Negotiating Your Offer

Set an Intel offer next to a FAANG letter and it looks light, so it pays to understand the shape before the number lands. The pay sits below the big names at every grade, and the package is built differently. A FAANG offer leans hard on equity. This one leans on cash. Base salary dominates. At the entry grades it runs roughly 84 to 88 percent of the total, easing toward half or two thirds only at Principal as the stock grant finally grows. The rest is a modest RSU and a bonus that is real but currently thin. Read the recruiter's headline as mostly base.

That base-heavy shape drives how Intel negotiates, and it flips the instinct most candidates carry in from other loops. The give is not in base. It lives in the signing bonus first and the stock grant second. Get the full breakdown on paper before you counter, and be clear about which line you are actually pushing.