Where the money terms hide
Base salary is rarely the complicated part. Bonus and commission language deserves careful reading, especially terms that make payment discretionary or require you to be employed on the payout date. Equity grants usually live in separate plan documents, and vesting, acceleration on a sale, and what happens to unvested awards on departure are all set there. Sign-on and relocation payments often come with repayment obligations if you leave early. Ask for every document the agreement refers to, because the summary in the offer letter seldom tells the whole story. If you are leaving unvested equity or a bonus behind at your current employer, a make-whole payment is a common request to raise.
How it can end
Many negotiations turn on the termination section. Definitions of cause and, for senior roles, good reason decide whether a departure triggers severance. Notice periods, severance amounts, continued benefits, and whether severance depends on signing a release are all negotiable to varying degrees. Restrictive covenants, including non-compete, non-solicitation, and confidentiality terms, often sit in the same document and are worth negotiating together with severance, since the two are connected in practice. An employer drafting an agreement benefits from definitions precise enough that both sides would read them the same way later.
Disputes and the fine print
Arbitration clauses, choice of law, forum selection, and fee-shifting terms decide how a disagreement would be handled years from now. Under a federal law, sexual harassment and sexual assault claims generally cannot be forced into arbitration if the employee chooses court, so the clause may not reach everything it appears to. We review the draft, mark the terms that carry the most risk for your situation, and suggest changes that are realistic to request. Bring the offer letter, the draft agreement, any equity or bonus plans, and your current agreement if you are moving from another employer, since an existing restriction may limit what you can accept.
