We've negotiated many Walmart offers this year. Don't leave $100K+ on the table.
Mixed. They are willing to negotiate and we have secured some solid increases. However, they generally pay below top of market and have some tricky compensation policies.
Target bonuses used to be almost 100% guaranteed. Recently, fewer people have been receiving the target bonus %.
Many tech roles at Walmart no longer require you to come into the office (i.e. remote permanently). Compensation does change if you move states and pay is set based on the market rate of the new area where you are living.
Note: if Walmart is sponsoring your H1B there are specific rules around remote work you need to follow.
Walmart does offer relocation packages (or allowances) up to a preset amount based on bills accrued during the relocation process. We've seen even entry-level software engineers get packages of 12.5K, plus covering the costs of a moving service, flights, and a realtor to find an apartment.
However, Walmart can claw back some of this if a candidate quits the company. If you leave after 1 year, you could have to pay back 100% of the amount given by Walmart. If you leave after 2 years, you could have to pay back 50%.
The easiest component to negotiate is the signing bonus. What's unusual about Walmart negotiations is that base salary typically also has quite a wide band and over a 4-year period, this often has the biggest delta between initial and final offer.
Negotiating equity is difficult at Walmart because offers have a separate on hire equity grant (that vests over 4 years, but is small) and then "guaranteed" annual stock grants that also vest over 4 years.
Walmart will rarely ask for competing offers in writing. However, they will often refuse to match competing offers unless you play your cards right.
Walmart is quite strict with its compensation bands and very rarely do we see above band offers. If you have competing offers that are substantially higher, your best bet is to push for an uplevel at Walmart to ensure comp is competitive.
Your hiring manager can play a big role in your negotiation at Walmart. For many clients we've helped, the correct strategy has been to bring the hiring manager into the negotiation, as they often heavily influence or make the decision. This is very different than companies like Google.
Software Eng 2
Software Eng 3 (E3)
Senior SWE (E4)
Staff SWE (E5)
Principal SWE (E6)
Distinguished Eng (E7)
L3
L3 into L4
L4 into L5
L5
L6
L6 into L7
Walmart
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
Walmart
offer possible