posting mine since I asked others to share. accepted an offer in Q4 2025:
Role: Senior Data Engineer (IC3 equivalent) Location: Seattle (hybrid, 3 days in office) Base: $195k Equity: $280k RSUs over 4 years, back-weighted (10/20/30/40 vest) Bonus: 15% target, not guaranteed Signing: $40k, 1-year clawback
total first-year cash works out to roughly $249k including signing if bonus pays at target. equity at current share price is around $70k year 1 given the back-weighting.
negotiated base up from $185k and got the signing bumped from $25k. they did not move on equity much. recruiter told me the band was maxed for the level which I half-believe.
markets feels like it's come down a bit from the 2021-2022 peak but comp is still solid for data roles.
4 replies
contractor_kai
that back-weighted vesting is worth flagging. 10/20/30/40 means year 1 equity is only $28k, not $70k. your total comp year 1 is closer to $235k realistically (base + signing + 10% of equity at target). still good but the headline number is misleading if you're comparing to cliff-vest or front-loaded offers.
market_realist
negotiating base from $185k to $195k is a nice $10k W. how many rounds of negotiation did that take? did you counter once or did you need to push harder?
numbers_only
one counter. I sent a short email citing a competing offer at $200k (real number, different company) and they came up to $195k same day. the competing offer was the actual leverage. anchoring without one probably gets you $190k or nothing.
laidoff_lena
Seattle hybrid 3 days in office is the norm there now? I thought Snowflake was pushing return-to-office harder than this. or does it depend on team?