Block Salary Negotiation - How to Negotiate a Block Job Offer
Have you recently received a job offer from Block? If so, congrats! Whether it's for Square, Cash App, or another team, receiving a Block job offer is a major achievement and can be a significant step forward in your career journey.
It should also come with a big increase in pay and we want to help you maximize the compensation through a successful Block salary negotiation. The great thing about salary negotiations at companies like Block (formerly Square) is that they are both incredibly common and if approached right, very effective.
Over the years, career professionals have used our salary negotiation strategies to secure significantly improved Block compensation packages, and we are going to share these insights and tips with you in this salary negotiation guide. In the following sections, we will walk you through exactly how to prepare for and execute a Block salary negotiation. By the end, you’ll have the tools you need to secure a better Block offer letter.
Want to Negotiate Your Offer? Get offer-specific guidance from a Salary Negotiation Coach. We help career professionals negotiate competitive job offers.
Or leverage our Salary Negotiation Courses and Templates.
Understanding Block Compensation Components
Before attempting to negotiate the compensation, the first thing you need to do is make sure you understand exactly what’s included in the Block compensation package. This means looking beyond just your base salary and evaluating all elements that contribute to your total compensation at Block.
For example, most job offers in the tech space include a wide range of compensation components, including annual target bonuses, equity packages, and sign-on bonuses. When it comes to Block offer letters in particular, the total compensation that you receive will be split across the following compensation components:
BLOCK BASE SALARY
BLOCK EMPLOYEE EQUITY
BLOCK SIGN-ON BONUS
BLOCK EQUITY REFRESH
The average total compensation for a Block software engineer salary (L6) might look like the following:
BLOCK SOFTWARE ENGINEER SALARY
Taking a close look at all the different elements of your Block compensation package allows you to:
Calculate your total annual take home pay accurately
Negotiate each component from an informed and knowledgeable perspective
Don’t worry if you’re a little fuzzy on some of the things included in your Block offer letter. In the following sections, we will break down the most common elements of the Block compensation and benefits package and explain them each in detail.
BLOCK BASE SALARY
The Block base salary is the guaranteed fixed pay you receive in exchange for the work you do. The only time your Block base salary will change after starting their is if you receive merit increases or a promotion.
Like most large tech companies, Block has fixed base salary ranges for each of their specific roles. The base salary that you’re offered can fall anywhere between the minimum and maximum amounts associated with these ranges. For example, the base salary ranges for a Block senior software engineer salary will look different from the ranges for a Block staff software engineer salary. The same is true even for Block job offers at the same level – they will have different ranges depending on their specific roles (i.e., a Block senior product designer salary vs. a Block senior product manager salary).
Identifying what the Block salary range is for your specific role is arguably the most important step in preparing for a successful negotiation. It’s very possible that the base salary you’re initially offered during your Block job offer process falls at the lower- to mid-end of the pay range for your role. If you know this and you know what the pay range is, you then know that you can negotiate for a higher Block base pay.
BLOCK PERFORMANCE BONUS
While performance bonuses are common incentives at Meta, Intuit, and other large tech companies, Block has a different compensation philosophy.
Like Netflix and Nvidia – who also lack performance bonuses in their compensation packages – Block has decided to focus primarily on their base salary and RSUs. So don’t expect to see an annual Block performance bonus as part of your Block compensation structure.
BLOCK EQUITY PACKAGE
Block compensation packages should come with employees equity, which is an important differentiator that drives most career professionals to tech companies such as them.
Block offer letters will include an initial Block employee equity grant that comes in the form of restricted stock units (Block RSUs), not Block employee stock options. These Block RSUs represent actual stock (i.e., you will receive shares of SQ stock) that you will own when the Block employee stock vest according to the Block vesting schedule.
Block RSUs have a four-year Block vesting schedule which means your initial stock will vest in equal amounts (1/4 of initial grant) annually over those four years.
The Block equity package is fully negotiable, but we recommend negotiating your equity in tandem with the other compensation components and not as a one-off component. Otherwise you’ll risk them just moving money from one bucket to the other and your total compensation at Block not increasing.
