I would bend over backwards to put a few years worth of Amazon on my CV. I assumed that was common especially in this crowd?
When all is said and done, Amazon pays a little less than Google/Facebook (the caveat here: most Google/Facebook jobs are in California, not Seattle), but with the stock performance we're seeing, they end up making more on average.
The question, is when Amazon's stock stops appreciating so quickly, is other comp going to make up for it?
Of course the 5/15/40/40 model only applies to your signing; all further yearly stock grants are over the next 2 years from grant time.
For the record "bad managers" are no more common or less common at Amazon as any other company.
If you think Amazon stock is going to go up and you have an offer from another company for more money, just take the offer for more money and buy some Amazon stock. Upward stock potential is never a valid reason to join a publicly traded company.
Imagine my yearly pay will be 150K at Amazon or 200K somewhere else.
Amazon stock could go up, and my pay in my second year could be 250K, in which case I am making more by being at Amazon.
Or it could stay the same or go down, in which case my pay in my second year would be <= 200K, but in that case I can just ditch Amazon for another company to bring my comp back to market levels.
Remember, predicting that a stock goes up is just as lucrative for an outsider as it is an insider. Never make a stock prediction part of your evaluation of a job offer because there are plenty of financial instruments to allow you the same upside as an outsider.
As I used to tell people about why I was selling my options at [some other name brand company] as fast as they vested, choosing to work for the company is an investment. A huge one. And since I was far more likely to be laid off if the stock tanks, owning shares and working there was not diversifying my assets.
It’s the only time I made money on stock options and most of what I earned I earned by... profit taking on shares of a different company that enjoyed two stock splits before our stock started to crater.
When that behavior ends, if Amazon doesn't adjust my comp, I can go to some other tech company, while still having one of the best names you can have on a resume (although, Google would have been arguably better in that case). Furthermore, if we consider my stock gains as part of my annual comp, it gives me a vastly better bargaining position.
Still blowing smoke?
Yes, you're not correctly understanding that you depended on a gamble to outperform the Google offer. That same gamble you could have explicitly made in the stock market while taking the Google offer and capturing the upside of the Amazon stock.
They take stock performance into account and it effects your future raises.
So yeah stock can go up, but if it does, you are never getting a raise.
That is a really bold way to frame "We don't even give you all of your signing bonus up front" as a positive. Kudos for coming up with it.
Easy to say when you're making six figures. I doubt most pizza delivery drivers would agree with you.
Amazon, meanwhile, won't let anybody get free snacks from the bins except for mice.
You can use that to your advantage or not, but you won't be helping any low-wage workers by choosing to work at a small tech company over a famous one -- well, maybe you will if you pass on a job offer from Uber, but for the most part, tech companies pay low-level workers better than non-tech companies.