Microsoft SDE Offer Negotiation

Aug 30, 2021 15 Comments

Hello,

I received SDE offer from Microsoft, have 2.5 years of Software Engineering experience and Masters in Computer Science.

The recruiter is saying L60 (SDE-1) for the position and is not moving to L61 (SDE-2).

Location: Redmond, WA
Base: 125k
Sign-on bonus: 25k for 2 years (12.5 k each year for first 2 years)
Stocks: 100k for 4 years (25k each year)
Relocation: 5k (CA to WA)
Perf. bonus: 10%

I joined Bay Area startup 15 days back (MS currently has old copy of my resume, and don't know about this startup), and their compensation is:

Location: Mountain View, CA
Base: 140k
Perf. bonus - 20% of base pay each year (~30k each year) - achievable.
Stock Options - 250000 stock options (25% every year - very less valuable as of today)

Questions:

1. I did really well in coding interviews (ran all test cases successfully for all interviews), and design part of interviews as well, is there any way they can make it L61 (SDE-2) ? If not, how long will it take to get promoted to SDE-2 (L61) at Microsoft?

2. Shall I describe the current startup offer (recruiter doesn't know about it, as not mentioned on resume) as competing offer for Microsoft - recruiter was indicating that if I have competing offer, then they can increase compensation?

3. How can I negotiate better salary from it ? Please provide good resources for salary negotiation.

P.S. - I am interested in joining Microsoft (considering on F1 Visa- last attempt left of H1-B, or they will transfer to Canada), but interested in joining as L61 (SDE-2), considering it's been 4 years since completing BS CS.

#software #microsoft #tc #engineering

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