Salary bump at new company with stock appreciation
General advice is to ask for around a 20% bump or so to switch to a new company. If my current TC is inflated due to stock appreciation, is it still reasonable to ask for 20%?
Stock appreciation is not part of TC. You shouldn't reasonably expect an employer hiring you to match appreciated stock, but they might if they want you bad enough. Otherwise, it's up to you if you want to shed the golden handcuffs. You should reasonably expect the hiring company to match the compensation your prior company actually paid (for stock, this is the grant price).
I disagree for the new hire offer. Of course I expect an employer to match the FMV of any stocks I’m leaving on the table.
You can ask, and if they think you're worth it, they may even agree. But it's not reasonable to _expect_ it. Take it to the logical conclusion, say you're an SDE2 who was in the right place at the right time and now has $X million in unvested stock. Not because you're the best SDE2 in the world, you just hit the jackpot joining a startup. If you demand millions for your stock "on the table", they'll go with a candidate that doesn't.
I was at 120k and asked for 160k from another company, which they happily offered. Later I discovered the legit tc should be 180kish😄 so forget about the 20% rule cause it’s not right.
Negotiate a 20% true TC bump, plus a one time cash signing bonus to buy out your inflated RSUs. If they won’t do that, wait until the cliff.
The only time you should be the first to throw out a number is never. Neither current base nor current TC should enter the conversion.
What if recruiter tells you they need to see competing offers to increase TC past the initial offer?
be ready to walk
That's what signing bonus and on-hire stock are for. It will be hard to get them to give you a higher base but a nice signing bonus and a one-time extra stock grant is often doable. I got an extra $50k in signing bonus and an extra $150k in stock by playing that card.
Yes and no. Depend on how inflated