. In general, I think this is an OK question to ask if you're mostly looking to filter out companies who pay badly. The problem comes if the recruiter says "100k to 130k" and you say "OK let's keep talking" you've now capped yourself at $130k. But this is worth while if your main concern is that half the recruiters are going to say "$40k max" and you don't want to wait until the very end of the interview process to discover this. If it's an external recruiter who's going to try to match you with many possible jobs using their professional network, you can ask them "how much can you get me and what do I have to do to get it?" (For example, a recruiter I worked with once said he could get me up to $140k at a couple companies, but that a third company which liked people to work 60h weeks would pay up to $160k.) A good recruiter will have placed similar people at the same or similar companies and be willing to tell you exactly what they got and let you contact the person they placed. External recruiters do not work for you but they also don't work for the company so they can be good to work with.
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Oct 14, 2021 03:56
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So after around 2 months of interviewing, I got an offer from Google today (LA-based) and it's a bit less than I was expecting. I work in a non-engineering tech role (product-oriented) and the new gig has me on the high end of a L5. Base salary is a meager bump from what I make currently at another tech company and their equity offer is split over 4 years and also not as high as I've heard from past colleagues who went to Google. I also received an additional equity grant with my current place last year and I'd be sacrificing about $40k of unvested RSU's/ATM's based on the current market price. I've heard they don't negotiate much on base salary unless you have a strong competing offer from another FAANG, but that component worries me less than equity. Does anyone have any tips for negotiating on the RSU portion? It's against CA law for them to ask about my current salary but it's kind of hard for me to frame this while letting them know that their current offer is basically the same as what I'm making now. Thanks in advance for any advice!
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Oct 14, 2021 19:28
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The law prevents them from asking you current salary, it doesn't prohibit you from disclosing it. If it useful to use your current compensation as a data point, use it.
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Oct 14, 2021 20:30
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Are you saying that total comp (salary + rsu per year + bonus) is 40k lower at Google? If so, just tell them that and that you'd need $X to leave.
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Oct 15, 2021 04:30
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asur posted:Are you saying that total comp (salary + rsu per year + bonus) is 40k lower at Google? If so, just tell them that and that you'd need $X to leave. Thanks! I ran some numbers and over the next year, factoring in my current equity grant vs Y1 at Google, I'd be losing about 10k total on the equity side based on current valuation. Base salary would also be lower by several thousand. I'm planning to go back to them by saying it's lower on both salary and equity (without providing the actual number) and give them a baseline total comp number that would make sense for me to leave.
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Oct 15, 2021 15:22
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UncleGuito posted:Thanks! I ran some numbers and over the next year, factoring in my current equity grant vs Y1 at Google, I'd be losing about 10k total on the equity side based on current valuation. Base salary would also be lower by several thousand. Solid plan. Ask for the moon, they can afford it.
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Oct 15, 2021 15:26
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I didn't ask about it in here, but I wanted to drop a success story. My brother is in a field with notoriously poor pay (zookeeping), and he recently applied for a relatively senior keeper position at a new zoo. Since it's a city government job, we knew the range (38k-55k) and what the person he's replacing was making (42k). I gave him a lot of advice that I learned from lurking this thread forever, and he just accepted an offer for 52k. Still abysmal, considering what the job entails, but a huge bump from the 30k or so he was making previously. Thanks for all the good advice!
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Oct 16, 2021 22:32
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I was told I am one of two finalists for a position, and have had 3 interviews with them total. The last one was about a week and a half ago and I haven't had much contact other than answering some basic questions about pto/401k etc. Safe to think I'm the second choice here and they are seeing if the other person accepts the offer? I'm not sure if it's appropriate to just bluntly ask if they are waiting on their first choice to accept or not. I'm not in any real hurry but I also don't want the process to drag out either. Any advice on dropping the standard "I have another offer I'm evaluating and need an answer soon" vs just letting it play out and maybe having more leverage if the first choice rejects? I suppose they aren't mutually exclusive though.
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Oct 18, 2021 20:47
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Parallelwoody posted:I was told I am one of two finalists for a position, and have had 3 interviews with them total. The last one was about a week and a half ago and I haven't had much contact other than answering some basic questions about pto/401k etc. Safe to think I'm the second choice here and they are seeing if the other person accepts the offer? I'm not sure if it's appropriate to just bluntly ask if they are waiting on their first choice to accept or not. I'm not in any real hurry but I also don't want the process to drag out either. Any advice on dropping the standard "I have another offer I'm evaluating and need an answer soon" vs just letting it play out and maybe having more leverage if the first choice rejects? I suppose they aren't mutually exclusive though. Is it a big company? They might be waiting for approvals and may be waiting on PTO. ~7 business days isn't super long but if it goes any longer I'd assume you're choice 2. Dropping a "I am waiting on another offer but would really like to know this offer before moving forward" is kind of a blanket useful thing right now.
