Hey everyone how's it going my name's Mayuko and welcome back to my channel where we talk about tech career and life.
All right everybody, today we're going to talk about whether you should negotiate your salary.
So i know that i haven't really talked about salary or like money compensation things really at all on this channel.
But recently i met someone who is an expert in this!
I met my friend Sarah, who is the lead negotiator at levels.fyi.
She's also a former tech recruiter at Amazon, Facebook, and Google so she knows like salary negotiation stuff really really well.
l had an incredibly enlightening chat with her and so i brought her onto my show Muko's Corner to share her advice.
So today in this video, i'm going to share what she said about whether you should negotiate your salary
whether you're coming in as an intern to a company, you're an early career software engineer or you're
mid-career. So, let's dive in. So let's get the elephant out of the room because we're here to
talk about negotiations specifically, like once you get an offer from them, they (the company) give you the
first packet and you see your first number (your salary) and all of your RSUs and all of that kind of stuff.
I think the biggest burning question that everybody has is: should you negotiate your salary?
Sarah:A hundred percent yes so a lot of companies they have recently restructured their compensation
or even the negotiation process. So typically there's always a range for compensation. And typically
within that range, they break it up into three tiers: so minimum, mid, and then max. For a lot
of the time too for a recruiter, because the range is so large from the minimum to the max
number, typically the range can be anywhere from you know, $20k difference all the way to $100K
to $200k difference. And this is why a lot of the time the recruiter will try to ask
you like "hey what are you looking for in terms of compensation?" so they can gauge where can they
land you within that range. And typically too, even when you show a number they typically
will still try how to start you out either at the minimum number or in between the minimum and
the mid number. Nobody will ever automatically give you the max number. A) it's by just company's
policy B) we have to start everyone out with the same number and we would wait for you to ask:
"i'm not happy with this number, can we do something about this?" That pretty much applies for
any company that's more mature, like Series D funding or higher, as well as public
companies. Now sometimes for startup companies, the range tends to be a little bit smaller
but in terms of base salary you're going to see that number is pretty consistent even
for smaller companies versus like FAANG companies. Mayuko: Now let's break it down into
parts of your career. So there's i think kind of three very distinct periods of your career: one
in which you're trying to get an internship as a college student or otherwise. You're kind of
trying to get your foot into the door into the tech industry and then the other step is kind
of like your first role in tech. Even within that, there's college recruiting so you're
going directly from university into the tech industry, or those who come from bootcamps and
other backgrounds and get their first job. And then there's also the mid-career folks who are also
getting offers for salaries as well. So i guess how would you navigate all of those three different
parts of your career in negotiating your salary? Sarah: Yeah so good question. So for interns, it is a
little bit trickier to negotiate because campus recruiting is very much so different than industry
recruiting. And for campus recruiting typically for an intern, you're gonna get paid hourly and it's
not as flexible in terms of negotiating there. So let's say for example if they start you out with
$80 an hour, you can push for a little bit higher at $85 an hour but the range wouldn't be
like 100k to 200k or anything like that. For a few companies, they will actually offer equity
to the intern as well, so the equity component is something that's more flexible. But for companies
that don't offer equity for internships, it's harder to push the the salary compensation there.
However if you get a returning offer for your next internship with the same company, because you
already have, you know, the relationship with your manager, the team already knows you, there is a track
of record about your performance, that would be the best time for you to renegotiate your hourly rate
when you return to that internship. Now for new grad new grad is a little bit different. So for new grad,
we treat them as an industry recruiting track too, so we pay them similar to
any full-time position where the package would be, you know, they would have base equity,
sign-on bonus, and performance bonus. So the first offer tends to be a little bit tricky and i
feel like a lot of new grads kind of get really nervous about negotiating because they feel like
"man, if i ask for more money A) I might, you know, i'm scared that if i don't perform at this level
they might, you know, i might get fired or if i negotiate for too much i might lose this offer.
I'll tell you right now you're not gonna lose your offer because you negotiate.
So typically like i said, the recruiter always lands you in the minimum between like either
the minimum number or in between the minimum and the mid number. There's still always room
to go, so if you push back a little bit more, giving them the reason why... So that's another thing that
i want to mention here too is, as a recruiter sometimes certain things are out of my control
i'm the middleman and there's a protocol that i have to follow and i can't just give you a number
just because you asked for it. I need some information or reasons behind it. So if you have
any competing offers, you don't have to share the details of the competing offers, but just
knowing that they are there would help the case. And then what are your concerns about this
salary number? For example, if base (salary) is too low or because you're moving and you need additional
sign on bonus to help with the move, for example. So not only that you need to ask for a number
or know the number that you need to ask for, but also be prepared to provide some reasons as well.
Same with mid-level. Someone who, you know, may be going from junior level to a mid-level position,
the negotiation process is going to be pretty similar except for that the new grad the range tends to
be a little bit narrower, and for folks that are mid-level, the range can tend to be a
little bit larger. And so just to demonstrate a little bit more, for example the minimum
for a new grad to the maximum number would be like a $50k difference and for folks that are mid-level, it
would be anywhere from $20k upward to an $80k and $100k difference from like the minimum to the
max number there. Mayuko: All right everybody thank you all so much for watching the video, i hope you liked it
Sarah shared like so many incredible insights about salary and negotiation so if you'd like
to watch the video recording of that episode of Muko's Corner then you can become a member
today on youtube to get full access. You'll also be able to listen to the audio recording of the
show through the podcast version of Muko's corner. I also wanted to take a moment to thank
the sponsor of today's video: Brilliant. So i think an important part about negotiating your salary
as a software engineer is to really kind of continue to build on your existing skills
in computer science and STEM to provide more value to a company. And if y'all have programmed
before, you know that practicing problems is a much more effective way to learn than watching
lectures which is why i love Brilliant. Brilliant is a problem-solving based website and app with
a hands-on approach with over 60 interactive courses in math science and computer science
They all have an element of storytelling, code writing, interactive challenges, and problem solving
is part of their courses. You can use brilliant to get into the habit of learning new things
every day, like maybe you want to do a pomodoro timer of one Brilliant course a few times a week
or dedicate saturday mornings to learn something new. So maybe as part of that habit you learn more
about how cryptography actually works, or you brush up on your stats knowledge to better make sense of
the data that's out there. So make sure to check out Brilliant today by going to brilliant.org/helloMayuko
where the first 200 people will get 20% off the annual premium subscription. Thank you
again to Brilliant for sponsoring and thank You so much for watching, and i will see you next time! Bye!