Strategy: Acknowledge the company's internal salary band constraints respectfully, then pivot to aligning long-term incentives through additional equity grants.
Script: 'I completely understand and respect that the base salary of $150,000 represents the top of your internal band for this engineering level. Since I am deeply committed to the company's long-term growth and confident in my ability to drive major technical outcomes on your core roadmap, I would love to explore bridging the compensation gap through equity. Could we increase the initial equity grant from 15,000 units to 22,000 units, or consider an accelerated performance-based vesting milestone after my first year? That way, our financial incentives are directly tied to the platform's long-term commercial success.'