In the early part of this year, whilst on the hunt for a new job, I had the fortune(?) to interview with a FANG company (the company in question was towards the start of the acronym). They approached me, badgering for a CV (three times) and an interview, not me chasing them. And I didn't use a headhunter/outside recruiter.

Sidenote: I had taught dozens of week-long corporate training classes in software development (specifically native iOS development, Android device driver development and some ReactNative classes) to their senior staff through my training agency at this company several years prior.

I wasn't terribly interested in working at the company, because I had seen inside the machine from my earlier teaching experience and wasn't too thrilled about being a part of it, but thought the interview itself would be a valuable experience and good practice. I also expected to bomb out of the interview process early because I have heard that their algorithmic questions are notoriously hard and I consider myself a below-average developer.

I tried to get the salary expectation -- the expectation, not the negotiation -- out of the way early in the interview process but unfortunately they wouldn't come to the table so early and wouldn't even have a conversation about it.

I seemed to have done well enough during the technical part of the interview that a tentative offer was extended for a Principal role, "doing ML or something like that" was the pitch from the one wrangling the interviews. A grand but ill-defined picture was painted of roles I would be ideal for based on my years of experience and reasonably solid education (MSc CompSci, MS ML, MBA, MBA Entrepreneurship/Marketing, MA Project Management)

Towards the end of the interview process we did the usual dance around compensation and I said "$150K base and you start to have my attention, and we negotiate from there." I stated the opening figure because I was getting tired of the hemming and hawing from the other guy. I had heard of this famed, well-greased hiring pipeline but I wasn't experiencing it.

"That sounds do-able." said the person handling everything. We wrapped up quickly and then the weekend happened.

Early the next week I got an offer. I was excited! I most likely wasn't going to take the job because there were a few red flags during the interview that made me think it wasn't a company I'd be interested in working at. But to have passed the technical interview and all the other hoops! Okay! That's a small ego-boost for me even if I probably couldn't do it a second time with a different part of the FANG.

I opened up the email, and read through the offer, and read through the offer a second time to make sure I understood.

The $110K base (there was zero mention of TCO or bonuses or options or RSUs or anything else) was a significant drop from what I currently get paid (and I don't consider myself well compensated) to work on-site in the Bay area. I'm in L.A.. This was just prior to full WFH/lockdown so there wasn't even the excuse of "well you're WFH so we offer less for that."

I pinged the company back and said "That's an interesting opening offer, it's much lower than I expected for relocating to that geographic area and the position I would take, how firm are you on that number?"

"Take it or leave it." came back the one-line response a few hours later.

I didn't even bother responding.

I have heard of other people's eyes watering at their salary offers. Mine have yet to shed a single, salty tear.