Some engineers getting paid at the bottom of the band have had their compensation increased with another $30K-$40K in salary, but I don’t know of a single person anywhere even remotely close to the top of the salary cap. In the 2022 comp discussions, all the “extra” compensation was still in the form of future year RSU vests.
Amazon has not changed their core compensation philosophy. The majority of the compensation will continue to be RSUs that vest in the future. Whenever the stock goes down or sideways in the current year, the company will give you no stock adjustment for the current year.
Your total compensation for this year is down $50K? Here’s another $10K in salary, and we’ll make up the $40K with a few extra RSUs spread out over NEXT year and the following year.
Funny enough, if the stock goes up, we won’t give you any extra shares period. You take the hit when the stock goes down, and you get no proper reward when your previous RSU grants increase in value. We base all your future pay on previous grants :)
Source: 10+ year Amazon veteran who very recently left after being pressured to manage out high performers in order to meet company attrition targets. I thought it was bs not just in terms of being a decent, respectable person, but it made no sense why I’m pressured to do this when we know entire organizations in many of Amazons older businesses are effectively coasting.