Negotiating at Splunk can be quite difficult as the compensation bands are narrow. They also pay fairly well to begin with, which can make it hard to use competing offers for leverage during the negotiation (though there are strategies to work around this).
- Base Salary
- Splunk Equity Package (see Splunk's RSU vesting schedule below)
- Splunk Signing Bonus (not included in all Splunk offer packages)
- Annual Bonus
- Stock Refreshers
Refreshers at Splunk are performance-based and not guaranteed. Splunk has historically had very strong refreshers - you could typically expect around 33% of your initial grant. However, we've been told that this policy is being re-evaluated and refreshers may not be as generous moving forward.
Splunk pays bonuses quite consistently, so this should be a factor when comparing to other offers. Its performance bonus targets are not negotiable, which is typical across the industry. Below are the percentage targets for software engineering levels:
- P2 – 10%
- P3 – 10%
- P4 – 20%
- P5 – 20%
- P6 – 25%
In 2021, Splunk was one of many companies to adopt a permanent remote work model. As for its remote salary pay bands, there's still a difference based on geographic location. Generally offers are grouped into 3 tiers which have different compensation ranges for base salary and equity.
Splunk is a permanently remote company (as mentioned above). Hence, there aren't many situations where the company will require you to move for the role, and therefore no chance of a relocation package.
Splunk offer bands are quite narrow. On a comparative basis with other companies in the industry, base salary is slightly more negotiable than normal. However, at Splunk equity will still typically have the largest increase. Signing bonuses are small at Splunk but of course worth negotiating for.
They usually don't require written competing offers when negotiating but may ask for additional information regarding the offer like location, breakdown, etc.
Splunk doesn't go above band during negotiations. Your goal should be to lock in a top of band offer, which is no easy feat at Splunk.
It is always beneficial to have a strong relationship with your hiring manager. This is even more important when interviewing and negotiating with Splunk because, in rare cases, recruiters have been known to ghost candidates, and a good HM relationship reduces that risk.
The hiring process at Splunk is different for every role. However, the hiring process for a software engineer typically has five stages: phone screen with a recruiter, take home, hiring manager screen, onsite interview, and offer stage.
Square tends to pay a little better than Splunk. A Splunk software engineer salary at P3 is ~$260k/year and at Square, the total compensation for the equivalent level is around ~$275k/year. Although the base at Splunk is higher than the base at Square, this is just because Splunk is more base heavy.
Splunk's benefits package is pretty standard and you should instead focus your negotiation on Splunk's base pay, equity, and signing bonus.
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
Equivalent Level at Google
L3
L4
Between L4 and L5
L5
L6
Between L7 and L8
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Splunk
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
Splunk
offer possible.
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Company-specific negotiation guides
