[arcticfox]

It's pretty interesting that so much of your compensation is in stock. After 2 years at MSFT and becoming a PM II, I was making ~$145k annually but $115k of that was in salary and $30k in stock. I think that's why everyone is surprised when they see the $70k.

Do they give you the stock as a bonus at the end of the year, or are you promised it at the beginning and it gets doled out during the year? If it's the former, be careful that they don't decide retroactively that you had a bad year and decide to cut your total compensation almost in half!

[boren_ave11]

The stock is initially granted in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). RSUs vest according to a schedule. It looks roughly like this:

5% the first year

15% the second year

20% every six months thereafter

Compensation at Amazon typically is a combination of a base salary, a signing bonus (distributed over time), and a stock grant. The package is structured in such a way that the employee's total pay stays consistent over time, even though the pay comes in different forms. New hires will have their signing bonus structured over the first two years, and then it ends. At that point, the more significant stock vests begin to occur at six month intervals, so the total pay amount stays relatively the same after the bonus ends.

[ryanobjc]

Wow that fucking sucks.

The standard (at GOOG & others) is:

25% on year 1 2.08 & 1/3rd every month thereafter (75% vested equally over the next 36 months)

Furthermore, there are other grants that vest quarterly for the first 18 months of employment (in addition to the normal 4 year).

Look, I used to work at Amazon. They are the worst paying big company out there. Complete with totally shitty vesting plans. My first vesting with Amazon was over 5 years. Yup, they really took advantage of us new grads.

[discodave]

Your definition of sucks is pretty skewed.

Anybody earning 6 figures is in the top few percentiles of society, especially if you are a new grad!

You are obviously free to take advantage of your employability but just remember that you pretty much are the 1% before saying that it sucks. :)

[boren_ave11]

No, he's right, you just misread.

He is saying that Amazon's RSU vest schedule sucks compared to the standard used by Google and others. His income level has nothing to do with anything about that.

[serge2k]

Nah, the stock goes up enough that they say you got a 10% raise. Meanwhile the money you actually get in your pocket has dropped by more than 10%.

Fair enough I guess, but I am not a fan.

[jacalata]

Microsoft annual bonuses used to be a lot more stock and less cash, but in 2011 they shifted towards the current model of cash++, because the stock was low and nobody wanted it. (At the same time they did an across-the-board 10% raise - from memory, both these moves were made because Amazon Google Facebook were becoming much more serious competitors for Seattle employees. http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2011/04/microsofts-new-review-a...)