Staff Engineer Salary Negotiation: How to Negotiate a Staff Engineer Salary
Being offered a role as a staff engineer is a huge accomplishment. Whether you’re working in software, civil, industrial, or any other kind of engineering, you should be proud of making it through all the interviews and finally landing a staff engineering position.
However, as excited as you may be to finally accept your offer, there’s still something left you need to do: negotiate your staff engineer salary.
As you know, staff engineers have the ability to leverage both their technical and managerial skill sets at the same time—something that makes them extremely valuable to businesses. With such a high demand for staff engineers, negotiating your job offer gives you the perfect opportunity to maximize your career earnings while ensuring that you are being adequately compensated for your role.
A successful staff engineer negotiation is possible even if you’ve never negotiated before—and we are going to show you how. In this article, we will share with you our salary negotiation strategies that have helped different specialized engineers all over the world negotiate for better compensation. With our proven step-by-step guide and key insights, you will be prepared to face your staff engineering salary negotiation with confidence and success.
Don’t want to go through the staff engineer salary negotiation process alone? We have additional resources to help you navigate your negotiation.
If you’re looking for specific advice from a salary negotiation professional on your staff engineering salary negotiation, connect with a Salary Negotiation Coach.
Take our Salary Negotiation Courses or download our Salary Negotiation Templates to receive our strategies, preparing you for all aspects of a staff engineer salary negotiation.
Understanding the Compensation Components of a Staff Engineer Salary
Every successful negotiation starts at the same place: spending time understanding each of the compensation components of your current job offer.
Even if your staff engineer salary seems great, you can’t really know how competitive it is until you break down each element of your total compensation package. While it can be tempting to simply hone in on the base salary of your offer, the truth is that there are multiple components that play into the value of your entire compensation.
In fact, it’s not uncommon for staff engineers to also be offered an annual performance bonus, initial equity package, sign-on bonus, and other benefits like remote work flexibility. When approaching any negotiation, only focusing on the base salary of your job offer wouldn’t get you very far. Instead, evaluating all of the different compensation components carefully will give you a much better and accurate picture of the value of your offer.
For example, here is what a Google staff engineer salary may look like in their initial offer:
Google Staff Engineer Salary
If you’ve taken a look at your job offer and are unsure how each of the elements work and/or their value, no worries. In this section, we are going to carefully break down and explain the most common staff engineer salary components.
Staff Engineer Salary
Let’s start by going over the compensation component you’ve probably spent the most time thinking about: your staff engineer base salary. Your base salary is the fixed guaranteed pay that you receive in exchange for the work you do.
While you might have already known this, you might be less familiar with how your base salary is determined. Here’s how: Most companies create base pay ranges for each of their specific job roles. These ranges have set minimum and maximum amounts that your base pay can fall within.
For example, the pay range for a senior software engineer salary would be different from the range for a staff software engineer salary at the same company—and the same goes for salaries across different companies (i.e., a staff software engineer salary Google will differ from that of a staff software engineer salary Facebook).
So why do these pay ranges matter? Initial base salary offers rarely come in at the top of their pay bands. Because of this, knowing the pay range for your specific role type then gives you the opportunity to negotiate your salary to the top end of that range.
Staff Engineer Performance Bonus
Many staff engineers will also receive a performance bonus as part of their compensation. In general, a staff engineer performance bonus will be a percentage of your base salary that’s dependent on both company and personal performance. This means your annual bonus could be more or less depending on the targets you and your company hit.
Since it’s unlikely you will exceed the target percentages of your annual performance bonus, it’s best to assume you’ll receive the average bonus payout when evaluating this aspect of your compensation package.
The great thing about staff engineer performance bonuses is that they can make a huge difference in your annual pay. While most of the time these bonuses are non-negotiable, it’s important to remember that they are a percentage of your base salary—meaning the higher you negotiate your salary, the higher your bonus could be.
Staff Engineer Equity Packages
The next staff engineer compensation component we are going to look at is the equity package. Staff engineer equity is highly sought-after and can make a huge difference in the overall value of your offer.
If you receive equity as part of your compensation package, it could be offered either as RSUs (restricted stock units or restricted stock awards) or stock options. This grant will include a bundle of shares or options that vest over a defined timeframe (i.e., four years), called a vesting schedule.
While evaluating the equity you’re offered, never forget that the value of your equity does fluctuate based on the market value of the company you work for. For example, if you secure a Google staff engineer salary offer, you’ll benefit if Google’s share value goes up—but your staff engineer salary Google will decrease if Google’s share value goes down. Also keep in mind that if you leave the company before the equity vests, you risk forgoing it all together.
On the bright side, we’ve found that equity is usually negotiable for staff engineers. Because of this, we almost always recommend to push for more equity in your negotiation.
