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Comment by TA1337 | Hacker News Reader

One thing that happened to me a few years ago that pretty surprised me, went something like this: I applied to 2 FAANGs, got offers from both.

The recruiter from the first company to give me an offer, told me it is pretty much non negotiable, "we have a little wiggle room but don't expect much, it's an amazing offer". It was higher than my then salary, but not by a huge margin.

Then company B got back to me with a significantly higher offer both in terms of RSUs (x2) and base salary.

Well, turned out the non negotiable offer was very negotiable after all, and company A quickly upped their offer above company B's. At this stage it just became a back and forth bidding war, that ended after a couple of weeks with two almost identical offers, 50% higher than the initial TC.

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May I ask you how you approached this negotiation?

Did you just send an email to company A with "Hey, company B gives me X. Do you have a better offer?" and go back and forth for two weeks?

Pretty much, it was more phone calls but yeah. My dilemma was not related to money, I was really having a hard time deciding, it was very stressful (not to mention the stress of hiding this from my employer) and really not fun. I was really taking my time to think and these guys were throwing money at me and letting me meet with big names who tried to motivate me.

I understand you don't want to share many more details. I see you have made an account just for this post. Feel free to ignore this response if it may get you into trouble.

To have both of these companies compete for you in such a manner your resume must be really impressive. Can you share something else? What field of Computer Science are you in? Machine Learning?

I'm just a generalist engineer with some senior roles under my belt and apparently a good reputation. These were not super senior roles at those FAANGs and I'm not making millions, to make it clear.

It amazes me that, under the right circumstances, the wiggle room can reach levels as high as 50%. I wonder what they were thinking when they made you the initial offer.

They were hoping to discourage him from asking for more. It’s always negotiable if the company wants to hire you, they just typically don’t want you to feel that way.

It's only negotiable because he got an offer from the next FAANG.

Recruiters are not going to assume that you can enter any FAANG at the highest possible level. It was incredibly lucky from the OP to get 2 offers and at the same time.

It's only negotiable because she said she had an offer from another FAANG. It would be odd to "ask for proof" though it could happen.

You’re in charge of scheduling your job search and have influence over when that search wraps up. It probably wasn’t random that they interviewed at two FAANG companies in the same job search.

> It was incredibly lucky from the OP to get 2 offers and at the same time.

Not sure I agree there. I think it could be a deliberate way to engineer the process to create a leverage which most savvy candidates learn to do every time they're on the market. I've been doing this for the past 6 years. It just takes discipline, casting a wide net with a lot of firms in the initial interview process, and being thorough.

Yes and no. I wanted to go to company A, and went to interview for company B as a dress rehearsal or mock process, thinking it will increase my chances at company A and maybe even provide me with some leverage, but to be honest, I didn't think I'll need to negotiate or that I could squeeze more than a couple of grand out of it. So there you have it, lesson learned.

I think companies deserve to be publicly called out on outright lying.

I think you just need to realize you should never believe anything a recruiter tells you that is not legally binding. They outright lie, embellish the truth and manipulate you. That's their job.

Everything is negotiable. Proceed accordingly.

50%!???

Crikey.

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