I was part of a layoff at my organization this week, and after reviewing the severance offer I'm seriously considering rejecting it.

Context: my now-former employer is a startup that just passed $10M in ARR. Their software engineer hiring and retention strategy is to pay at or above market and do twice-annual performance and compensation reviews. I got a raise every six months.

The severance agreement that was sent to me, however, is the opposite of generous. The payout amount is 7.5% of base salary (i.e., less than one month), and it includes a nondisclosure clause. Maybe I'm using the wrong baseline because most of the recently publicized layoffs have been much larger companies, but I can't remember hearing about a severance payout of less than two months.

In the current market, it's quite possible that landing a next job, even one that pays less than what I've been making, could be a matter of more than a month. I have savings, but not an infinite pool of money to draw on.

Unfortunately, while it's always possible to simply ask for more, the only actual leverage I can see is threatening to make this severance offer public, which (given that they're not doing much hiring now) might not represent enough of a reputational problem to lead them to reconsider.

What think you all?