STKR News0 of 3 free this monthNavigating the gap between lowball salary offers and market reality requires a founder's mindset and a willingness to walk away from bad terms.
Originally on Lenny's Newsletter →Adrian Boysel
Contributor
Oct 24, 2026
5 min read
Photo illustration / STKR News
We have entered a cycle where the power dynamic in tech hiring has shifted aggressively. For the first time in nearly a decade, the leverage has moved from the builder back to the treasurer. This shift is manifesting in the form of the lowball offer. It is a strategic move used by companies to see who is desperate and who understands their own market value.
Negotiating when you are starting from a deficit is not just about the money. It is about establishing the terms of your future relationship with the company. If you accept a bad deal on day one, you are signaling that your contributions can be bought at a discount indefinitely. As someone who looks at the industry through a builder-first lens, I see these negotiations as the first real product milestone you hit at a new firm.
Companies usually lowball for three reasons: budget constraints, internal equity alignment, or simple testing. The third one is the most dangerous. They want to see if you know what you are worth. If you flinch, they win. If you get angry, you lose. The only way to win is to treat the negotiation like a cold, technical audit.
The first step in handling an offer that comes in below your floor is to remove the emotion. It is easy to take a low offer personally. You feel undervalued. You feel like your experience is being disregarded. But in a builder's world, an offer is just a data point. It is a proposal for an exchange of value. If the value exchange is off, you don't get mad—you debug the proposal.
Before you even step into the final interview, you need a hard floor. This is not your "ideal" number. This is the number where, if they go one dollar lower, the math of your life and your opportunity cost no longer makes sense. Founders understand opportunity cost better than anyone. Every hour you spend working for someone else is an hour you aren't building your own IP or working at a company that values you correctly.
Part of the wisdom floating around the builder community right now involves designers trying to get a seat at the product decision table. This is closely tied to compensation. If you are viewed as someone who just makes things look pretty, you will be paid like a decorator. If you are viewed as someone who solves business problems through UX, you are paid like an architect.
To earn that seat, designers have to stop talking about aesthetics and start talking about metrics. Product managers care about conversion, retention, and churn. If your design improves those three things, you aren't a cost center; you are a profit center. Builders who understand the business logic behind their code or their mocks are the ones who can successfully push back on low offers because they can prove the ROI of their presence.
While we talk about the soft skills of negotiation, we have to look at the hard skills of the current AI meta. Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers are the new playground for builders. If you are looking to increase your market value, understanding how to build these is essential. They allow AI models to connect to local or remote data sources securely, effectively giving the LLM a pair of hands and a memory.
Builders who can navigate this space—connecting siloed data to intelligent agents—are currently in a position where they won't have to deal with lowball offers for long. The demand for people who can actually implement AI, rather than just talk about it, is skyrocketing. This is the "builder-first" advantage: technical competency is the ultimate hedge against a bad economy.
When the recruiter calls and gives you the low number, do not say yes or no. Use the silence. Silence is the most powerful tool in a builder's toolkit. Let them sit in the awkwardness of their own offer. When you finally speak, keep it centered on the value and the market.
"I’m excited about the vision of the product and the technical challenges we discussed. However, based on the current market data for this role and the specific expertise I’m bringing in [X area], I was expecting something in the range of [Y]. Is there a way we can bridge this gap through base or equity?"
Notice that this isn't a demand. It is a collaborative problem-solving exercise. You are inviting them to help you solve the "problem" of the low offer. If they say no, and they won't budge on equity or bonuses, you have your answer. They don't value the role as much as you value your time.
The hardest part of this process is being willing to walk away. In the crypto and AI space, we see a lot of "mercenary" behavior. People jump for the highest check. I'm not suggesting you do that. I'm suggesting you avoid the "martyr" behavior—staying at a place that underpays you because you like the team.
A team that underpays you is a team that is either struggling to survive or doesn't understand the talent market. Neither is a good place for a builder to be long-term. If you accept a lowball, you will eventually become resentful. That resentment will kill your productivity, and you'll end up leaving anyway. Save yourself the two years of misery and hold out for the right deal.
A lowball offer is a test of your professional boundaries. Treat it as a technical bug in the hiring process. Use market data, maintain your leverage through competing offers, and be prepared to walk away if the math doesn't work. The builders who get the "seat at the table" are those who demonstrate they understand their own value as clearly as they understand the product they are building.
Read the original at Lenny's Newsletter →
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