L4 SDE1 TC 150K YOE: 3 I’ve been on Focus since late January, waiting for a PIP any day now to collect severance. Made the mistake of trusting my manager telling me I’m almost ready for L5 but to wait until I had more cross team projects to show before trying to get promo. Then when I became a tenured L4 he quickly switched up and told me I’m below the bar. I have two offers, one from a small startup (less than 30 engineers but growing) that I’ll leave anonymous since I may be identified if I name them. The other is from Rippling. Both have work that is very interesting to me and I liked both engineering teams and managers. Both initially considered me for Senior Engineer position and then down leveled to SDE2 and told me they think I can get promo to senior in a year. Looking at compensation alone Rippling is the obvious answer but I see on Blind that Rippling is basically PIP Factory 2.0 and I really don’t want to go through this again. Part of me thinks this experience at Amazon has taught me how to navigate corporate culture (communicate with higher level engineers/managers, take credit for everything, kiss ass, etc.) but I’d appreciate hearing from some Rippling engineers what they think, and especially anyone who’s worked at both Rippling and Amazon. The smaller startup has good funding and a lot of industry insiders in its leadership team so I feel relatively confident in its future and the return I will get from the stock growth. #engineering #software #swe #amazon #pip #pivot #focus #rippling #startup #Offer Evaluation #offers
Congratulations on landing two offers in this climate mate. I am going thru some promotion issues. Can i dm you for guidance?
Thank you! Yes that’s fine
On its surface, the rippling offer is better but it’s hard to say with actually knowing what the other company is. Feel feee to dm if you’d like to remain anonymous and want to chat.
Thanks, DM’d you
Yes, rippling is pip factory, but you were down leveled. So it should relatively okay. I would say take chance and join rippling .
This was an up-level. But they’re also falling for the “promo in one year” bait so who knows.
The whole promo in a year is mostly bs. But I’ll still choose Ripling. Rippling in my experience was not all that bad . Feel free to dm if you want to chat more
Don’t fall for promo promises on hiring, that’s a roomie mistake. You will not get a promo at Rippling in one year. You likely won’t get it anywhere unless you were underleveled and that is not the case here. It may be possible at a smaller startup, but not at a big one. Last I heard, Rippling’s RSUs have a clawback; if this is the case, run. That’s not worth the extra pay, which is paper money anyway. You got up-level offers—congrats, this is always the best way to get to the next level. Don’t count on a promo in the best of circumstances, and keep in mind that being a relative new hire (<18 month tenure) is one of the worst circumstances for promos. How have you fared negotiating the lower offer up? Go read some classic negotiation posts, like the one on the Kalzumeus blog.
I agree, I don’t believe either of them especially after my experience at Amazon I just mentioned in the post what they told me. The smaller offer was originally 150 base with no signing bonus and the same stock, this is as high as they are willing to go. What does clawback mean? Does that mean they would take back RSUs that have already vested?
From what I heard from one Rippling employee, they lose their shares that are time vested if they leave before IPO. They offer double trigger RSUs but with a clawback, from my understanding of that conversation. What form of stock is the other startup offering? Options or RSUs?
Huge Jump in tc, pip is a good thing
You prolly won't get senior in a year but Rippling is going to have more upside with higher TC and base. Startup is likely to yield nothing, but Rippling is big enough you'll probably at least get *something* from that equity
Rippling is still an easy choice
How did you get interviews ?
Was your manager Indian?
I really want to know the answer to this once
My manager was Indian, both the potential new managers are Indian. I am Indian Welcome to America in 2024