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Comment by fasteddie | Hacker News Reader

Amazon, actually. It's something like 5/15/40/40, maybe a current/former employee can chime in.

That's correct.

Source: Current AMZN employee

Correct, however they also give 2 signing bonuses, that bring you to an "equivalent" total compensation, so at least you are getting straight cash, not hoping for a stock payout that may not come.

Other top companies also give signing bonuses as well as the usual vesting schedule, so I'm not sure this really evens it out.

Yeah but they don't give 2 signing bonuses right? That seems downright weird from a terminology perspective... how can you legally have 2 signing bonuses if you sign only once? :)

They mean that the signing bonus is divided into two yearly payouts instead of one. It's a single bonus.

I personally don't see what's wrong with a N/2N/3N... vesting schedule for post-IPO companies. You're buying in long term, that's the deal. Is it sided to favor employee retention for the employer? Sure. The overall comp at AMZN is pretty competitive though. That's the deal.

It makes more sense for a fiscally stable company like Amazon, which actually sees reliable stock growth and a real business model as compared to snap with neither of those things-- but that's not a criticism of the vesting schedule, it's a criticism of snap's true value. That's the thing that would keep me from a company like that, not the length of my RSU vesting periods.

Source: ex AMZN employee

That is not really true. It depends on how much you get in stocks. Fkr example, it is not typical for these companies to give out $200k stock/yr and then the backvested schedule is really packed against you. It is very unlikely they will give you $200k sign on bonus and make it up during year 2 as well.

Holy hell. Are the grants massive?

My offer was competitive. With the 2yr cash bonus and the stock taking over in year 3 my total comp is projected to evenly ramp up 5-15% per year. Who knows where the stock will be until we get to the vest dates, but so far it's tracking well ahead of the 15% yearly growth that the company plans on.

Yep, it's still that, even for acquired companies that are owned by Amazon.

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