Member-only story

What to say when negotiating a product design salary

Here are some things I’ve said to gain an extra $40,000 while negotiating with a public company.

Magic Brick
UX Collective
9 min readJan 2, 2023

recruiter guidelines for offers

When a company extends an offer, they expect a negotiation. If you do this well, you can receive a lot more money than the original offer. Here are some things to say to make the most of this process.

I’ve been asked by almost every company at the beginning of discussions what my “salary expectations” are.

amazon asking for salary expectations
How Amazon asks for salary expectations.

And I’ve caved in a few times. But now I know better. You are under no obligation to answer that question. When a recruiter asks you, they’ll try to frame it so “if there’s a big discrepancy, we won’t waste your time.” Simply state

“there’s probably not a big discrepancy, can you share the range?”

They know the range (obviously if they are going to spot a discrepancy they are starting at the range…) and might play coy and say they’ll send it over later. As more American states require this info to be posted on the listing, it becomes less of an issue for base salary at least.

Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Magic Brick

Anonymous product designer trying not to gatekeep.

Responses (5)

What are your thoughts?