[wde-sde]

I think I negotiated poorly and only ended up with about $97k total compensation in my first year, and by my third year it was about $120k.

The stock seemed like a mind-game to me, but it did work out to about 10% YoY increases in total compensation.

It's also inaccurate to characterize the stock as a one-time grant. The initial grant vests over four years (weighted on the last two years) typically you receive more grants after performance reviews, which vest over two years (again weighted on the second year.)

So in practice, you get a grant of 200 shares at signing, but by the end of year two only 50 have vested. At that point you have at least one performance grant, so you're probably getting shares vesting pretty regularly, at least four times a year.