Google Job Offer Negotiation (4 steps to a $50K increase)

Negotiating a Google job offer can feel uncomfortable and stressful. But going through this short-term pain is worth it. As an example, getting a $50K increase is common at the L5 level when negotiating well.

We’ve put this step-by-step guide together to help you negotiate a better offer by yourself. Here are the steps you should take:

1. Understand how Google’s compensation works
2. Find weaknesses in the initial offer
3. Send a counteroffer email to your recruiter
4. Handle their objections

If you know a recruiter in the tech industry, we highly recommend getting their help to negotiate your offer in addition to reading this guide. After all, this is part of their day-to-day job, and they’re professionals at it. 

If you don’t know anyone and would still like to make sure you’re negotiating the best possible offer, then make sure to check out our salary negotiation coaches; some of them used to work at Google. They negotiate daily as recruiters and hiring managers and are therefore extremely comfortable with the process. 

Click here to browse our team of salary negotiation coaches

1. Understand how Google’s compensation works ↑

The different components of your Google offer are not all equally negotiable. You will typically get most of your increase from GSUs (Google Stock Units), followed by your sign-on bonus, and then your base salary.

This is visible when you gather offer data for a given role, level, and location. As you can see below for an L5 software engineer in the Bay Area, the range and variance for GSUs are a lot larger than for the sign-on bonus and base salary.

If you analyze Google offer data for other roles (e.g., product manager), levels (e.g., L4), and locations (e.g., Seattle), you’ll reach the same conclusions.

This range and variance are a great proxy for “room for negotiation”.

Throughout this article, we’ll use an L5 software engineer in the Bay Area as an example. You can see the dataset we used here by pulling data from Levels.fyi.

While Google is one of the most desirable places to work in the tech sector, the company is also one of the hardest to bargain with. 

Every offer made by Google is discussed with their centralized compensation team. This team has extremely stringent policies and processes based on data-driven insights to help Google reduce employee expenses while keeping a high candidate close rate.

Every statement you make during the negotiation, from your interest in the team to the dates of your interviews with other businesses, will set off various regulations. In order to apply these guidelines, Google's compensation team instructs recruiters to ask particular questions during each negotiation. 

1.1 Google GSUs (Very negotiable)

1.1.1 How negotiable are GSUs?

Google always includes GSUs in your initial offer and is typically very willing to negotiate GSUs. 

For L5 software engineers, the highest GSU grant in our dataset was $230k and the median was $120k.

In almost all negotiations, the majority of the increase comes from GSUs getting bumped. And in the best negotiations, it’s common for GSUs to end up being on a similar level as base salary at the end of the process.

1.1.2 How do Google GSUs work?

Historically, Google used a uniform 25% per year vesting structure and schedule over four years. 

This changed in mid-2021 when Google used a 4-year vesting schedule in 33/33/22/12 increments for a majority of its offers to increase candidate closing rates as it saved money by reducing total grant amounts. 

Before this, Google first trialed different structures with its Google Computing Group to arrive at this more optimized structure, and it continues to trial for different roles and levels.

As of 2024, almost all (99%) of Google’s offers follow the 38/32/20/10 GSU vesting structure.

With this new structure, here’s what percentage of your GSU grant you’ll receive every year:

• Year 1: 38%
• Year 2: 32%
• Year 3: 20%
• Year 4: 10%

Google’s GSUs vest monthly. So, in the first year, you will receive 3.16% of GSUs, which vest every month (38% divided by 12 months = 3.16%). However, the vesting schedule may differ, particularly for new hires or promotional grants. If you stay at the company for four years, you will receive all your GSUs. If you leave prior to that, you will lose those unvested shares. 

Google’s monthly vesting cadence is generous by FAANG standards. Other companies vest quarterly (Meta, Amazon) or semi-annually (Apple).

Your $ grant will be converted to an actual number of restricted stock units (RSUs) before your employment starts. That conversion will use the trailing average closing stock price of the 30 days before your start date.

So, if your grant is worth $100K and Google’s stock average close price was $100 in the 30 days before your start date, you’ll be given 1,000 GSUs, which will vest over 4 years.

