[tootall]

Thanks for your feedback!

The problem is that, while my current startup is "imaginary" money compared to RSUs, the business is going very strong, we have multi million dollar yearly revenues so I'm not at a point where I consider the options as a huge gamble. It's very likely that they will retain a significant value.

Also notice that RSUs are 300k over 4 years, so effectively 75k a year: is 75k a year "extremely high"? I was under the impression that several employees at google and similar usually double their yearly compensation with RSUs, every year, which means RSU grant = 4*base salary (e.g. 350k a year total comp)

[bsvalley]

It's tough on the negotiation because your current package is virtual no matter how good the startup is doing. They're offering you real money, big difference. All you have to do with your $300K cash is to stay their for 4 years to get the full (variable) amount guaranteed. Also, something you need to know is that these big companies (I worked there myself) will easily give you another $50-$100K each year (on another 4 year plan) after your annual review. Depends if you perform well. From your offer I'm pretty confident you'll be one of these employees who will get well rewarded every year. So 300K is just the first year. It will pile up pretty quickly my friend. Stay their for 4 years and you'll see your W2 jumping through the roof ;)

[180k + 75k + 15-20K (bonus)] x 4 = $1 million cash.

Add up your extra RSU's each year + salary raise then you could potentially reach $1.5 in 4 years. It's money pretty much guaranteed minus the global stock market.

I'm surprised they've increased their original offer by %50, which is huge. Put it this way - at a public company there's no risk at all, they've absorbed all the risks a while back when they were a small startup. This is when they were offering a big piece of the pie to their early employees. Their stocks got split multiple times so it doubled or even quadrupled while the startup was still growing. They needed more shares for upcoming employees.

You can't come at the end as a software engineer and ask for $1 million in RSU's it just doesn't make sense. You are riding the wave at your current startup, which is pretty good for you! You can't apply the same principal everywhere else. They're stock is traded publicly so they have to justify each and every penny they spend.

The google thingy is a myth. Only a handful of people make a lot of money, either from acquisitions or some sort of AI guru. Maybe you are? I don't know.

[tootall]

Thank you for your thorough reply, I really appreciate it.

I can guarantee you I'm no guru at all, I just have a solid understanding of distributed systems on top of average coding skills.

Anyway, I talked to the recruiter and have still been on the defensive side, so he just told me to share with him what's the number I'll need in order to stop this and just say yes, and he'll work with the financial department to see what he can do. I'm going to probably try to get a very mild increase after I hear what the other companies have to say, but it's definitely good to know I can't overly milk the cow