Compensation negotiation

What part of finance are you in?

Ya, your situation is different than mine. I came from a large petrochemical manufacturing company in US and my yearly bonus was in line, maybe a little more than Aramco. It ranged from 15% to 40% of annual base depending on performance – never 100%.
Aramco gave me approx. 20% above my former base salary.

If you’re decision is based purely on the financial benefit then you can look at the cost savings of living here too, which rent/mortgage payment is the largest besides income tax savings and maybe the only contributor besides tax. Other living expenses seem in par with the USA for us. Housing is pretty dirty cheap here, which a lot of new comers complain about the housing conditions. I fine with the dated housing – it’s functional and clean inside for the most part. There is new housing in the Jebel Heights, which is not really open to new hires.

You have to weigh other items into your decision – just not the financial although this is the biggest component for most – does living and working in a foreign country as an expat sound interesting, the travel benefits, will your family be happy here? IMO, this place is lot more enjoyable if you have kids from like ages 4 to 15 because lots of activities available for them and the convenience of getting to and from.

The work here for me is 🫤 meh like any other fin/acctg I have had in my 25 year plus career. I came here for the lifestyle and the savings not so much the enlighting work or career choice. As a professional expat hire in the fin org and most other professional orgs you’re treated as combination as outside consultant and an employee.

Ya, wife working and desire to continue to work makes it much tougher decision. Definitely have to weigh that financially. It’s difficult and no guarantee your wife would find work with Aramco or elsewhere here but with that being said, if she has a key skill/experience that Aramco needs then she has shot of getting hired. My wife revived an offer from Aramco 5 months after me being hired. It’s contract but pays very well with the possibility of going perm in 2 to 3 years. She gave up a high a paying job to come here with the hope but no guarantee that she would get hired by Aramco. The KSA govt still has to approve her transfer of sponsorship from me to the Aramco contractor, so not a lock yet.

How many years experience you have? And are you coming from investment banking background? If you’re getting huge bonuses from IB they’re probably not to take that into account as they are fairly dependent on economic outcomes

In that case, one thing you may get from being with Aramco is you can do away with the long hours in IB perhaps?

I came from a similar background, unfortunately you stand to be financially worse off, but you will have a lot more free time! I had a large amount of equity and similar level bonuses and they didn’t consider them and actually questioned their validity…I eventually came to an ok settlement but it’s just a tax saving deal for me really.



You won’t have to worry about chasing targets for bonuses, work stresses will be low, but you may get extremely bored as work culture is polar opposite to a focused IB. If you are career focussed then you’ll very quickly tire of things.

You’ll relish the free time, can be great opportunity to spend more time with the kids especially when they are young. However that free time will be in KSA.

Bonus wise it will be no more than 15% and won’t get paid until March 2025, as I highly doubt you’ll be onboarded before July this year.

Travel payments are around 10-12% based on family of 4.

All - I heard somewhere from the forum that, as a new hire, if I join after July 1st, then I will not be eligible for bonus next year, otherwise my bonus will be pro-rated. Can anybody advise if this is true ?