1.1.3 Valuing your GSUs

There’s a lot more uncertainty around GSUs than there is around any of the other components of your compensation. Here are the two biggest factors to think about as you value your GSUs:

• Stock price fluctuations. Google’s stock could go up or down, and the value of the GSUs you’re getting is bound to change. This will have a huge impact on your actual financial outcome, but unfortunately, it isn’t something you can control or predict with certainty.
• Likelihood of vesting. Although this probably isn’t on your mind right now, you might decide to leave because you don’t get along with your manager or team. Or you might be fired as part of a reorg. If this happens within 4 years, then you won’t take full advantage of your grant. 

It’s important that you take these aspects into account when assessing and negotiating your offer. Unless you’re 100% comfortable with the risks described above, we recommend that you negotiate higher GSUs but also a higher base and sign-on, which are more certain financial benefits.

1.2. Google sign-on bonus (Negotiable)

1.2.1 How negotiable is Google’s sign-on bonus?

Unlike GSUs, it’s common for Google recruiters not to include a sign-on bonus in their initial offer. 

Still, for most technical roles and even many non-technical roles at Google, it is possible to negotiate a higher signing bonus even if it's not in your initial offer. You can employ these two most useful pieces of leverage: competing offers and retention bonuses at your current company.

Even so, Google's signing bonuses aren't as significant as other peers in the industry (e.g., Meta). For L5 software engineers, the highest sign-on bonus in our dataset was $73K, and the median was $33K.

The sign-on bonus is a one-time incentive that Google gives candidates to join. There are two main ways to think about your sign-on:

• Most people think about it as a lump sum that helps cover any bonuses (e.g., performance bonus) or unvested equity you’re walking away from at your current company.
• But if you’re not walking away from anything, it can also be interesting to look at it as a bridge between your start date and your first GSU vesting date.

1.2.2 How does Google’s sign-on bonus work?

Google will pay your sign-on bonus as a lump sum in the first 30 days of your employment.

If you leave within 1 year, you’ll need to pay back a prorated portion of your bonus. For example, if you leave after 6 months, you’ll have to pay back 50% of your sign-on.

1.3. Google base salary (Negotiable)

1.3.1 How negotiable is Google’s base salary?

It’s common for Google recruiters to put you at the bottom or middle of the base salary band in their initial offer. Base salary bands are a lot narrower than GSU bands. You’ll be able to achieve a base increase by negotiating, but it won’t be as big as your GSU increase.

For L5 software engineers, the highest base salary in our dataset was $250K, and the median was $211K.

1.3.2 How does Google’s base salary work?

Google’s base salary follows the typical FAANG model. Each role, level, and location has a base salary band. The band is narrower at junior levels than at more senior levels, where there's therefore more room for negotiation.

Your base salary is paid biweekly in the US and monthly in most other countries.

1.4. Google performance bonus (Not negotiable)

1.4.1 How negotiable is Google’s performance bonus?

Performance bonuses are set at the company level for each role and level and therefore are not negotiable.

However, any improvement you get to your base salary will be compounded by your performance bonus. So, it’s a factor you shouldn’t ignore entirely when calculating your future compensation.

1.4.2 How does Google’s performance bonus work?

Google pays performance bonuses every 6 months. Google’s performance bonus is based on your and the company’s performance. But in practice, Google’s employees usually achieve their performance bonuses or higher.

The target ranges from 10% to 30% depending on experience and role. Here’s Google’s performance bonuses per software engineer level at the time of writing:

• L3: 15%
• L4: 15%
• L5: 15%
• L6: 20%
• L7: 25%
• L8: 30%
• L9: 40%

1.5 Google’s equity Rrefreshers (Not negotiable)

Google also offers equity refreshers to employees who have been working at the company for at least one full year. They do this as an incentive for them to stay. This video can help you understand better how Google’s equity refreshers work.

You should ask about equity refreshers during your negotiations, but the vast majority of recruiters will shy away from sharing any details, which makes it a component that’s not negotiable in practice.

