Hardware Engineer Salary Negotiation - How to Negotiate Hardware Engineer Compensation

Do you know how to negotiate Hardware Engineer compensation? In this episode, I cover hardware engineer compensation packages, my proven step-by-step hardware engineer salary negotiation strategies, and some common mistakes to avoid during a hardware engineer offer negotiation.

That way you have negotiation advice that is based on hundreds of salary negotiations and actually work for Hardware Engineers.

SALARY NEGOTIATION TOOLS MENTIONED

• Salary Negotiation Coaching: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/
• Salary Negotiation Courses: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/courses
• Salary Negotiation Scripts & Templates: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/salary-negotiation-templates
• How to Negotiate a Job Offer Course: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/job-offer-negotiation-course
• Salary Calculator: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/total-compensation-calculator

HARDWARE ENGINEER SALARY NEGOTIATION RESOURCES

• Hardware Engineer Salary Negotiation Guide: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/resource-center/how-to-negotiate-a-hardware-engineer-job-offer
• Staff Engineer Salary Negotiation Guide: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/resource-center/how-to-negotiate-a-staff-engineer-salary 
• Best Salary Negotiation Resources: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/best-salary-negotiation-resources  
• Job Offer Comparison Tool: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/job-offer-comparison-tool 
• Video Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u233ItsL-oA 

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WHO AM I

I'm Brandon, the Founder and Lead Negotiator at The Salary Negotiator®. As a former corporate negotiator, I now help employees increase their compensation. Through hundreds of salary negotiations, I've helped career professionals secure over $200 million in additional compensation. My expertise is backed by more than 150 five-star reviews from career professionals on Google and Trustpilot.

Transcript

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How To Spot A Strong Offer

Brandon 0:00

Hardware engineers typically receive competitive compensation perks, but how do you know if your hardware engineer job offer is competitive before you accept it? In this episode, my goal is to help you cover everything you need to confidently navigate a hardware engineer's salary negotiation. I'm first going to cover compensation package structures for most hardware engineering roles so you know more about the hardware engineer's base salary, their bonus equity package, and any sign-up bonuses. That way you know exactly what to expect in an offer. Then I'm gonna walk you through my five recommended steps for negotiating a hardware engineer's job offer. They're improving through real-world salary negotiations that I've led with hardware engineers. That way you can filter out some of the bad advice out there and use salary negotiation strategies that are actually gonna work. And then I'm gonna close out the episode by highlighting three common mistakes that you should avoid in your hardware engineer offer negotiation. That way you do not risk the opportunity and you actually secure competitive compensation. So let's get right into it.

Why These Tactics Work

Brandon 0:50

Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Brandon Bramley and I'm the founder and lead negotiator at the salarynegotio.com. I provide professional job offer negotiation coaching, salary negotiation courses, and tools to professionals like you so you can navigate the negotiation process and secure competitive comp. I'm not just one of those career coaches or recruiters giving out generic salary negotiation advice online. There's already a ton of bad advice out there. So instead, I've actually led hundreds of salary negotiations across a ton of roles, helping my clients secure millions of dollars more in compensation. My background is actually in strategic negotiations, and my goal is to help you debunk some of the bad advice out there and give you proven salary negotiation strategies that are actually gonna work. So if you're a career professional looking to earn competitive pay, subscribe here for some actual tips. And when you're ready to take your negotiations to the next level, visit the salarynegotier.com for coaching courses and tools to help you earn more.

