How to Compare Software Engineering Job Offers as a New Grad
Published ยท Finch Team
Updated
Getting two or more software engineering offers is exciting and paralyzing at the same time. Base salary is the number everyone focuses on. But base salary is often not the most important number in the offer, and making a decision based on it alone is a good way to leave tens of thousands of dollars on the table or pick a company that pays less than it appeared.
Here's how to actually compare offers.
The Four Components That Make Up Your Total Comp
Every software engineering offer at a tech company has at minimum these four components. You need all four to compare fairly.
Base Salary
The cash you receive in every paycheck, predictable and consistent. Easy to compare across offers. Most companies publish base ranges, and sites like Levels.fyi have data by company, level, and location.
Sign-On Bonus
A one-time payment, usually paid in your first or second paycheck. Most sign-on bonuses at tech companies include a clawback provision: if you leave before 12 months (sometimes 24), you owe some or all of it back. This matters if you're already thinking about tenure.
Sign-on bonuses frequently appear as a sweetener when the company can't or won't change the base. They're a common negotiation chip.
Equity (RSUs or Options)
This is where offers diverge the most at the new grad level, and where the most confusion happens.
RSUs (Restricted Stock Units) are the standard at larger public companies. You receive a grant of X shares, vesting over 4 years. The most common schedule is 25% per year on a quarterly or monthly basis. Some companies (Amazon being the most notable example) use a backloaded vesting schedule: 5% in year 1, 10% in year 2, 40% in year 3, 45% in year 4.
Stock options are more common at startups. More complex: the value depends entirely on the company's future and whether you can exercise them affordably.
For RSU calculations: take the total grant, figure out what percentage vests annually on your specific schedule, multiply by the current stock price to get approximate annual equity value. This number is often large ($40,000 to $100,000+ annually for new grads at big tech), and it's routinely ignored by candidates fixated on base salary.
Annual Bonus
Some companies offer a recurring performance bonus. For new grads, this is usually smaller ($5,000-$20,000) and not guaranteed: it depends on company and individual performance. Don't count it at full value when comparing. Treat it as upside, not baseline.
Annualizing Everything for a Fair Comparison
To compare offers on equal footing, annualize all components over year 1:
Year 1 total = Base + Sign-on + (Annual equity vesting value)
A worked example with real numbers:
Offer A: $150,000 base, $20,000 sign-on, $200,000 RSU grant at standard 25%/year vest
- Year 1: $150K + $20K + $50K = $220K
Offer B: $130,000 base, no sign-on, $400,000 RSU grant at standard 25%/year vest
- Year 1: $130K + $0 + $100K = $230K
Offer B pays $10,000 more in year 1 despite a lower base and no sign-on. This kind of reversal happens constantly in tech offers and is exactly why "base salary" is a misleading headline number.
Also run the year 4 comparison if you're planning to stay. That's when the full equity grant is realized and the sign-on is long forgotten.
Where to Find Comparable Data
Levels.fyi: the standard for tech compensation benchmarking. Filter by company, level, location, and role. For new grad SWE positions at any reasonably large tech company, there's usually enough data to see what the realistic range looks like.
Blind: anonymous forum where engineers at specific companies post offer details and discuss compensation. More noisy than Levels.fyi, but useful for understanding the full range and catching outliers.
Glassdoor and LinkedIn Salary: less detailed for tech, but useful for non-tech companies or roles where Levels.fyi has limited coverage.
Ask people directly. If you have a friend or LinkedIn connection who works at one of the companies you're evaluating, a direct conversation about the comp package is completely normal in tech. Pay transparency norms in engineering are much higher than in most industries. People share offer details.
Negotiating When You Have Multiple Offers
If you're holding multiple offers, you're in the strongest negotiating position you'll have during this hiring process. Use it.
The most effective move: go to your preferred company with a competing offer and ask them to match or improve it. You don't need to pressure or be adversarial about it. "I have an offer from [Company] for [total comp]. I prefer working at [your company], but I'd like to make the compensation decision simpler. Is there room to move?" is a complete negotiation in one sentence.
Companies that want you will respond. Companies at their ceiling will tell you they can't move. Either answer is useful information.
When base is frozen, companies often have flexibility in other areas: larger sign-on bonus, additional equity grant, or a faster first review cycle. Ask specifically.
For a complete playbook, see our post on software engineer salary negotiation for new grads.
Non-Compensation Factors That Actually Matter
Once you've done the financial math, there are non-monetary factors worth weighing honestly:
Vesting schedule risk. A large RSU grant at a volatile pre-IPO company or one with uncertain growth carries more risk than a smaller grant at a stable public company. A $300,000 startup option grant is worth $0 if the company doesn't exit or the price drops. Be honest with yourself about your risk tolerance before treating startup equity as equivalent to public company RSUs.
Role and team. What will you actually work on day-to-day? Who is your manager? Will you be on a team where you'll grow technically? In the first 2-3 years of your career, the rate of learning affects your next job almost as much as your current salary does.
Location and cost of living. $180,000 in San Francisco is not the same as $180,000 in Austin or Raleigh. Levels.fyi has a cost-of-living adjustment tool built into its comparison view. Use it. The gap is often larger than people expect.
Company trajectory. Is the company growing or contracting? A layoff in year 2 that stops your vesting before the cliff costs you more than a lower initial offer at a stable company. Hard to predict, but there are signals: recent headcount news, funding status for private companies, revenue trajectory for public ones.
Getting to the Offer Stage in the First Place
Of course, none of this matters until you have offers to compare. The fastest way to get there is to keep a high volume of quality applications going out, because the more companies you're talking to in parallel, the more likely you are to end up with real options to weigh.
Finch helps with exactly this. Each week it picks the 3 new-grad roles or internships that fit your major best, and its board lists more open roles. When you're running a 30-50 company search in the fall, less time searching compounds into more applications, more interviews and, eventually, more offers.
The Decision Framework
Once you've done the math, here's a simple structure for making the actual decision:
- Calculate annualized year 1 total comp for each offer
- Adjust for cost of living if offers are in different cities
- List the top 3 non-compensation factors for each offer: things like role clarity, team quality, growth opportunity, location preference
- Set your minimum: what dollar gap would you accept to pick a lower-paying offer for non-comp reasons?
If one offer is clearly ahead on both comp and non-comp factors, the decision is easy. If one pays more but you prefer the other for role or location reasons, you now have a specific question: "Is $X per year worth it to work in [city / on this team / at this company]?" That's a question you can actually answer.
Offer Comparison Checklist
- Get all offer components in writing: base salary, sign-on (and clawback terms), RSU grant amount, vesting schedule
- Check the RSU vesting schedule specifically: is it standard 25%/year or backloaded (Amazon-style)?
- Annualize each offer: base + year 1 equity + sign-on for apples-to-apples comparison
- Check comparable offers on Levels.fyi to see if you're at, above, or below market
- Adjust for cost of living if offers are in different metros
- If you have a preferred company and a stronger competing offer, ask for a match or improvement
- Review sign-on clawback terms: what are the conditions and how long do they last?
- Weigh non-comp factors honestly: team, role, company trajectory, growth opportunity, location
- Set a decision deadline: decision paralysis between multiple offers almost never resolves on its own