Staff Engineer Sign-On Bonus
Most staff engineers will also receive a sign-on bonus as part of their compensation—it just might take some negotiating. A staff engineer sign-on bonus is a one-time bonus that incentivizes you to join the company or to cover any lost bonuses or unvested equity at your current job.
While some companies won’t provide sign-on bonuses in their initial offers, you should be encouraged to know that we’ve had success securing large staff engineer signing bonuses—even when the job seeker wasn’t walking away from money at their current company.
Most companies pay these bonuses in one lump sum within the first 30 days of employment. But keep in mind you’ll typically need to pay the bonus back if you leave the company within your first year (or other designated timeframe).
Don’t be alarmed if a company approaches sign-on bonuses differently, however. For example, the Amazon staff engineer salary will include sign-on bonuses in year one and year two—which can be paid out monthly instead of in one lump sum payment. Just make sure you understand exactly what the bonus is and how it works before you try to negotiate it.
Staff Engineer Equity Refresher
While it’s possible to receive an equity refresher (more stock) in a staff engineering role, it’s not always included or guaranteed. Instead, you’ll find that some recruiters withhold the stock refresher details. This practice is common for Facebook staff engineer salary offers and other companies that offer this annual equity perk.
Once you’ve received your offer, we recommend you ask the hiring team to provide more details about the amount and timeline of the stock refresher. However, don’t be surprised if they refuse to share any specific details. Since it’s often challenging to compare this benefit across different staff engineer job offers, we don’t include this component in our total compensation calculation.
Staff Engineer Benefits And Perks
While benefits can look very different depending on the company you work for, they are still something worth considering carefully. In addition to health insurance and retirement packages, some of the most common perks that might be included in your staff engineer benefits package are flexible work from home policies, family leave, and even fitness memberships.
Unfortunately, most benefits and perks for staff engineers are usually non-negotiable. However, it’s possible to sometimes get changes approved via an under-the-table agreement with your future hiring manager (i.e., your manager will be more flexible with your PTO).
Five Key Steps to Negotiate a Staff Engineer and Staff Software Engineer Salary
Before we jump into our steps for a successful staff engineer and staff software engineer salary negotiation, there’s something we need to make really clear: you should never begin negotiations before you have an official offer in hand. Why?
Based on years of experience helping many career professionals successfully negotiate their job offers, we’ve found having an actual offer will give you more leverage to negotiate and you’ll be less likely to make mistakes like disclosing your salary expectations to the recruiter too early.
Once you’ve received an official offer, the steps listed below will guide you through our proven strategies for negotiating a staff engineer salary so you know how to negotiate a job offer.
1) Understand The Components Of A Staff Engineer Or Staff Software Engineer Salary
We’ve already covered this concept but as a quick refresh, make sure that you spend time going over each of the components of your compensation package carefully. In any negotiation, it’s essential that you understand exactly what’s being presented in your offer.
You will want to review your staff software engineer salary or staff engineer salary package for a base salary, performance bonus, initial equity grant, sign-on bonus, and any benefits and perks. If you need help, try using our Total Compensation Calculator to calculate your compensation components with ease.
2) Complete Due Diligence On Your Staff Engineer Job Offer By Asking The Right Questions
The next step to a successful negotiation involves asking strategic questions. Not only can the right questions help you establish an effective staff engineer counteroffer, but it also shows the recruiting team that you are serious about the job offer.
Start by asking for clarity on any items that the recruiter may have been vague about (i.e., What is the expected equity refresher each year for this role?). By asking these questions, you should be able to collect important data points you can use in your counteroffer.
You should still ask thoughtful and strategic questions even if you think you already have all the information. If you’re not sure what to ask, you can use our list of Strategic Questions to Build Negotiation Leverage. We suggest starting this phase of the negotiation right after you receive the job offer.
3) Research To Identify What Staff Engineer Salary Should Look Like
One of the most important steps to any negotiation is researching pay data for your specific role. Since the salaries for staff engineers will vary by company, you will need to spend some time doing research to understand the strength of your particular job offer and to identify how much you should counter for. Make sure that your research is specific to your exact role type, level, location, and company (i.e., is it a senior staff software engineer salary Google or an Apple staff engineer salary) and where it’s located, whether that be in-person, hybrid, or remote.
Thankfully, there are many online resources you can use in your research, such as PayScale or Salary.com. However, because the information on these types of sites is publicly reported by current or past employees, keep in mind that the pay they indicate could be different from what is now offered to new employees. If you spend some time collecting and comparing pay data from multiple different sites, you’ll have a better chance of coming up with accurate information. You can use our Total Compensation Research Comparison Tool to help you with your compensation research and identify the pay ranges.