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Oct 18, 2021 20:59
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It's happening friends, I have 2 offers I am very excited. Its way more stressful thinking about the offer yourself. I feel like I would be able to answer this easily if it were someone else. So here it goes: Company A: 140k T/C. 130k base + 9k bonus (7%) w/ 5k sign on. Bank based in NC. Cool team & manager. WLB seems good too. Company B: 140k T/C 140k base w/ 3000 stock options... so probably worth nothing? 10 y/o "startup" based in Jersey City. The team seemed cool but I am really not interested in working for a startup. Company X: $85 hr contract converting to ~150k in 5-6 months. I turned them down because the place sounded awful from glassdoor/indeed etc and I don't want a contract role, but I am including this as a data point. I told Company B that I had an offer from Company A but not the specifics. It just so happens that they offered pretty much the same thing as their "best offer". Company A does not know about Company B (yet). How do I put them against each other when the offers are so similar? Obviously the higher base is nice but Company A has better 401k & benefits. Company A is on levels.fyi for the same level role accepted in September for $161k. The "sign now" number in my head was $165k. Should I just give them my "sign now" number? Or do I share the details of the other offer? I would much rather work for Company A and would be pretty happy with 150k+. Or is even that too low? Too much to think about and second guessing myself. This will be a 40% raise for me either way, so I am doing well! 3 YOE software engineer in a medium/high COL area and both roles are remote. I really killed both interviews & both teams really liked me. a dingus fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Oct 19, 2021 |
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Oct 19, 2021 23:42
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a dingus posted:It's happening friends, I have 2 offers I am very excited. Its way more stressful thinking about the offer yourself. I feel like I would be able to answer this easily if it were someone else. So here it goes: Just curious and could be relevant for your question, what tech stack are you working with mostly in your current gig / experience? Congrats on the offers.
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Oct 19, 2021 23:47
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Inner Light posted:Just curious and could be relevant for your question, what tech stack are you working with mostly in your current gig / experience? Congrats on the offers. Thank you! Tech stack is all Python & azure. I have been building & maintaining an analytics framework for a team of data scientists.
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Oct 19, 2021 23:57
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a dingus posted:It's happening friends, I have 2 offers I am very excited. Its way more stressful thinking about the offer yourself. I feel like I would be able to answer this easily if it were someone else. So here it goes:
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Oct 20, 2021 00:01
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fourwood posted:IMO there’s no need to give the numbers of the other offer to the competitor, it probably anchors you too low. You could essentially just say e.g. “I wanted to let you know I do have another offer that is competitive. I’d be happy to sign with you right now though if you could come up to 170k”. This is what I ended up doing. Now I'm just waiting on the response. Thanks!
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Oct 20, 2021 16:10
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It's an amazing time to be in tech right now. 10 years ago my old org was hiring Senior Software Engineers with 10 years experience and Masters degrees at 130K base in Austin. Keep killing it folks.
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Oct 20, 2021 16:14
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Seriously, it's wild out there. Last month I interviewed with 32 companies. I was capping out at ~$200K total comp for most potential offers with startups with worse benefits than my current job. I was failing technical screens at larger companies left and right. I was starting to think I was already at the peak of what I could earn without going on a six-month training session with Cracking the Coding Interview. I was pretty close to giving up and just staying at my current company for another year. But then towards the end I made it past a few more technical screens and landed offers with companies that were willing to compete and they skyrocketed past $300K. I'm really happy that A) I chose now to do a job search and B) I stuck with it until I had an offer that was double my current compensation.
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Oct 20, 2021 16:59
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I screwed up a my first technical interview ever & had my confidence shaken, but then I did a few more and got quite good. Still can't leetcode for poo poo beyond easies but really getting good at interviews is just practice. Ill be really happy if this current search works out but I am already thinking about preparing for fang level figgies next time.
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Oct 20, 2021 17:31
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sim posted:Seriously, it's wild out there. Last month I interviewed with 32 companies. I was capping out at ~$200K total comp for most potential offers with startups with worse benefits than my current job. Indeed it is, and as a hiring manager it is loving crazy difficult right now. Any little misstep and you lose the candidate. Then you get to offer stage and you realize what was solid a few months ago no longer is.
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Oct 20, 2021 19:38
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drat, maybe I have been asking the wrong questions. Whats the lowest effort way to break into software engineering from electrical engineering 🤔
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Oct 21, 2021 00:20
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What's your work environment like in your EE job? I became a SWE after working in manufacturing with alongside some MEs. In my spare time I coded a bunch of lovely python tools and commandeered a handful of computers on the assembly floor to run my stuff. I would load my scripts to run at a scheduled time and then I would remove the monitors & keyboards so that nobody would want to use the computers and interrupt me. That story got me my first dev job and it looks like it's probably getting me my second. Just gotta self start.
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Oct 21, 2021 00:31
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stump collector posted:drat, maybe I have been asking the wrong questions. Whats the lowest effort way to break into software engineering from electrical engineering Read ctci, practice a bit of leetcode, and be able to communicate cogently to product people. Lowest effort is to say you know a programming language and push easy apply on LinkedIn
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Oct 21, 2021 03:55
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skipdogg posted:It's an amazing time to be in tech right now. 10 years ago my old org was hiring Senior Software Engineers with 10 years experience and Masters degrees at 130K base in Austin. With inflation and COL in Austin 10 years ago ... is that such a raw deal? Honestly asking.
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Oct 21, 2021 22:29
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Xguard86 posted:With inflation and COL in Austin 10 years ago ... is that such a raw deal? Honestly asking. Based on an inflation calculator, sounds like that'd be roughly 160k base now, which doesn't sound too far off?
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Oct 21, 2021 23:12
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I accepted an offer! I was able to negotiate my first offer of 140k TC (130k base/7% bonus/5k sign on) to 161k TC (145k base/11% bonus/10k sign on). This is a 60% raise! I followed all of the advice in the thread & some negotiation videos from levels.fyi
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Oct 22, 2021 16:41
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Congrats!
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Oct 22, 2021 16:46
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Hell yes! Get paid. Congratulations 🎉
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Oct 22, 2021 16:53
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a dingus posted:I accepted an offer! I was able to negotiate my first offer of 140k TC (130k base/7% bonus/5k sign on) to 161k TC (145k base/11% bonus/10k sign on). This is a 60% raise! I followed all of the advice in the thread & some negotiation videos from levels.fyi 
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Oct 22, 2021 17:58
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