We've negotiated many Argo AI offers this year. Don't leave $100K+ on the table.
Argo AI is willing to negotiate, but the increases are not usually as high as you might see at big tech companies like Facebook and Amazon. That said, you should always negotiate your Argo AI offer - with the proper negotiation approach you can secure a substantial increase.
- Base Salary
- Argo AI Equity Package (see Argo AI's RSU vesting schedule below)
- Argo AI Signing Bonus (not included in all Argo AI offers)
- Performance Bonus
- Stock Refreshers
Argo AI has not gone public yet - there are speculations that it might happen this year, but it's a tough market right now. However, given their late stage status and high valuation, they offer RSUs instead of stock options. This is becoming an increasingly common trend with other companies like Databricks, Instacart, and Airtable adopting this approach. It is generally better for employees as they don't need to pay to purchase the shares (though there are tax implications).
Argo AI offers performance bonuses and we've listed some of the percentage targets below:
- SWE II – 15%
- Senior SWE – 15%
- Staff SWE – 20%
Stock refreshers do exist at Argo AI, but only after the 2.5 year mark. This is non standard as most companies offer performance-based stock refreshers after year 1 or 2.
Argo AI is open to remote work for roles, but they still have a large number of positions that require you to be in office.
For remote offers, pay bands differ based on geographic location (unlike Airbnb and Dropbox). Equity will take the biggest hit if you are based outside of SF/NYC/Seattle.
If you are required to move to accept the role, you should push for a $10k+ relocation package and a corporate housing stipend. More senior positions can sometimes request even bigger packages.
Argo AI’s most negotiable component is definitely equity, similar to other companies in the tech industry. Other components like Argo AI sign on bonus and base salary are also negotiable but increases will be smaller.
Argo AI doesn't usually require written competing offers.
Argo AI pays well and can go above band in certain circumstances, but they of course don't like to do that. The situation needs to be perfect (interviews and negotiation setup) and you need to play your hand correctly. This means getting excellent interview scores, setting up your leverage correctly, and carefully navigating the negotiation.
It is always essential to have a good relationship with your hiring manager. Though, hiring managers do not have as much control over Argo AI offers.
The hiring process at Argo AI is of course different for every role. However, the general hiring process has four stages: recruiter call, phone interview, onsite and offer stage.
Let’s consider an Argo AI software engineer salary. Argo AI offers more equity (though at Cruise you can sell your RSUs, which is a big advantage). For instance, equity for senior roles at Argo AI can go up to $300k per year but at Cruise it is about $180k per year. The base pay at both companies is pretty comparable.
Argo AI has pretty good benefits as you'd expect for a high paying tech company of this size (401K match, health coverage, etc.). They offer unlimited vacation (which has it's pros and cons) and 13 paid company holidays. You can read more about the benefits on the Argo AI careers page. That said, you shouldn't focus your negotiation on benefits - the dollar value of negotiating cash and equity components is much higher and companies rarely adjust benefits.
Software Engineer I
Software Engineer II
Senior Software Engineer
Staff Engineer
Senior Staff Engineer
Principal Engineer
Distinguished Engineer
Fellow
Equivalent Level at Google
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Our Clients Love Rora
Coming from a non-FAANG background, I was shocked to find out how much I could be earning. Before I signed up with Rora, I made the mistake of telling Amazon my current compensation. Thankfully, Rora knew exactly how to fix it and ended up getting me an offer that was 2.3X what I previously made and more than $600K higher than Amazon’s initial offer!
Through several weeks of interviews, Ganesh was always available to make sure I knew what to say for each conversation. I interviewed with start ups, Google, Facebook and Amazon and was really impressed that Rora knew the comp ranges and were able to give me tailored advice for each – even the start ups.
There ended up being two particularly complex moments in my negotiation. One of the start-ups I had a personal relationship with and I wasn’t sure how it would affect the negotiation. I like that there was a focus on my individual circumstances and that they were leveraged to get me a higher offer. The other situation is that Amazon made a mistake on my written offer and initially wouldn’t rectify it. Ganesh was able to guide me through a challenging conversation to get it resolved.