Base Pay Bonus Equity Sign On

Brandon 1:39

Now, before I dive into how to negotiate a hardware engineer's salary, let's talk about the compensation components because it's really important that you understand the difference between your base salary and your total compensation. Way too many times do I see hardware engineers focus only on their base salary for the role when it's just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to a hardware engineer's pay, okay? Especially if you're working at a tech company. So when considering a new company, you need to take a look at the whole picture, which is your total monetary take-home pay, also known as your total compensation. For a hardware engineer, this is typically gonna be a base salary, bonus, besting equity each year, and any sign up bonuses. So I want to talk through those four core compensation components that might be in your hardware engineer's job offer. Okay, so the first is your hardware engineer's base salary. Okay, this is nothing new. This is your consistent guaranteed pay that you'll see in every paycheck. This is really only gonna change with promotions or merit increases since it's a set rate. So you shouldn't be surprised with this since you should see this with every role. So I don't want to spend too much time there. But the big one is second is your annual performance bonus as a hardware engineer. Okay, it's usually gonna be a percentage of your base salary and it's gonna range depending on your hardware engineer role level, and it's gonna be based on either personal or company performance, and it's typically paid out annually, so it can fluctuate. But the hardware engineer bonus is tied to your base salary. So just so you know, it usually can't negotiate it. But if you do negotiate a higher base salary, usually your bonus is gonna increase as well. So keep that in mind. The third item is you're hopefully gonna receive an equity incentive as a hardware engineer. This usually comes in the form of either restricted stock units or RSUs or employee stock options. RSUs for a hardware engineer are gonna represent actual stock, which means you receive shares that company stock outright wants at best. Stock options, on the other hand, are gonna give you the right to purchase a company stock at a predetermined price. So essentially you have to pay or exercise these options to actually receive the actual shares. So keep that in mind depending on you're going to like a tech company or a startup. As for a hardware engineer equity grant, note that they come with a stock vesting schedule. This is essentially gonna mean that you actually have to wait for the equity to vest according to that schedule before you own the shares or options. Most stock vesting periods are either three or four years with the equity vesting in increments over that time. You're either gonna see an evenly distributed or a staggered vesting schedule. So for example, Microsoft's RSU vesting schedule is a four-year period with equal annual vesting, okay? Where 25% invest each year. However, if you're a hardware engineer and you decide to go to Amazon, you're gonna see a staggered RSU vesting schedule, where only 5% invest at the end of year one, 15% at the end of year two, 40% in year three, and the remaining 4% in year four. So companies are gonna have their own specific vesting schedules for hardware engineers, so keep that in mind. Um, and the big thing to know is you're not gonna get the equity value up front, but you do get the share of the value fluctuations over that period, right? So if the stock price goes up, so does the value of shares, but the flip side is if it goes down, so does your total compensation. So there are risks, and if you actually ever leave that company before your equity vests, you are gonna forfeit that unvested portion of your hardware engineer equity. Okay. Um, and the cool thing is a lot of companies are gonna offer more equity on an annual basis to hardware engineers, which are called an annual equity refresh. These are not at all companies, and we typically don't include them in our total compensation calculations since they can fluctuate and they're not guaranteed. But I always suggest that you ask your recruiter about these to see if they do offer stock refreshes at your new company. And finally, hopefully you get a sign-on bonus as a hardware engineer. Okay, this is a one-time cash payment, typically paid out 30 days after you start, and it's often designed to offset any loss incentives or equity from your previous company or maybe just as an incentive to join. Okay, so hardware engineers' bonuses aren't always included in the initial offer, so they typically require negotiation. And very often I've had huge success in securing these for the hardware engineers that I work with, so I always suggest attempting to negotiate one because if you do it right, hopefully you'll get this additional compensation perk in your offer package. So these four main hardware engineer salary components, your base salary, your bonus, equity, and sign up bonus are gonna make up your total compensation as a hardware engineer. Okay, if you need help visualizing this, let's walk through a hardware engineer example to see how this might look. So by using our free compensation calculator on our site, you can input your hardware engineer base salary, your bonus percentage, equity grant, and sign-up bonus to see your estimated compensation over the vesting period, both in a total and on an annual basis. You can actually find our free total compensation calculator at thesalarynegotier.com. And I'll also link to it in the episode notes below so you can use this free tool as you calculate your total compensation in your next offer