When researching salary data, career professionals often forget this truth: in any job offer they accept, they’ll ultimately be expected to manage the same responsibilities as anyone hired for that position—regardless of their experience or background. So if you’ve been offered a specific position, you should be compensated similarly as to how anyone else in that position would be. This is why we recommend to push for at least the mid- to top-end of the total pay range for your specific staff engineering role during your negotiation.
4) Send A Staff Engineer Counteroffer To The Recruiter
Steps one through three were all about preparing for your actual negotiation. Now comes the part you’ve been waiting for: sending over an official staff engineer counteroffer to the hiring team.
Your counter should include your new ask with references to the pay data you’ve researched and sourced. You should also explain how the benefits in your current offer differ from other companies and/or your current role.
Even though you can present your new ask over the phone, we recommend doing so via email. You’ll be more likely to stay on topic and you’ll be giving the recruiter something physical they can forward on and share internally with their team.
As with any step in the job-seeking process, present your counteroffer professionally and kindly. Remember: this is your first chance to showcase what it would be like to work with you. To ensure proper communication, use our Counteroffer Drafts for examples to help you formulate a strategic counteroffer.
5) Handle Any Objections And Know You Achieved The Best Staff Engineer Salary
You might send over your counteroffer and immediately receive an updated offer package in return. However, this isn’t very likely. What’s more likely is that the hiring team will come back to you with a list of reasons why they can’t make any increases to the staff engineer salary.
If this happens, don’t panic—it’s a very common part of the process. If you’re faced with objections, respond professionally by stating you understand their constraints, but ask again if they could take your comments back to their team for one last look. You should still ask even if they insist their team will just say no and continue to follow our Objection Handling Scripts.
Once they agree to take your thoughts back to their team, they should return with a better offer. If the updated compensation package aligns with the pay bands you researched and meets your personal and professional needs, you should be ready to send an offer acceptance email to lock it in!
Mistakes to Avoid During Your Staff Engineer Salary Negotiation
We’ve spent the majority of this article explaining what you should do during a staff engineer salary negotiation. However, we’d be remiss if we didn’t also go over some things that you shouldn’t do.
There are a few common mistakes job seekers make during the salary negotiation process. Below we’ve listed some of the top things you should make sure you avoid when you negotiate your staff engineering salary.
Don’t Share Salary Expectations Before You Get A Job Offer In Staff Engineering
Did you know that sharing your salary expectations with a recruiter or on an application too early can works against you when trying to receive a fair job offer?
Here’s what might happen if you share your salary expectations before receiving an official offer: If you share a lower compensation than what the company could offer, they may be incentivized to now offer you that lower compensation. On the flip side, if you share a salary expectation higher than what they could offer, there is a chance that they could become disinterested and choose to go with a different candidate over you.
At the end of the day, recruiting teams are working for the company, not you—so always remember that their ultimate goal is to get the best deal for the company.
In a practical sense, you also shouldn’t share salary expectations before you learn more about the specific staff engineering role, its compensation and benefits, and whether those things feel right for you. After all, you’re also interviewing them to see if this role is something you want to pursue so be sure to overcome these tactics by responding like this.
Don't Be Afraid To Negotiate A Staff Engineering Job Offer
We see it all the time—job seekers miss out on increasing their total career earnings because they’re nervous to negotiate. Often, they fear offending the recruiting team or losing the job offer altogether.
However, you’ll be encouraged to know that we’ve helped facilitate hundreds of successful salary negotiations and we’ve never seen a company rescind an engineering job offer because of an attempted negotiation. Don’t let salary negotiation myths keep you from advocating for the compensation you deserve.
Be Realistic By Doing Your Staff Engineering Salary Research
It’s true that staff engineering roles are competitive and pay well. However, that doesn’t mean that you should push for compensation that the company can’t realistically afford. To avoid this, make sure that you conduct thorough and in-depth salary research so that you know what an appropriate ask for your specific role looks like. For example, the package for a Nvidia staff engineer salary would look different than the package for the Microsoft staff engineer salary.
The Bottom Line: Negotiate Your Staff Engineer Salary or Staff Software Engineer Salary
By now, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that we believe all staff engineers, whether that be software, civil, industrial, or any other kind, can and should negotiate their job offers. The negotiation strategies and tips shared in this article can help you receive a competitive compensation package and increase your total career earnings.
If you want personalized advice on how to negotiate your staff engineer salary from a professional salary negotiation coach, Book a Consultation today. Our team has years of experience helping engineers of all kinds negotiate for the compensation they deserve.
We also have our How to Negotiate Your Job Offer and How to Negotiate Your Current Salary courses, and Salary Negotiation Templates if you prefer to learn at your own pace and want to gain the confidence and tools to negotiate your compensation successfully. With downloadable email templates and job offer negotiation resources, you will be prepared for all aspects of your staff software engineer salary negotiation.