Roku is tough to negotiate with. They pay well to begin with and don't like to increase offers. You should still negotiate or you will be leaving money on the table, but it's going to require the right data and strategies.
Despite having regular reviews to ensure that employees are still being paid at top of market rates, most people report slow comp increases after joining. This makes the initial negotiation all the more important.
- Base Salary
- Roku Equity Package (see Roku's RSU vesting schedule below)
- Roku Signing Bonus (rarely included in Roku offer packages)
- Stock Refreshers
Roku only recently began offering signing bonuses. They are still quite hard to secure and smaller than what is offered at most big tech companies.
One unique aspect of Roku's comp is the split between equity and base. For SWE roles, it's usually 85% base and 15% stock, though there are situations where this is negotiable.
Roku unfortunately does not currently offer any cash performance bonuses.
They also don't have annual stock refreshers. They do have a stock refresher policy, but these are granted towards the end of your initial equity grant, whereas at most companies stock refreshers start stacking in year 2.
Roku is one of the few tech companies that is not remote-friendly. When the pandemic is over, employees are expected to come in from Tuesday to Thursday, with Monday and Friday being work from home. Fully remote work is possible on some teams but usually requires a difficult approval process.
Remote pay at Roku is 15% lower than in-office compensation.
Given their stance on remote work, you may be required to move to accept an offer. Roku will provide a relocation package, though they often propose numbers below industry averages (<$10K). This is negotiable but shouldn't be the main focus of your negotiation.
As mentioned, Roku has a unique structure where the split between stock and base salary is fairly consistent (15/85). Therefore, you should focus on negotiating total compensation. Signing bonuses are viable, but given the narrow bands, it's lower value to start your negotiation there.
You don't usually need written proof of an offer for a Roku negotiation, but you will be asked about other details regarding the offer location, level, breakdown, etc.
Roku almost never goes above band. They pay well to begin with and don't like to negotiate. That said, substantial increases are still possible within the set bands.
Yes. Higher offers often need to be approved by the hiring manager and the comp team.
The hiring process at Roku is different for every role. There are typically three stages for a software engineering position: phone screen with recruiter, onsite interview (4 interviews), and offer stage.
Roku tends to pay better than Apple. Let's compare an Apple ICT3 salary to a Roku software engineer salary. Roku top of band for SWE (note: this is not senior SWE) in 2021 was close to $300K/year. In comparison, Apple was closer to $270k/year. Roku has a cash-heavy compensation structure, so the top of band base salary can go up to $250K/year. Whereas at Apple it is only about $170k/year.
Roku's benefits are not the best in the industry. They do not offer ESPP or a 401k match, and though they offer unlimited paid time off, this actually has some drawbacks. You should focus your negotiation on increasing total comp as much as possible to make up for the lower benefits (however, using benefits as justification during the negotiation rarely works).
Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer
Equivalent Level at Google
L4
L5+
Our Clients Love Rora
Coming from a non-FAANG background, I was shocked to find out how much I could be earning. Before I signed up with Rora, I made the mistake of telling Amazon my current compensation. Thankfully, Rora knew exactly how to fix it and ended up getting me an offer that was 2.3X what I previously made and more than $600K higher than Amazon’s initial offer!
Through several weeks of interviews, Ganesh was always available to make sure I knew what to say for each conversation. I interviewed with start ups, Google, Facebook and Amazon and was really impressed that Rora knew the comp ranges and were able to give me tailored advice for each – even the start ups.
There ended up being two particularly complex moments in my negotiation. One of the start-ups I had a personal relationship with and I wasn’t sure how it would affect the negotiation. I like that there was a focus on my individual circumstances and that they were leveraged to get me a higher offer. The other situation is that Amazon made a mistake on my written offer and initially wouldn’t rectify it. Ganesh was able to guide me through a challenging conversation to get it resolved.
Thanks to Wilson and the team at Rora I got a ~$250K increase on my remote Facebook offer! I was initially worried I wouldn’t have much leverage because Facebook reached out to me, and I wasn’t interviewing anywhere else. Rora introduced me to an Amazon L7 recruiter and helped me get that process started. I didn’t even end up needing to finish the Amazon interviews, since we were able to use some early compensation conversations to justify our numbers to Facebook.
At one point I was also considering pushing for an E7 role, and they wrote up a great script for me to broach the subject with my recruiter. She ended up giving me the option to do an additional interview to be considered for the higher-level position.
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As an engineering leader with decades of experience and having now gone through the negotiation with the team at Rora, the only thing I can say is — get the help. Whether you realize you need it, or even if you think you don’t. Just because you have done well in engineering doesn't mean that you understand the tactics and limits of the recruiting process.
Rora helped me get a $200K increase on my original Facebook offer without any competing offers. It was clear that Rora was deeply familiar with Facebook's negotiation playbook. I’d honestly give the experience an 11/10.
In addition, Rora guided me on how to get the position switched to a revised remote role which was a huge deal at a personal level. They showed me how to redirect FB’s questions so that I could explore the possibility of not relocating, without ever having to say no to my original offer.
This is my first FAANG role and I'm so happy I worked with Rora (thanks again Annie!) for the negotiation. My goal was to increase my Google offer, but I was in a tricky situation where I only had 1 other interview (no offer yet) at a small startup. With their guidance, I managed to get a $240K increase on my Google offer, despite Google's policy of requiring cross offers in writing to justify an increase.
The mock negotiations were a big part of why I was able to get this increase. Going into the negotiation, I assumed the key factor was what to say but I quickly learned that how you say it is equally if not more important. This was clear when over the course of the call"no" turned into "I'll see what I can do" and eventually"I think we can make this work". A big part of this was also having someone with me on the calls to provide real time guidance. This took a lot of the stress out of the situation. I can't recommend this team highly enough!
After receiving several job offers, I needed to make a decision within a few days. I wanted to make sure I was getting the best offer possible, so I decided to use Rora. I was very pleased with their service. My coach, Sameer, was well prepared and had information about what compensation increases were likely possible. He provided detailed scripts covering a range of scenarios, and he did practice negotiations with me that helped me feel confident when I had the actual conversations.
With his help I was able to increase one offer by $45k per year plus get a $50k signing bonus and then use that to increase my offer from Square, which was my first choice. All throughout he was very responsive as I was dealing with some tight deadlines and looking to wrap things up quickly. Rora's fee was only a tiny fraction of the increase they helped me negotiate, and even though they would have made more money if I had taken the highest offer, Sameer always put my goals first and never pressured me to do so. I highly recommend Rora!
My friend introduced me to Rora and I’m so glad they did. I initially did some calculations to see if working with them would be worth it - my final increase ended up being ~3x higher than what I had estimated to be possible!
Their data is much more accurate than anything I found online. Without Sameer's guidance, I would have never known (and would have probably been too nervous) to ask for >$800K for anAmazon L7 offer. Of course, it's not just not enough to throw out a big number, you also need to be able to justify it. Sameer guided me through negotiating an up-level at another company, which I didn’t even know was possible at my level. With their scripts, I was able to leverage my competing offer to get exec approval for my Amazon offer. They also knew all the tricks Amazon would play (e.g., assuming 15% stock appreciation) and exactly how to counter them.
My total 4-year compensation increased by $570K. I don't think I've ever had a higher ROI – I’m very thankful that this service exists!
Roku
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
Roku
offer possible.
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Company-specific negotiation guides
