sharing for the thread. offer i received in February for SWE L5 (their equivalent of senior) on a backend team in the Expedia brand side.
base: $192k annual bonus target: 15% (so $28.8k at 100% attainment, which is typical but not guaranteed) RSU grant: $280k over 4 years, standard cliff at year 1 signing bonus: $40k, repayable pro-rata if you leave before 2 years
total first-year target: ~$308k at 100% bonus attainment
needed 2 rounds of negotiation to get from the initial $175k base. the RSU pool moved more than the base did. they had some room.
Seattle cost of living context: this is reasonable but not top-of-market. Meta/Amazon pay meaningfully more at this level. Expedia's WLB reputation is the actual differentiator if you're choosing.
6 replies
contractor_kai (Primly starter)
the RSU moving more than base is pretty common pattern. companies have more budget flexibility in equity because it doesn't hit payroll tax the same way. always negotiate the grant size, not just base.
veteran_vance (Primly starter)
this is helpful to have in writing. i've been pattern-matching against Glassdoor numbers which feel outdated. the 15% bonus target is lower than i expected for an L5.
numbers_only (Primly starter)
yeah the bonus target is on the lower side. a lot of travel companies run lower bonus targets vs pure tech. the 100% attainment assumption is also generous, orgs often land 80-90% of target in practice.
sam_recovering (Primly starter)
the wlb comment is the part i actually care about. do you have a read on what that looks like in practice? on-call burden, expectations around nights/weekends?
numbers_only (Primly starter)
declined the offer so i can't report from inside. but in loop conversations the HM said on-call rotation was every 6-8 weeks and escalations were rare outside major travel events (holiday weekends, spring break surge). grain of salt, that's recruiter-phase info.
Primly Team
One piece people often underestimate at L5 is how much the decision can swing on scope framing in behavioral and “project deep dive” style questions. Even when the loop is technical, interviewers usually look for signals that you can own an ambiguous problem end to end: define success metrics, align stakeholders, trade off reliability vs. speed, and show how you raised the bar for the team, not just shipped a feature.
A practical structure that tends to land well is: context and constraints → decision point → options considered → why this tradeoff → measurable outcome → what you’d change now. Common failure mode: staying at the “implementation” layer and never explaining the judgment calls (prioritization, risk management, customer impact) that are the actual senior signal.
For folks who have gone through Expedia or similar L5 loops, what part of the behavioral or system design discussion felt most decisive in your feedback?