Never believe a hiring manager who tells you they'll hire you at level X-1 and promote you to level X after some amount of time. Make sure you get hired at the

Never believe a hiring manager who tells you they'll hire you at level X-1 and promote you to level X after some amount of time. Make sure you get hired at the level you deserve. Never believe that money is the only thing you can negotiate at a company. Most benefits are negotiable; the only question is who is authorized to negotiate them. Vacation policies are often negotiable, if that's a thing you value. "Don't talk about salary" (or other compensation) is a common unwritten policy. Note that it carefully isn't written down anywhere, it's just an unwritten expectation. That's because 1) it's illegal in many jurisdictions to prohibit discussing salary/compensation, and 2) it's often to the employees' benefit to discuss salary/compensation with each other, just not to the employer's benefit. (That doesn't mean you bring it up in unrelated conversations; it means it's completely reasonable to discuss and compare compensation when you're trying to figure out things like "am I being paid fairly" or "is this person I'm mentoring/advising being paid fairly".