YOE : 8.5+ Years
Current (Most Recent Company) : SMTS(IC3) at Oracle (Laid off in September 2025)
College - IITK
Competing offer (then) - None
Current/Last comp - 67.5 LPA (41 Base + 6.5 Joining Bonus + 20 LPA RSUs)
Offer date - May 2026
Company - Walmart
Position - SSE(IN4)
Offered comp :-
Base 40.3 LPA +
Perf Bonus 7.7 LPA (20% of Bonus) +
2 LPA Joining Bonus +
9.5 Lakhs stocks vested over 3 years (But vesting starts quarterly only after next March 2027 since I am joining after March 2026)
First year TC = 50 LPA approx
Second Year TC = 50 + (9.5/3) = 53 LPA
The recruiter was so rude and indirectly was talking like he is doing a favour to me by giving me this offer. When I mentioned that can I be considered for IN5 since I ama lmost 9 years experience he staright away said no.
I think whatever I heard about Walmart was right, they have brough their standards so down and literally doing cost cutting everywhere. The recuriters are so pathetic and sound so unprofessional. Also WTF was this Stocks vesting rule, like seriously no stocks for first year even if you join on April 1st? And even after that around 3 LPA per year? Man... I got that much when i joined my first company almost 9 years back.
Even when I asked to extend the joining date by 7 days, he was kind of treatening me indirectly that the position might get filled soon as there are lot of candidates in line. I think he was also taking advantage of the current bad market and also the fact that I was unemployed for 7+ months now and didn't have any competing offer that time.
Final Veridct :- I got another offer from a different company where the TC was 50% higher and got a Staff Title as well. Reaching Staff(IN5) in Walmart from here would have taken me at least 3 years even in the best case, hence I rejected the offer 2-3 days before the revised joining date as soon as I got the confirmation from the other company.
Interview Experience :- https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/8299285/walmart-ssein4-interview-experience-apri-te0v/
Reason for my prolonged unemployment :-
- Cleared Atlassian interviews in January but they went on Hiring freeze, still ON.
- Cleared Microsoft interviews in March/April but the position got filled internally.