- I don’t really see senior engineering IC salaries below GBP 100k
- “Head of” roles are materially higher than IC roles, mid-to-high-100s.
- All of my experience is London-based so there is likely a premium compared to a market like Manchester
- There are a lot of other factors, so don’t take this as gospel, but unless it you are in a hot market like AI, your business is probably getting a 5-20x multiple on ARR - the fact that your business growth is so impressive and near profitable makes the top end of that achievable. If the primary goal is to get to 10M and the founders want to sell “sooner than later” then you probably need to mentally prepare for an exit of around 50-200M, or an outcome for you of 100-400k. The math changes significantly if the business doesn’t plan to exit for longer. But say you got 200k, does that make up for several years of below market salary and risk?
- You’ve been at the biz for 4 years? I know you say there’s no vesting schedule but usually equity vesting happens over 4 years, so you should be due for another grant if the business was in line other tech businesses
If I were in your shoes I’d definitely push for more equity. You’ve been at the business long enough to be eligible for another grant. You should make sure that, if the new grant has a vesting schedule, the entire grant automatically vests as part of an acquisition/change of control
And you also should be able to push a lot harder on salary, but again I can’t speak for the Manchester market.
Having been in the business for so long, and having received an offer for a role that you describe as critical to its success, the business should be willing to compensate you accordingly.
Something else to consider looking into is the business plans for profitability. It is not abnormal for profitable tech to pay bonuses. So if the business is indeed planning to be profitable, it could be a way for you to get outsized additional compensation if you’re willing to take some risk.
**And finally, it sounds like you have an unfair equity deal - largely at the company’s discretion? At this point all of your equity should be fully vested, and under EMI you should be able to exercise your options for a negligible amount of money. You should work really hard as part of your negotiation to get a better deal here for the existing equity, so you can own real shares of the business. And then you’ll loosen some of handcuffs - incentivizing the business to issue you a new grant as a retention strategy.