1.6 Google’s benefits and perks (Not negotiable)

Google is a leader in benefits and perks and offers a Google 401k, a health savings account (HSA) match, life insurance, and long-term disability insurance, among other things. 

Compared to other FAANG and top companies, Google's only missing benefit is a discounted stock purchase plan.

Google’s benefits and perks aren’t negotiable.

2. Find weaknesses in the initial offer ↑

Now that you understand Google’s compensation components, your next step should be to find weaknesses in the initial offer you receive. You’ll then use these weaknesses as arguments for your counteroffer in Step 3.

There are two main ways to find weaknesses. 

• First, you should research ranges for your role for the different compensation components we discussed using public data sources to find the areas where your offer is at the lower or middle of the range. 
• Second, you should ask questions to your Google recruiter that highlight shortcomings in the offer, which you can use as arguments for asking for more.

2.1 Research ranges for the different compensation components

For the main compensation components (GSUs, sign-on bonus, and base salary), you should identify ranges for your role, level, and location. This is similar to the work we’ve done for the Google L5 Software Engineer in the SF Bay Area covered in the previous section.

You should use multiple sources when establishing these ranges. A few we recommend include Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, Comparably, and Salary.com. 

As you do your research, remember that there’s a time lag between the moment offers are reported on these websites and the time at which they were actually made. In practice, this means that the ranges you will find will be lower than what’s currently being used by Google. 

After doing this work, you should have a sense of how much you can ask for for each compensation component. It’s important to stay realistic as you do this exercise. 

Here are two sanity checks we recommend making before settling on specific numbers you’re going to ask for.

First, it’s unlikely that you’ll manage to get to the very top end of the range for all components. Broadly speaking, there are two extremes. 

If your aim is to maximize total compensation and you’re comfortable with the risks associated, then you could focus on maximizing your GSUs. 

If you’re interested in more certainty, then you could focus more on base salary and the sign-on bonus, but you’re less likely to reach the top end of total compensation.

Second, you should try to be realistic about the skill set you bring to Google. For instance, at the time of writing, Google is struggling to find software engineers with expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning. As a consequence, these are the skillsets that typically achieve the highest total compensation for a given software engineering level.

2.2 Ask questions to your recruiter to highlight weaknesses in the offer

Another way you can uncover strong negotiation arguments is by asking questions to your recruiter. The objective of this fact-finding exercise is to highlight differences between Google’s compensation and other companies (including your current employer).

Here are five example questions you could ask your recruiter. You should adjust this list based on the strengths of the compensation package of your current employer and other companies you are in the process with.

Sign-on bonus

• Question: I noticed that there was no sign-on bonus in the initial offer you sent. My understanding was that Google routinely offered signed-on bonuses to new hires, as do other FAANG and tech companies. Could you confirm if that’s something that’s available for this position?
• Goal: Google recruiters often leave sign-on bonuses out of their initial offer. This question is a simple way to point out the omission.

Discounted stock-purchase program

• Question: Does Google provide a discounted stock-purchase program? When would I be eligible to participate in the program?
• Goal: At the time of writing, Google does not provide that benefit, whereas other FAANG and top companies do. You’re highlighting that weakness.

Remote work policy

• Question: Can you clarify what Google’s remote work policy is?
• Goal: At the time of writing, Google’s employees have to spend 3 days per week in the office, which might be less flexible than your current company or other companies you’re in the process with.

Time off

• Question: What’s Google’s vacation policy?
• Goal: At the time of writing, Google’s paid time off for new hires is 15 days per year (for US offices), which might be lower than your current company or other companies you’re in the process with.

3. Send a counteroffer email to your recruiter ↑

3.1 Consider setting a "walk-away" number

How will you know if you’ve negotiated successfully?

Before starting a negotiation, it can be helpful to write down your "walk-away" number. Your “walk-away” number is the minimum number or set of conditions you’re willing to accept.

If you manage to negotiate an offer that’s above that number, you’ll accept it. If you don’t, then you’ll walk away and stay at your current company, or continue interviewing.

That number or set of conditions are subjective and results from a lot of different factors, including: the research you’ve done in step 2, your other options, other personal circumstances, etc.

