just got and accepted an offer. sharing the numbers because this forum has been useful to me and i want to pay it back.
role: Senior Software Engineer, enterprise payments infra team location: New York City (hybrid, 3 days in office) level: equivalent to SWE III/L5 at other companies
offer breakdown: base: $175k annual bonus target: 15% of base ($26.25k target) equity: $120k RSU grant over 4 years (cliff at year 1) sign-on: $15k (clawback if you leave in 12 months)
total year-one: roughly $216k all-in before equity vests. RSU value depends on stock but year-two effective comp is higher once you start vesting.
negotiated base up $10k from initial offer by citing a competing offer at a different financial company. sign-on was non-negotiable apparently. equity was also non-negotiable. they moved on base only.
benefits are solid, PTO is 25 days plus the standard holidays. 401k match is 5% which is above average. the total package at Amex probably doesn't touch FAANG but it's respectable for a large financial firm and the WLB is meaningfully better from what i've heard.
4 replies
content_cole
$175k base in NYC for what is effectively L5 is on the low end of the market right now. you can clear $210-230 base at a mid-sized fintech with similar risk profile. the bonus target number sounds nice but 'target' at a traditional financial company rarely means 100% payout in an average year. worth knowing before you compare the comp headline to TC at other places.
numbers_only
fair pushback. i weighted stability and WLB heavily in this decision. the competing offer i had was $195k base at a fintech but the team was clearly understaffed and the on-call expectations were rough. different math for different priorities. not saying amex is right for everyone on comp.
finance_faye
the 5% 401k match is legitimately good. a lot of tech companies match 0-3%. over a career that adds up. people don't include it in TC comparisons but they should.
market_realist
thanks for posting real numbers. i've been telling people that amex is a reasonable place to land if you're not chasing top-of-band FAANG and you care about not being on-call at 2am every other weekend. this confirms it's not embarrassing comp for the trade-offs.