| My Amazon salary history, to anchor some of this story better: - Joined early early 2017 as an L5 hire (no previous FANG experience, but 10+ elsewhere) with an an offer of base $145K, sign on of $50K year 1, $38K year 2, 150 RSUs (AMZN worth ~$850 = 127500). Vesting schedule: 5% @ 1y, 15% @ 2y, 20% @ 2.5y, 20% @ 3y, 20% @ 3.5y, 20% @ 4y. - Negotiated without competing offers a bump to $150K base, $60K / $45K cash, 162 RSUs. - A breakdown based on Amazon's 15% stock aprecciation YOY gives you Amazon's Total Compensation Target. This is Amazon's projection assuming that you perform at the middle of the expectation of your cohort in the yearly performance review (OLR, not forte as the article states) - year 1 (8 RSUs): $150K base + $60K cash + 8 * $850 * 1.15 = $218K
- year 2 (24 RSUs): $150K base + $46K cash + 24 * $850 * 1.15^2 = $223K
- year 3 (32 + 33 RSUs): $150K base + (32 * $850 * 1.15^2.5) + (33 * $850 * 1.15^3) = $231K
- year 4 (32 + 33 RSUs): $150K base + (32 * $850 * 1.15^3.5) + (33 * $850 * 1.15^4) = $243K
- Actual salary - year 1 (AMZN @ $1430) = $221K. OLR bumped base salary for next year to $157K
- year 2 (AMZN @ $1844) = $247K. OLR bumped base salary for next year to $160K. No stock grant as projected salary > comp target
- year 3 (AMZN @ $1767, $2307) = $292K. Granted 18 RSUs to vest at year 4.5 and year 5
- year 4 (AMZN @ $3338, $3379) = $378K
- year 5 (AMZN @ $3409, $3400?) = $221K
- Notes - due to manager / life reasons, didn't progress beyond L5. If I were to pursue this this year, my comp adjustment would have come about a year after starting at that level (but only to the lower end of the L6 band ~ $250K). $30K for a tonne more work seems rather stupid.
- note the golden handcuffs as well as that huge cliff
- some of the above is intentionally inaccurate (but not by a huge amount)
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