The Five Step Negotiation Plan

Brandon 6:10

package. Okay, so now that we walked through a hardware engineer's compensation structure works, let's discuss a hardware engineer's salary negotiation process. Okay, these are the salary negotiation strategies that I've used to successfully negotiate many hardware engineer job offers. And I'm gonna recommend that you all follow to navigate your salary negotiation as a hardware engineer once you actually have an offer in hand. So the first step to negotiating is always to make sure you fully understand the compensation components and benefits in your hardware engineer offer package. The biggest takeaway from this is understanding the hardware engineer total compensation before negotiating is very important because that way you're gonna know how to value the hardware engineer offer and exactly what to negotiate, making sure that during the negotiation you increase your base salary, your annual bonus, and your sign-up bonus and equity as well. Okay, we don't want to go ahead and just increase one item, we wanna increase them all in the negotiation. The second step is what I call doing your due diligence and asking strategic questions. This is where you're gonna review your offer package and come up with a list of questions to ask the recruiter. Okay, as a hardware engineer, it's gonna help you clarify any questions you might have about the offer, but also throw in some strategic ones to go ahead and increase your leverage in the negotiation. That way you're not coming out of left field when you actually go into sending a counter offer. Okay, I have a huge list of my strategic questions to ask if you're a hardware engineer on my templates page or in my course. So don't skip this step. The third item is or step is to go ahead and do your compensation research, okay, to find the base salary and the total compensation range for the specific hardware engineering role, the location, and the level of the new company. Okay, there's a ton of resources out there, and I'm gonna want to make sure that you actually average across them to go ahead and find the low and the high end of those bands so you can see where your hardware engineer job offer comp sits on those ranges, so you can see how much more to ask for. So we're asking for realistic compensation. Once you have the hardware engineer compensation research done and you've gotten the answers to all your questions, you're finally ready to draft a hardware engineer counteroffer. So this is where I want you to take a database approach and craft a hardware engineer counteroffer to send to the recruiting team. You're gonna present the top out of the range you're targeting based off your compensation research, and you're gonna call out some of the items that weren't competitive in your due diligence questions. I'm highly gonna suggest you always do this by email, especially if you're a hardware engineer and you're not used to these discussions, because that's gonna give the recruiter everything they need to advocate on your behalf with the comp team, and you're not gonna end up on the phone with the recruiter trying to go ahead and be ready for when they cut you off and they throw you objections. Because if you want to know the final step of the negotiation, it is handling pushback on your hardware engineer counteroffer. Because if even if you send a counter offer, typically the recruiter is gonna come back to give you pushback on a phone of why they can't do it, why you have the best offer. So you need to be ready to overcome that. And the best way to overcome that is to understand exactly where they're coming from, respond that you still have these concerns, and nicely ask them to take it back to the team. And it's probably gonna take a few times doing this. It's gonna feel a little uncomfortable, but if you do it right and you overcome those objections, nine times out of ten, they're gonna come back with a better hardware engineer offer package. And while that is the hardest part of the negotiation, I do have a full list of my objection handling responses on my templates page that or in my course that you can download and use those scripts if you encounter this recruiter pushback. That way you can feel comfortable in these discussions and not jeopardize the relationships. And hopefully, if you went ahead and did everything correctly and followed all the steps, they're typically gonna come back with a better package, right? It's either gonna meet your goals or it might be slightly lower than you're asked. And at that point, you can decide if you want to go ahead and send a second counter offer or if you're ready to accept and lock in the new role and start the transition process. The only thing I'm gonna highlight is that negotiating a hardware engineer's salary is not like how you negotiate in business-to-business deals or a car dealership, okay? It's not aggressive, it's not back and forth like you might see on TV. So, really, you don't want to send more than two counteroffers, okay? Otherwise, you're gonna risk coming off as aggressive and it could jeopardize your relationship. So keep that in mind as you go into these discussions.

