We've negotiated many Rippling offers this year. Don't leave $100K+ on the table.
Rippling is willing to negotiate at most levels, unlike a few other startups (e.g. Figma). Rippling has their own set of negotiation tactics, one of which is pushing hard for a commitment to sign if they increase your offer. This can hurt your negotiation if you don't manage it carefully. Another tactic is that they’ve recently started trying to quote equity values based on a $9B valuation, despite their last major valuation round being a $6.5B Series C in October 2021.
- Base Salary
- Rippling Equity Package (see Rippling's RSU vesting schedule below)
- Sign on Bonus
- Stock Refreshers
Rippling equity is given as RSUs not options. This used to be rare for private companies, but is becoming increasingly common with companies such as TikTok, Waymo, and Airtable adopting similar policies. With RSUs, you don’t have to pay to purchase the shares but you are immediately taxed on that income.
Signing bonuses are quite rare at Rippling but they are possible.
Rippling doesn't offer cash performance bonuses (many startups don't).
The company does offer refreshers though the specific numbers vary based on your level, role, and performance. These refreshers vest over 4 years. Unfortunately Rippling's refreshers are typically smaller (10-20% of initial grant) vs public companies like Facebook that target 25% of initial grant. You can certainly earn more through strong performance, but stock refresher targets are not negotiable.
Rippling has some remote roles but many teams are primarily operating in person. You will need to speak with your hiring manager to confirm if a fully-remote position is possible.
If you do secure a remote role, there will usually be a discount based on where you are located in the US (other companies like Airbnb have removed this). However, one quirk is that Rippling's comp bands are pretty comparable in Seattle vs NYC/SF, whereas Seattle usually has a ~10% discount.
Rippling will offer a relocation package if you’re required to move. However, these relocation packages are not as large as the packages offered by public tech companies.
Rippling’s most negotiable component are base salary and equity. At most companies, equity is much more negotiable than base salary, however at Rippling they are quite similar.
They very rarely ask for written offers. This is a tactic primarily used by Google and Rippling has its own set of rules (e.g. trying to tip the negotiation in their favor by confirming if you will sign).
Rippling does not usually go above band when presented with cross offers. However, there is still potential for meaningful increases.
Hiring managers at Rippling have more of an impact over your negotiation vs. at other more established companies like Google and Facebook.
The hiring process at Rippling is different for every role. The hiring process for a software engineer typically has four stages: recruiter call, tech screen with system design + coding, hiring manager interview and offer stage.
Ramp and Rippling are both exceptional startups and they pay comparably well. For Google L5-equivalent levels (see levelling chart below), the base at Rippling can go up to $240k but Ramp tends to cap at around $200k. For equity, both have a top of band number of $250k. Signing bonuses are slightly larger at Ramp vs Rippling.
Rippling’s benefits, like many startups, are not as good as the public tech companies. For instance, they do not offer a 401k match, which is pretty standard at most companies. You will of course get the standard health care coverage but don't expect crazy office perks.
L5
L6
L7
L8
Equivalent Level at Google
L4
L5
L6
L7
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!
Rippling
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
Rippling
offer possible