Zillow offer evaluation.
I have received the initial offer from Zillow with below numbers: Base: 150k Equity: 140k/4 yr Signing Bonus: 35K I have onsite interview coming up with Uber and Amazon and phone interview with Google. Is this offer competitive for Seattle? Is there room to negotiate on base/equity/signing? Recruiter told me I can choose between option and RSU or mix? What’s the good combination? I have ~3 years of experience after graduate school. I have given 1 week deadline to respond to the offer. Thank you
Base is in a range of average to low, equity amount is debatable if it is stock options, in that case it is not that worth unless you want to stick around for 5-6 years. Compare to that, equity in FANG will be solid.
How much more equity/base I can go fo? This is my first time negotiating offer.
Find RSU conversion, stock options are not effective and hard to quantify if your plan changes in very near future. Bonus is average, best bet is to clear other stuff in pipeline and compare. If other things don’t work out then this offer will not sound that bad.
Base is okay for Seattle. Depending on the RSUs this is a decent offer. Not fantastic. But definitely acceptable. Sign on is good, too.
No target bonus?
There is merit increase of 3%. The offer does not mention anything about target bonus.
Zillow has stock refreshes in lieu of target cash bonuses. Some companies have both, though. Unfortunately, Zillow isn’t one of them.
SDE 1 or 2?
The mix you can choose is between RSUs and options, in 25% increments. So you can receive 25/75 RSUs/options or 50/50 etc. You'll get 3x options for every RSU. With the extra amount, break even is when stock price rises 50% from your strike price. Anything more means options come out ahead, but they have different tax implications and you need the cash to purchase them (or have the broker sell some to cover the cost, which limits your upside a bit if you wanted to hold the stock longer). So having some RSUs to sell to buy the options may make sense for you. But again you have to bet on stock price rising at least 50% during the time you are with the company and the ability to exercise the options.
The options are NQSOs, though. So the tax implications should be the same as RSUs. It’s ISOs that are subject to AMT, etc.
I am planning for going 25/75, so at least my grants won’t be worthless if the stock price becomes flat too.
In my experience, Zillow doesn’t really compete with non-public company offers. Places like Uber will offer insane RSUs and Zillow probably won’t match. But they will with base regardless of company and stock for public companies. So if you have time, I’d get other offers to see if you can push it up.
Thank you. I am given 1 week deadline to accept the offer and I would be having my Uber onsite interview next week. When I talked with recruiter she told me they don’t want to put other candidates waiting, so they want my response by end of coming Tuesday. Is this norm on Zillow? Can I asked to extend the time for accepting the offer?
I usually say I won’t be ready to make a decision at that point. Normally I tell all companies well in advance: “I will be making my decision on date x at EOD, so I’ll need an answer by then and I unfortunately won’t be able to consider anything after that point.” If you feel you can elaborate further saying it gives you time to discuss with family and to move things along quickly enough, etc. This really helps with negotiations as all of the offers come around the same time, and if you ghost companies for a few days preceding, a lot of them will up their offers last minute without you even needing to negotiate. I’ve had some places up base salary $20-30k last minute without even asking, just by doing this. I think in this case, you could try to do the same with Zillow? As long as you’re courteous, they won’t rescind. I think they will wiggle a little for you.
@GoodDon: hope it worked out well for you! I’ve on-site coming up; care to share about the interview? Specially the system design rounds? Thanks!
@GoodDon can you share about interview process?
Once you get the offer, you should ask what the conversion rate between options and RSUs is. 1 RSU for 3 options is standardish. Because Zillow is public, you don’t get a break on the strike price like you do with a startup, so with options you’re banking hard on future stock price appreciation. Or Zillow could be like Cisco - flat for years - and your options will be worthless. I’d take the RSUs because I am risk averse and they are guaranteed to be worth at least something.
Thanks, for the info. That’s useful.
Its 1 RSU for 3 options