Slack is willing to negotiate but negotiations have been trickier since the Salesforce acquisition closed. The company is known to have exceptional WLB, and they are using that as a way to win candidates rather than competing on compensation. In some ways, this makes it even more important to negotiate to ensure you aren't paid below market rates.
- Base Salary
- Equity Package (see the Slack vesting schedule below)
- Performance Bonus (varies by levels)
- Slack Sign on Bonus (not included in all initial offers)
- Slack Stock Refreshers
Since Slack was acquired by Salesforce, you will of course receive Salesforce shares from the RSU package. These shares vest evenly over a 4-year period with a 1-year cliff.
The cash performance bonuses are as follows:
- Associate Engineer – 10%
- Engineer – 10%
- Senior Software Engineer – 15%
- Staff Software Engineer – 15%
- Senior Staff Software Engineer – 20%
- Principal Software Engineer – 20%
As mentioned above, Slack also does technically have performance-based stock refreshers. They used to be fairly generous with these, but Salesforce has notoriously low refreshers, so you shouldn't factor these into your offer. On the other hand, a high % of employees at Salesforce receive their performance bonus, and we expect this to continue to be the case for Slack offers.
Slack is a remote friendly company and is known to be quite flexible with remote work. However, we have seen a few cases where they are hesitant to offer remote positions in high cost of living areas - likely because they don't save any money from these. Slack’s remote salary, like most companies, varies across each component (except performance bonus) based on where you live.
Slack, most of the time, does not require employees to move since it is a remote friendly company. Though, if you are required to move, you should push for a $10k+ relocation bonus. It is also possible in some cases to secure additional benefits such as corporate housing for 1-2 months.
Equity is the most negotiable component at Slack, as is the case for most tech companies. However, Slack equity bands (especially post Salesforce acquisition) are much narrower than other top tier tech companies. This means that for Slack it is best to focus on negotiating the total compensation package. Base salary, equity, and signing bonus are all negotiable and the size of increase is more comparable across the three components vs. other companies in the industry. The one caveat to this is that senior staff and principal positions are more in line with industry standards.
Slack usually does not require written offers, but they may ask for some high-level details about the cross offers.
The challenge with Slack isn't usually getting them to believe a competing offer - they often believe it but are unwilling to match the offer unless you play your cards right.
This is very unlikely at Slack in our experience. They strongly prefer to compete on other factors like WLB and in some cases are willing to lose candidates to other offers.
Up-levelling is often a better strategy if it's not possible to make the compensation numbers work at your current level, and the negotiation strategy for up-levelling is similar to a traditional above band request. Slack has a unique levelling system which we outline below (eventually this may be merged into the salesforce levelling system).
There is a centralized compensation committee that sets Slack salary bands. This reduces the importance of the hiring manager relationship, and in our experience it's less critical to have that at Slack vs companies like Amazon. However, it definitely won't hurt to have a good relationship with your hiring manager for the negotiation and once you start in the new role.
Slack's hiring process typically has 5 stages: phone screen, technical exercise, hiring manager interview, “onsite” interview and offer stage.
The initial phone screen interview is where you get an opportunity to talk about your background and experience.
The technical exercise could be in the form a take home. The assignment will vary on the basis of the position.
The third interview is a chat with your hiring manager. The questions will be about your background and what you are looking for in the role. This is sometimes combined with the onsite.
The last stage of interviewing is the “onsite” interview, though this is currently virtual. It usually involves multiple rounds of interviews with the team and the hiring manager.
Lastly, if you succeed and an offer is extended, this is where your Slack salary negotiation process will begin.
Let's consider a Slack software engineer salary. Square and Slack are both known to have strong engineering cultures and have grown rapidly the past few years. For a senior engineer at Slack, a top of the band offer would $380k and at Square it would be about $360k. However, the split is a little different - Square usually offers more equity and Slack offers a higher base salary.
While Slack’s signing bonus, base pay, and stock grants should be the focus of your negotiation, there are other perks that are offered by the company. The most unique benefit is that they provide legal services at no cost to their employees. Also, one positive of the Salesforce acquisition is that Slack now has unlimited PTO, and this is actually a company where people are able to take advantage of that perk.
Associate Engineer (G03)
Engineer (G04)
Senior Engineer (G05)
Staff Engineer (G06)
Senior Staff Engineer (G07)
Principal Engineer (G08)
Equivalent Level at Google
L3
L4
Top of L4 and L5
Between L5 and L6
Between L6 and L7
Between L7 and L8
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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!
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Slack
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
Slack
offer possible