Amazon L4
A friend of mine who is a SDE got a L4 offer from Seattle Amazon with 2.5 YOE from a close to tier-1 company. Base 127k Signing 40k (first year) 32K(second year) RSU 44 shares (5/15/40/40) Relocation 7k Good offer?
Base is high so it seems good to me
My friend got a slight higher offer with less YOE from non FANG company for Seattle in an AWS team. I think it’s still top of band for sde I. Though you can try negotiating more if you have competing offer. My friend did.
He had presented two other offers to Amazon prior to Amazon's written offer. Tactically, how to handle/is there room for negotiation?
I really depends on the recruiter working with your friend. Some recruiters can be asses. My friend’s negotiation wasn’t really even negotiation. The recruiter just moved numbers around. He had a choice between more cash or more stocks. His recruiter won’t budge when he asked for more cash or stock after his first offer revision. I joined about two months back. The recruiter I worked with was super nice. Didn’t even need to have any tactics for negotiating. I straight up told her I’m considering another offer but was super interested in the team I was matched to. Didn’t have to tell her details of my other offer. She called me back 4 hours later with a bump for my base, sign on, and RSU. Though, I’m in the Bay Area and the demand is a lot higher here. My team is also trying to hire A LOT of people, so that could also be why they’re willing to bump my offer by a lot to get me to join. My YOE was 1.5.
Pretty solid for SDE i
Offer in Seattle?
Yes in Seattle? Any difference?
That’s a SDE1 offer
You apply for sde1 positions you get offers for sde1 positions
Slightly higher than my TC (couple g's) and I was a TT L4 this year.
That's top of the band for sde1, if your friend wants to negotiate, just reinterview for sde2
What everybody else is telling you is correct: you can't really go any higher as an SDE1. That's about 10k short of the bottom of the SDE2 band, in fact (and there is no overlap). The only thing you can negotiate on here is the structure of the offer (e.g. base vs. RSUs), but it will all add up to the same number regardless.
Thanks for the response. How long would on take to get raised from L4 to L5? I mean if you are already on the top band of L4, does that mean you are super closed to L5?
Your comp has nothing to do with how fast you get promoted. You should just perform at the L5 level earlier and that'd speed things up
That's top of band for SDE1