Also always keep in mind that the value of the Block employee equity will fluctuate based on the market value of Block. If the SQ stock is doing great, so will its employees. But the reverse is also true for your Block RSUs.
BLOCK SIGN-ON BONUS
A Block sign-on bonus is a one-time hiring bonus you receive when you start your role. This bonus does two things:
It acts as an incentive to join Block and leave your other company
It can make up for any lost bonuses or unvested equity at your former company
Most roles should be eligible for a Block signing bonus, but unlike Amazon sign-on bonuses that are extended in every offer, you might not see one in your initial offer at Block. It usually takes some negotiating first.
Block sign-on bonuses can be negotiated even if you don’t have a competing offer or are walking away from money at your current company. Later in this guide we will show you how you can negotiate for a Block sign-on bonus strategically.
BLOCK STOCK REFRESHER
You should see a Block stock refresher (more Block RSUs) in most roles annually. However, because most recruiters will not willingly share the expected yearly amount for a Block stock refresher, it’s difficult to know how much you’ll receive until you reach each refresher.
While we encourage you to ask the recruiter about it, we don’t include the Block stock refresher in our total compensation calculation because the unknowns on the Block stock refresh make it hard to compare across offers.
BLOCK EMPLOYEE BENEFITS AND PERKS
You should also receive decent Block employee benefits and perks in your Block compensation package – such as health and other core benefits (Block 401k match, medical perks, generous PTO, etc.). In general, Block employee perks are what you’d expect from a leading tech company.
While these perks are typically non-negotiable, we still suggest carefully evaluating and asking about your Block employee benefits during the due diligence phase of the salary negotiation process. Doing so can help you build leverage in your Block salary negotiation.
Steps for a Block Salary Negotiation
Now that we've covered the compensation components of a Block offer letter, we're ready to guide you through our proven Block salary negotiation steps. This ensures you have a strategic plan to effectively navigate the comp negotiation while maintaining a positive relationship with the hiring team.
Also, while the following steps are key to a Block salary negotiation, we strongly recommend working with a Block Salary Negotiation Coach to guarantee success in the negotiation.
1) UNDERSTAND THE COMPONENTS OF BLOCK SALARY
The first step to a successful Block salary negotiation requires digging into your offer and making sure you understand each of its components. Since we’ve already walked through the main Block compensation components and how they work, this step should be easy.
The main goal here is to make sure you’re clear on your Block total compensation before trying to negotiate your Block job offer. You can use our Total Compensation Tool to calculate your Block compensation components in this step if needed.
2) COMPLETE DUE DILIGENCE ON BLOCK OFFER LETTER BY ASKING QUESTIONS
Once you’ve calculated your total Block compensation, your next step should be to do your due diligence on the offer letter and begin asking strategic questions to the recruiting team. This step is all about due diligence and the goal is twofold:
You want to gain data and insights needed to develop an effective Block counteroffer
You demonstrate to the hiring team that you value the opportunity and are researching the Block offer letter details
We highly recommend you begin asking questions within the first 24-48 hours of receiving your Block offer letter to ensure they know you are working towards acceptance of the role. If you’re not sure what to ask, you can use this resource we’ve created: Strategic Questions to Build Negotiation Leverage.
3) RESEARCH WHAT BLOCK COMPENSATION SHOULD LOOK LIKE
Like we mentioned earlier, Block compensation structures are typically based on predetermined salary ranges for each specific role. So for this step, you need spend some time researching Block compensation data so you can determine the strength of your Block offer letter and how much you should counter for.
The most important thing to remember here is that your research needs to be specific to your exact level and position. For example, you wouldn’t want to come to the table with data on a software engineer salary Block if your offer was actually for a senior software engineer salary Block.
Fortunately, there are many online resources available for compensation research, such as Built In and Comparably to name a few. However, keep in mind that the salary ranges on public sites are often self-reported by current or former employees, meaning they may not reflect the most up-to-date offers for Block new hires. This is especially true given the changes in compensation from year to year due to the equity component (i.e., if you see high comp data on Block Levels fyi it might be due to equity appreciation and not what they typically offer a new hire).