Mistakes That Kill Leverage

Brandon 10:06

Now, the last thing I want to cover is a few hardware engineer salary negotiation mistakes before you decide to negotiate a hardware engineer offer letter, okay? Because the main item I'm always gonna recommend against if you are a hardware engineer is do not share your salary expectations or your current pay with a recruiting team. That's a huge mistake and it will work against you, okay? Because if you think about it, if you throw out a lower number than what they can offer, you're gonna get a less competitive compensation package at the low end of their pay range, okay? Or you're gonna run the risk of being down leveled, which is very common for the hardware engineers that I work with that are moving to tech companies. So don't do that. And on the flip side, if you think it's a good idea to throw out like a big number, thinking you're anchoring high and you're gonna get a better pay, don't do that as well. It's a horrible strategy. You're either not gonna get the job offer because they feel they can't afford you and they don't want to waste time in the negotiations and they'll go forward with a different candidate, or it's not gonna give you that much negotiation leverage because you probably undershot anyways, um, or it didn't get them to move because they figure they'll just throw out a quick offer quickly to see if you'll accept, and if not, move on to someone else. So don't do it. Instead, always turn that question back on the hiring team, okay, because they know how much they can pay for the hardware engineering role, not you. So ask them for the base salary and ask them for the total compensation range, see if they're willing to give you some insight on that, and then keep that in mind until you have the opera package in hand and you're able to do your compensation research. All right, that also leads me into the second mistake to avoid is when you're doing your compensation research, make sure you're asking for realistic pay. Okay, that's why realistic compensation research for a hardware engineer is so important, is because if you're throwing out random numbers or if they come off too high, you're either gonna get laughed at or it could come off as aggressive. In some cases, it could get the offer rescinded. Okay, so you always want to take a database approach as a hardware engineer to make sure you're asking for realistic compensation that they can provide. That way you're not jeopardizing the opportunity and you're actually hopefully gonna end up at the top end of the payment. Okay, so keep that in mind. Outside of that, and the biggest thing I cannot highlight enough is as a hardware engineer, do not be scared of the salary negotiation. Okay, I get it. You don't have these conversations every day, so you might feel nervous. But if you follow proven strategies and you keep the negotiation professional, there's no reason you should risk the hardware engineer job offer. Instead, if you do it right, you're hopefully gonna get a better package and you're gonna feel much better about negotiating the hardware engineer's salary as long as you get it done. Okay, you're gonna look back and say, hey, I'm glad that I'm making a lot more rather than being unhappy because you didn't have these conversations when you started your new role. Okay, so just don't skip it. And if you do it right, you should secure a better hardware engineer offer package before starting the new role. Okay, so have confidence in this, but make sure you're following proven strategies or get the support you need to help negotiate a hardware engineer offer package.

Tools Help And Closing

Brandon 12:50

Okay, and honestly, that wraps up this episode on hardware engineer offer negotiation. I really hope my breakdown of hardware engineers compensation structure, our proven hardware engineer salary negotiation strategies and negotiation mistakes avoid as a hardware engineer helps you feel more confident in having these discussions. Okay, but honestly, if you're serious in getting the best possible offer, I really don't suggest you go into the salary negotiation alone. Instead, head over to the salary negotiator.com to either work with me directly as your salary negotiation coach or check out my salary negotiation courses and tools. You'll find all the links in the episode notes below. And if you found this episode helpful, make sure you subscribe, leave me a comment, and share with someone who could use this advice in their career. Thanks for tuning in and happy negotiating, everyone.

Brandon 13:28

 SALARY NEGOTIATION TOOLS MENTIONED • Salary Negotiation Coaching: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/ • Salary Negotiation Courses: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/courses • Salary Negotiation Scripts & Templates: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/salary-negotiation-templates • How to Negotiate a Job Offer Course: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/job-offer-negotiation-course • Salary Calculator: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/total-compensation-calculator HARDWARE ENGINEER SALARY NEGOTIATION RESOURCES • Hardware Engineer Salary Negotiation Guide: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/resource-center/how-to-negotiate-a-hardware-engineer-job-offer • Staff Engineer Salary Negotiation Guide: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/resource-center/how-to-negotiate-a-staff-engineer-salary • Best Salary Negotiation Resources: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/best-salary-negotiation-resources • Job Offer Comparison Tool: https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/job-offer-comparison-tool • Video Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u233ItsL-oA