Got laid off from Coinbase in Jan and was able to secure these 2 offers Uber India - L4 69.38 L 48.8 - base + provident fund 6.75 - performance bonus (avg case) 67K USD Microsoft India - L62 58.21 L 38 - base 3.8 - performance bonus (avg case) 4 + 2 joining bonus (year1, year2) 60K USD My priorities at this moment are (highest first): 1. Ease of transfer to US after 1/1.5 year for personal reasons 2. Better WLB 3. Quality of work Microsoft: 1. Talked to the Group head and the overall view of work looks good and is in a domain that interests me(infrastructure). 2. Didn't get a clear understanding of the core engineering work. 3. HM gave very positive vibes from the initial conversation. 4. Entire team is based in India. 5. Can try for US transfer after 1 year. Uber: 1. Talked to an SDE in the team via some contacts and all the red flags that I found in Uber's HM during team matching call came out to be true(constantly pressurising to deliver quickly to build rapport in front of leadership). 2. Work is decent and in a space that is growing very quickly. Big expansion coming in 6 months for this team. 3. Team is building in India. Only 3 backend engineers at the moment having full ownership of the service. On call requires being awake at 2-3AM coz it’s live only in US. 4. Need atleast 2 years for US transfer (in future it could be dicey as Uber is taking cost cutting measures) Given my priorities, I am drifting towards Microsoft for good wlb, culture and ease of transfer to US as compared to Uber. I am aware that I'm taking a lesser pay and have to work with legacy technologies as compared to Uber. Would appreciate suggestions to help decide one. YOE: 4.5 TC before layoff: 78 L Update: TC after negotiations: Uber 71L, MSFT 67L Joined msft, happy with the work and culture.
Stocks can be bumped up at both places, did your information about layoffs give you any hard time in the interviews or in negotiations? Or did you tell them that you resigned?
I tried but both recruiters are saying no negotiation with compensation team available at the moment. Every offer is carefully being evaluated by the compensation team with multiple approvals. I told them I resigned. Friends who said they were laid off didn’t have any hard time.
Can do better on RSU for both offers, you can push them by asking to match previous TC. For moving to US, i heard that it's straightforward from L62 in Microsoft, similar to L5 in Amazon, no idea about Uber. WLB and risk of layoff is relatively better in Microsoft in general but ymmv. Quality of work would be better in Uber. Btw didn't know that tc was that high for sde-2 in coinbase, is it the new fixed comp for the level or is it because of performance based increase that you got personally ?
In such times, they are not willing to negotiate. And i was expecting this as they have so many candidates in line and few openings. Yep, US transfer and WLB is what I feel will be better in Microsoft. No increase for me in my Coinbase TC. This is what I was given last May.
Is it your offer from MS security org?
Nope
What's the personal reason to move to the US?
Take a hint, don’t snoop. Flagged as “invasion of privacy “
RSU amount is per year or for 4 years?
4 years
Offer is good considering the experience. Sure RSUs can be a bit more, but shouldn't be a deal blocker.
How much time Uber took to make you an offer?
Microsoft is definitely lowballing. I got an l61 offer at similar experience range with 100k stocks and (5+3) bonus. Please note this is second half of 2020, so hiring was just catching up at that point.
They increased 10L after negotiation. So it became decent. It’s still a little lowball compared to 2021/22 but given this market it’s not bad.
Nice, congratulations. How did you negotiate, with competiting offers, or some other strategy?
Did you get a call for MS via referral or did you apply directly to their site? Asking because I thought they have slowed down their hiring recently
Referral