TA1337

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.