[glenngillen]

Disclaimer: Ex-Amazonian, so discount as you see fit based on whatever brainwashing you might assume I’ve been subjected to ;)

The rear weighted AMZN approach made sense to me in terms of both optimising retention and some proxy for reward to contribution. I say this also as someone who left after 2 years and as a result left most of their stock unvested. It definitely made the choice to leave much harder so I’d expect it to skew more heavily toward retention benefits than a typical schedule. A typical schedule has a linear growth of what you’ve vested. I’d expect the value of contribution of a person to grow over time though. More context, more experience, more everything. Hopefully that means the you 3 years from now is making a more significant contribution than the you they hired. Typical schedules hope that the increase in valuation accounts for that compounding return. AMZN have shifted it to the vesting schedule.

That said they always talk about “total compensation”. So for the stock you’re not getting in the first two years you typically get as cash via a “hiring bonus” anyway. You could always just use that cash to go buy the equivalent amount in stock, no vesting required.

[bogomipz]

Can you say how does the "rear weighted" approach works? Is it just RSUs with a cliff?

Also I would curious what you left Amazon before those vested?

[pmh]

It's RSUs vesting at:

- 5% after 1yr

- 15% at 2yrs

- 20% every 6 months for years 3 and 4

The 401k match also has a 3 year cliff.

But as they said, years 1-2 you typically get a signing bonus

[bootaccount]

I was exposed to this while talking to an Amazon recruiter recently, while I also hear stories about how they seem to work people to a breaking point.

The median tenure at AMZN is also 1.5yrs, per linkedin. Their strategy seems to be to work their people extremely hard to earn their RSUs and pay them like plebs with hard caps on earning potential (base comp).

[bogomipz]

>"... while I also hear stories about how they seem to work people to a breaking point."

Is this a well-known thing then? More so than other FAANGs?

[glenngillen]

As the other reply said, vesting was 5% first year, 15% second year, then 20% per six months.

As for why: a rebalancing of priorities re work/life/travel balance and a better sense of connectedness to my actual work and the success of the company. Not gonna lie though, I look back at what I left on the table and the AMZN share price over the past 2 years and I still wonder if it was the right choice.