For the most accurate data, we recommend cross-referencing pay data across multiple platforms. We created our Total Compensation Research Comparison Tool to help you streamline your research and effectively analyze pay ranges for your role in this step.
4) SEND A BLOCK COUNTEROFFER TO THE RECRUITER
With your compensation research in hand, you should now be prepared to develop an effective Block counteroffer and send it to the recruiter.
The goal of this step is to take a strategic data-based approach and NOT just reiterate what you would bring to the team – they already know this which is why you received the offer to work at Block in the first place. In your Block counter you should:
Respectfully communicate how the benefits in your initial offer differ from other companies and/or your current role
Reference what leverage points you found by asking strategic questions
Strategically highlight the pay data insights you’ve gathered and your ask
We highly recommend sending your Block counteroffer through email to reduce the risk of going off topic. Email also gives the Block recruiter something accurate and tangible to share and review with the hiring team.
To ensure proper communication, we’ve created Counteroffer Email Templates to help you draft a strategic Block counteroffer.
5) HANDLE RECRUITER OBJECTIONS ON THE BLOCK COUNTEROFFER
Once you send over your Block counteroffer, brace yourself for the recruiting team to respond with pushback. They’ll probably explain that they can’t make any increases or changes to the Block offer package.
This is a typical part of the process so simply respond professionally by stating you understand their constraints, but ask again if they could take your counter back to their comp team for one last look (like how we explain in our Objection Handling Scripts). You should still ask even if they insist their team will just say no.
They should return with an improved offer once they agree to take your thoughts back to their team. If the updated compensation package aligns with your goals and the Block salary bands you researched, you should be ready to send over our Offer Acceptance Email to lock it in!
Negotiation Mistakes to Avoid During a Block Salary Negotiation
Now that’ve we covered what you should do during your Block salary negotiation, we thought we’d outline a few things you shouldn’t.
There are a lot of mistakes you can make in a Block salary negotiation when not working with a Salary Negotiation Coach – the most common of which we’ve listed below.
Avoid Sharing Block Salary Expectations Before You Get a Block Job Offer
Block recruiters will probably try their best to uncover your salary expectations during the Block interview process. However, do not share your salary expectations before you get an official Block job offer.
Imagine you share a lower Block principal engineer salary expectation with the recruiter than what they could offer. They will then be motivated to offer you that lower compensation or down level you. On the other hand, if you answer with a number higher than what they are able to realistically offer for a principal engineer salary, they could become disinterested and decide to go with a different candidate.
In almost all cases, sharing your salary expectations before you have an offer in hand makes it more difficult to receive a competitive compensation package, which is true whether you share these details verbally or on job applications.
Be prepared for the Block recruiters to try to convince you that knowing your compensation expectations can help them find a deal that works well for both you and their team. This might sound reasonable at first, but remember that they are working for Block, not you. Following our Salary Expectation Responses is a great way to overcome these strategies.
Don't Be Afraid of a Block Salary Negotiation
The worst mistake you could make is not negotiating at all.
We understand that negotiations can seem intimidating at first, especially if you’ve never negotiated a salary before. However, we can assure you: you’re not going to lose out on your Block offer because of an attempted Block salary negotiation. We’ve helped facilitate hundreds of successful tech salary negotiations and we’ve never seen a company take back a job offer because a candidate tried to negotiate by following our strategies.
Regardless of the role level – whether it’s a Block data scientist salary or a Block SWE salary – you should negotiate your Block job offer. Don’t ever let salary negotiation fears keep you from advocating for competitive compensation at Block.
Be Realistic By Doing Research When Evaluating Block Careers
Finally, even though Block careers do pay well, you never want to push for unreasonable compensation.
This is why it’s so critical to take the time to understand each element of your Block compensation package and research the Block pay ranges for your specific role. With the right data and insights, you should be able to come up with an appropriate and effective Block counteroffer that results in an improved Block offer letter.
Block Salary Negotiation Coaching & Tools
Increasing your Block compensation requires a deep understanding of the company’s compensation philosophy and the right salary negotiation strategy. Our expert Salary Negotiation Coaching or Courses and Templates, will help you navigate the Block salary negotiation process and secure the top end of the pay band.