LC & GTFO and TC or GTFO are probably the most uttered words on this platform. Whether you want to GTFO because of a bad team/manager/company or you just want to explore new opportunities, change of scene etc, TC (Total Compensation) is a big factor in making that decision. In this post I will explain how to best negotiate for your next job search. Before you start any kind of negotiation or even start looking for jobs, you will have to do a lot of homework to understand your value from market's as well as your own perspective. levels.fyi is a great place to do some of these research to get an idea about market's perspective on the value of someone similar to your expertise. Let's say from levels.fyi you find that 90th percentile of TC for your expertise and experience is around 400K, 95th percentile at 500K and 99th percentile is at 600K. With that data in mind, take your current salary in to consideration and at what TC will you be happy and anything more than you will be extra happy. If for example if you current TC is 300K, if you are looking for a 40% then your minimum TC (MTC) of the new offer should be at least 420K. So that's the minimum number below which you will not accept an offer. Making up your mind on this helps a lot in negotiation. Next up, assuming you are growth oriented individual you should research your ideal level in the new Job. If you current level at amazon is L5, think about how long you have been an L5 and when do you see yourself becoming L6 at Amazon. By making a change, can you achieve moving to a level equivalent to the next level at your current company? This helps a lot in your overall career progression. Say for example, you have been an L5 for 2 years and avg promo time is 3 years, but if you jump to say E5/L5 at google which overlaps with Amazon L6, then you have essentially given yourself a career growth bump by an year. So use levels.fyi and research what level you want to be at and think about the next 2-5 years of your career. Anything more than has too many variables, you are better off re-evaluation your career growth every 2 years. Don’t get confused by role and level. A lot of companies will have multiple level for the same role. A good example is Microsoft, they have 3 levels for principal engineer role (65,66,67). There’s big pay difference between them so be extra careful with these. With remote work becoming a trend now, this is another variable to think about in your negotiation. I am not going to include this here but just decide if you are willing to relocate or not before you start the interviews. Now that you know what is your ideal level and the min. TC (MTC), you are armed and loaded for your negotiations. Remember a lot of folks here think negotiation is the last step of the job search process but IMHO its an ongoing process which starts right from your first call with the recruiter. Most recruiters will try to gather information around your expectation on the first call to which you should always say reverse the question to the recruiter. If the recruiter asks, what are your expectations on salary. You ask them in return, well you know my expertise and experience I bring, based on that what do you think will be a good range that your company pays? Now you have the upper hand and get an idea about the potential TC you can expect. if this number provided is like 50% of the MTC you set for yourself, just be open and dont waste your as well as their time (unless you want to practice interviews). Though majority of TC negotiations happens at the end of the interview process, its crucial to not setup yourself for being lowballed later. On the other hand, there's a more important negotiation that needs to happen before interviews, that's your level negotiation. This is as critical as TC negotiation, as you want to keep growing in your career. There's also the downside of overshooting for a level. If you even end up getting that level, there is a good chance you might not succeed at that level because you lack the experience for it (just playing devil's advocate here). So level negotiation is super important. A lot of recruiters will reach out for lower levels and its important to make it crystal clear that you want to interview for a particular level. When they setup the interview loop make sure its setup for the level you want. They can always down level but most of the companies out there will not uplevel you. So stand your ground here on the level. Very very important. You had a stellar interview, recruiter gives you the good news and asks you about your expectation. Now there are two tactics you can play here. 1. Ask the recruiter to come up with a number based on your interview performance and the level and market value. They will most likely come back with a reasonable TC. Now if that number is above your MTC, then you are in the perfect situation, but dont accept it yet. Remember there's ALWAYS more room to negotiation on the first number the recruiter provides. Also use your research to see where this number fits in levels.fyi data. if its below p90, then ask for p90. 2. Recruiter twists their words and try to find the minimum TC number, below which you will not consider the offer. If you don't play your next move properly, you will be in a check mate position soon. Don't dodge that bullet and don't give the MTC, because if you do they are going to come back with an offer that's just over or equal to your MTC. Now you have lost your upper-hand on negotiation and recruiter knows you will be happy with this number. A better way to play this out would be to always ask the recruiter to come up with an offer and then negotiate. Say in this scenario, recruiter came back with a number below your MTC, then be open and tell them that you are not happy with the offer. Now they will want to know your expectation to avoid back and forth. Use the data from levels.fyi and your MTC number to provide the expectation. For example, if your MTC is 420K and levels.fyi shows that the company's p90 for similar position is around 400 and p95 is 500K, shoot for 500K. You know for a fact that the recruiter will meet you in the middle and they might come back with something like 430-450K. Best case scenario they come back with 475-500K. Worst case they come back with a number lower than your MTC, then you should stand your ground, because you had made up your mind that anything below MTC is not worth the effort of changing employer. Counter Offers: Having more than one offer helps because the recruiter knows you are a hot commodity and they have to move fast. So definitely get a counter offer even if you know you will never join that company. Having said that, you can totally negotiation without a counter offer as long as you are currently employed. Deciding your value and MTC helps a lot here. If you don't have a counter offer, tell the recruiter this. "I can go get another offer if needed but I am not chasing TC. I know what i want to do next and this job lines up very well with that. Having said that, I also really like my current job and the problems i m solving here and given that my current TC is really good, I will not consider taking up the job without the right incentive" You also have the option to get a D&S from your current employer and bring that as the counter offer. Good luck to everyone out there. Hope this helps a few folks out there. As always share your negotiation tips and tricks in the comments section. Happy Friday!
Please add TLDR at the top of this post. And add TC and YOE at the end of this post
Wow, this is so golden! Thank you so much for sharing the useful insight!!
If the recruiter asks salary expectations. Would you suggest anchoring high first as oppose to asking recruiter to provide the initial offer?
How do you know what’s high? You also don’t want to sound just money oriented.
You mentioned that it's best to make it clear what level you want to be interviewed as at the beginning of the process. If you haven't done so at the beginning of the stage, is there still room to negotiate up the level after the interview if you've done a good job interviewing? I think at this point, you'd typically have more leverage since you've demonstrated that you have the experience and skill sets the team is looking for, and they would really want to bring you onboard. In this case, would it be more advantageous to talk about level after the interview instead? Interested in hearing your perspective. Thanks.
Same question here. Any answer?
I had initially written this post for Amazon only. But talking to one of the blinder who got lowballed in level, made me realize this can help larger group. So Amazon folks, sorry if you came across this twice.
Fantastic post. Thank you for sharing this