Having this number in mind during the negotiation will enable you to keep a cool head and to know when to accept the offer or move on.

There are many ways to make a counteroffer. Here are two common ones we recommend considering:

1. You could share your walk-away number with your recruiter and let them know that’s the minimum you’re willing to accept
2. Or you could start the negotiation with a higher number than your walk-away and leave more room for negotiation

The main benefit of the first approach is its simplicity. It minimizes back-and-forth and also makes it clear to your recruiter by how much the initial offer needs to be increased to bring you onboard. 

The main downside of this approach is that you might not maximize your total compensation because your walk-away number might be lower than the maximum offer Google was willing to make you. You also obviously can’t use that approach if the initial offer you received is already higher than your walk away.

The main benefit of the second approach is that it has more upside than the first one. You’re more likely to maximize total compensation using that approach. 

The main downside is it will involve more questions, pushback, and back-and-forth with your recruiter. In other words, it’s more work and discomfort to go through. Working with a seasoned job offer negotiator can help a lot if you pick that approach.

3.2 Write your counteroffer email

Once you’ve gathered all the data you need and decided on the approach you pick, it’s time to make your counteroffer. 

We recommend sending an email containing your counter offer and suggesting a call to discuss your thoughts if the recruiter would find that helpful.

There are three reasons we think this approach works well. 

First, an email puts you in complete control of what you’re communicating, so you can’t be derailed by questions the recruiter throws at you. 

Second, your recruiter will be able to easily forward that email to their compensation team to review and bump your numbers. 

Finally, your recruiter will most likely want to discuss your counteroffer over the phone, so you’re just anticipating their request by suggesting a call.

Here are email template examples you could use, depending on which negotiation approach you decide to take.

If you choose a non-negotiable counter-offer approach:

If you choose a flexible counter-offer approach:

You can adapt these emails to your situation, but we recommend you follow a similar structure and hit the following key points:

• Reiterate how excited you are to join.
• Thank them for answering your questions.
• Lay out what you believe is fair compensation for your skill set.
• Clearly ask them to take this request to their compensation team.
• Offer time to discuss this with them if needed.

4. Deflect questions and handle objections ↑

If your skill set is in high demand, or if you’ve done extremely well in the interviews, then your Google recruiter might reply with an improved offer immediately. But in a lot of cases, they’ll actually object to your request without taking it to the compensation team.

Here’s a list of common objections and how to handle them. As you work through these objections, remember that your objective is for your recruiter to take your request to the compensation team, which is the one setting your numbers.

• “We don’t have flexibility.” Reiterate that you’re excited to join and that you recognise you’re asking for a significant bump but that you’d greatly appreciate it if their team could take a second look to try to close that gap.
• “Would you accept $x? " Reiterate that your ideal goal would be the one that you stated in your initial email. And that you’d greatly appreciate it if the compensation team could take a second look to try to close the gap between the initial offer and the numbers you shared.
• “Are you sure you’re that interested in Google?" Reiterate that you’re absolutely thrilled to join but that the last thing you want is to start working there and have doubts about being compensated at the market rate. You want to be able to focus 100% on the job and therefore ask that the compensation team take a second look at your numbers.
• “Are you sure about your data? ” Explain that your data is based on publicly available sources as well as conversations with other recruiters and people you know working in similar positions as you. And reiterate that you’d greatly appreciate it if they could take this back to their team to try to close the gap.

After handling these objections, your recruiter should agree to take things back to their team, and you’ll receive an updated offer within a few days.

Watch this video below for the 10 rules of salary negotiation.

Get support from a professional negotiator ↑

Our coaching team has run thousands of salary negotiations as recruiters and hiring managers. They negotiate daily and are therefore extremely comfortable with the process.

A negotiation done well should usually yield $10k+ to $100k+ in increase depending on your role and level. So spending $150 to $500 on getting help from a coach has a huge ROI (at least 10x).

Here’s what our coaching can help you with:

• Finding the weaknesses in your initial offer
• Determining what a reasonable total compensation is for you
• Practicing mock negotiation over the phone
• Giving you advice in situations we haven’t covered above