Thanks to Wilson and the team at Rora I got a ~$250K increase on my remote Facebook offer! I was initially worried I wouldn’t have much leverage because Facebook reached out to me, and I wasn’t interviewing anywhere else. Rora introduced me to an Amazon L7 recruiter and helped me get that process started. I didn’t even end up needing to finish the Amazon interviews, since we were able to use some early compensation conversations to justify our numbers to Facebook.
At one point I was also considering pushing for an E7 role, and they wrote up a great script for me to broach the subject with my recruiter. She ended up giving me the option to do an additional interview to be considered for the higher-level position.
The whole process was very smooth, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use the service for any future negotiations. I found the regular calls with Wilson where we walked through strategy and discussed the scripts to be extremely helpful. Not only did it help with this negotiation, but I also learned a lot of useful negotiation tactics that I’ve already started to use in other situations.
As an engineering leader with decades of experience and having now gone through the negotiation with the team at Rora, the only thing I can say is — get the help. Whether you realize you need it, or even if you think you don’t. Just because you have done well in engineering doesn't mean that you understand the tactics and limits of the recruiting process.
Rora helped me get a $200K increase on my original Facebook offer without any competing offers. It was clear that Rora was deeply familiar with Facebook's negotiation playbook. I’d honestly give the experience an 11/10.
In addition, Rora guided me on how to get the position switched to a revised remote role which was a huge deal at a personal level. They showed me how to redirect FB’s questions so that I could explore the possibility of not relocating, without ever having to say no to my original offer.
This is my first FAANG role and I'm so happy I worked with Rora (thanks again Annie!) for the negotiation. My goal was to increase my Google offer, but I was in a tricky situation where I only had 1 other interview (no offer yet) at a small startup. With their guidance, I managed to get a $240K increase on my Google offer, despite Google's policy of requiring cross offers in writing to justify an increase.
The mock negotiations were a big part of why I was able to get this increase. Going into the negotiation, I assumed the key factor was what to say but I quickly learned that how you say it is equally if not more important. This was clear when over the course of the call"no" turned into "I'll see what I can do" and eventually"I think we can make this work". A big part of this was also having someone with me on the calls to provide real time guidance. This took a lot of the stress out of the situation. I can't recommend this team highly enough!
After receiving several job offers, I needed to make a decision within a few days. I wanted to make sure I was getting the best offer possible, so I decided to use Rora. I was very pleased with their service. My coach, Sameer, was well prepared and had information about what compensation increases were likely possible. He provided detailed scripts covering a range of scenarios, and he did practice negotiations with me that helped me feel confident when I had the actual conversations.
With his help I was able to increase one offer by $45k per year plus get a $50k signing bonus and then use that to increase my offer from Square, which was my first choice. All throughout he was very responsive as I was dealing with some tight deadlines and looking to wrap things up quickly. Rora's fee was only a tiny fraction of the increase they helped me negotiate, and even though they would have made more money if I had taken the highest offer, Sameer always put my goals first and never pressured me to do so. I highly recommend Rora!
My friend introduced me to Rora and I’m so glad they did. I initially did some calculations to see if working with them would be worth it - my final increase ended up being ~3x higher than what I had estimated to be possible!
Their data is much more accurate than anything I found online. Without Sameer's guidance, I would have never known (and would have probably been too nervous) to ask for >$800K for anAmazon L7 offer. Of course, it's not just not enough to throw out a big number, you also need to be able to justify it. Sameer guided me through negotiating an up-level at another company, which I didn’t even know was possible at my level. With their scripts, I was able to leverage my competing offer to get exec approval for my Amazon offer. They also knew all the tricks Amazon would play (e.g., assuming 15% stock appreciation) and exactly how to counter them.
My total 4-year compensation increased by $570K. I don't think I've ever had a higher ROI – I’m very thankful that this service exists!
Argo AI
has a unique set of negotiation policies. If you don’t have experience negotiating with them, you risk losing out on large amounts of money because of very small mistakes.
There are many of these rules you need to know to get the highest
Argo AI
offer possible