[imnotreallynew]

Goodness, I’d voluntarily take that deal anyday. 3.5 months of paid vacation at the salaries Stripe pays? Yes please.

I just read the rest. On top of 3.5 months pay, they get accelerated vesting, cash payment for healthcare benefits, all unused PTO paid, and more. That’s incredible.

[tempsy]

Not sure if frantically interviewing for a new job during the holidays when lots of tech companies are also laying people off can be considered a vacation.

[randomdata]

Maybe if you're the janitor, but based on the quip about the salaries Stripe pays, the parent is presumably looking at this from a developer's perspective. That's a payout of around $73,000.

If you are handed $73,000 and still need to frantically look for a new job, something strange is going on.

[tempsy]

i’m not referring to running out of money, just the idea that it’s harder to interview during the time around the holidays and immediately after, and we are in a period where these layoffs are macro driven so lots of people are competing against you for the same roles

also all the income and benefits are taxable

[randomdata]

If you're not out of money, why the frantic search? It isn't going to sustain you forever, but if it takes you six months to find a new job... oh well?

[PuppyTailWags]

It's pretty frantic if you're holding certain visas.

[PragmaticPulp]

> i’m not referring to running out of money, just the idea that it’s harder to interview during the time around the holidays and immediately after

Keep in mind that this is interviewing without a job taking 40 hours (or maybe more) of their time every week.

Interviewing is much, much easier when it replaces your job and you're still collecting paychecks for several months.

[theGnuMe]

You've got taxes on that so 40% and then health insurance at Cobra rates. Granted it looks like they said they will pay that for 6 months. Not sure if that is taxable as well also not sure what the individual contributions are.

[Manuel_D]

> You've got taxes on that so 40% and then health insurance at Cobra rates.

Your taxes would only be 40% (actually 47%) if you make beyond $500k a year. Cobra rates are quite affordable. I was on Cobra when I was laid off due to covid, and it was $550 a month for top tier healthcare.

[lotsofpulp]

The tax rate is only that high for amount earned after $500k too. And only for those in a few states like California.

$550 for gold level insurance is expected for someone young, which I guess you are.

You can ballpark almost anyone’s premiums based on the figures in link below. I would use Omnia Gold or Omnia Silver HSA numbers, and plus or minus 20% for your state.

https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...

[mosburger]

If it's a one time payout (to be clear, I'm not that will be the case here? It was for me the only time that I was laid off), I think the withholding would be calculated as though that single payment were a regular salary extrapolated to the entire year. This is similar to what happens if you receive a bonus; to compute the withholding they assume your annual salary is $BONUS * $PAY_PERIOD. So you'd likely be taxed at a much higher rate on that single payment than you would be amortized over a year like a salary is.

You'd get that withheld money back after filing taxes, but most people who are laid off would prefer to have that money now.

If Stripe is making regular salary-like payments instead of one lump sum, then the taxes would be pretty much the same as always.

[iterati]

> Cobra rates are quite affordable. I was on Cobra when I was laid off due to covid, and it was $550 a month for top tier healthcare.

Those two statements are in odds with one another. $550 is quite a large sum of money to put out each month, particularly when you don't have an income.

[lotsofpulp]

Yes, you should have quite a bit of cash as an emergency fund. There are government subsidies available for health insurance, but they phase out if you earn more.

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/premium-tax-credit

Generally, decent insurance costs anywhere from $400 to $1,200 per month, depending on age of insured, plus up to $9k out of pocket maximum for individual and $18k for families, per calendar year.

So to adequate insure one’s self for healthcare expenses, you would need $18k or $36k for out of pocket expenses (since things can happen at end of calendar year), plus $400 to $1,200 per person per month minus any premium tax credits. For a young family, I would guesstimate $24k to $30k per year in premiums minus any tax credits.

Basically, be poor enough to qualify for free healthcare, or earn enough to be able to spend a few tens of thousands of dollars for a healthcare emergency, but try not to be inbetween.

[ghaff]

Basically Cobra is whatever you were already paying plus whatever the employer contribution was.

Obviously family plans etc. will be considerably higher.

[shagie]

> and then health insurance at Cobra rates

You can get health insurance from healthcare.gov

Granted not California, but the federal bit is the same - https://oci.wi.gov/Documents/Consumers/HealthInsuranceLostCo...

> I thought the open enrollment period was already over for HealthCare.gov. Can I still enroll?

> Yes, if you have just lost your health insurance, you are eligible for a 60-day special enrollment period. You can work with an enrollment assister, an insurance agent, or use HealthCare.gov to enroll in a new insurance plan. You may also qualify for a special enrollment period if you have experienced a life event such as moving, getting married, having a baby, or adopting a child.

[theGnuMe]

True, you'd have to run the numbers to see if it makes sense on a case by case basis.

[L_Rahman]

Stripe is paying for health insurance over that time too.

[mparkms]

You do if you're on a work visa and don't want to leave the US.

[randomdata]

You're not wrong that it is strange that we would force one to be completely uprooted from their home only because they didn't have a job for a few months.

[georgeburdell]

Not to be cold, but some visas like H1B are non-immigrant visas and so it is not correct to call the U.S. “home”

[randomdata]

Home refers to the place where one lives. If one does not live in the U.S. to have to leave, what's the urgency?

[idiotsecant]

Compare that to the average experience of the vast majority of people who aren't a software engineer and a person might be forgiven for thinking it looks like an incredibly privileged vacation.

[bluGill]

There are lots of tech companies hiring too. The hard part is finding them, and convincing them you are the one. Most of the resumes I see for a "senior" programmer don't have the experience.

[lowercased]

Yet... we still see ageism in hiring too. I'm continually surprised at people advertising for 'senior' positions that require 3 years of 'foo' experience. If that's how you label 'senior'... don't be surprised when people with little experience apply for senior positions.

Not poking at you directly. I've got 25 years of experience. I was on a team a few years ago with people with... 2-4 years experience. We were both labelled to the end client (contracting company) as 'senior developers'. It's just weird all around. When everyone is 'senior', it loses any useful meaning.

[bluGill]

Although 3 years is a little low, I work with plenty of people with 5 years of experience who are just as good as the best programmers with 25 years. The early years experience matters a lot, but the difference between 5 and 25 years is insignificant.

The levels are fresh out of school, have learned enough to not need hand holding, and able to make good decisions about code. You cover them very fast. There is a staff level about that, but most people don't reach that level. There just isn't need for too many of them.

[joenot443]

They have 3.5mos. I find it unlikely someone’s market value dropped enough that they could once be a Stripe employee but they’re now unemployable.

[kodah]

It took me three months to go through tech interviews. I'd say that's cutting it close.

[roflyear]

Yeah. You need six months of emergency fund, minimum. I would say close to 1yr honestly, depending on your risk tolerance, for senior tech roles, unless you're willing to take a real shit job while you look for something else.

[tempsy]

that’s not what i’m referring to. these layoffs are macro driven so you’re competing against a lot of people. and it’s harder to schedule interviews around the holidays so on average you need more time.

[Ancapistani]

Agreed.

In my experience, if you’re job hunting and don’t have an offer in hand by November 1st, you’re probably not going to get one until mid-January.

The “normal” interview process takes 4-6 weeks in my experience from application to offer/rejection. That is doubled between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.

[joenot443]

That's a good point, I hadn't considered it that way.

[colinmhayes]

Why not just collect the paycheck and chill with some open source work for a bit while casually interviewing? If you have expenses that don't let you do that fine, but the stripe severance is more than my yearly spend.

[antihero]

Isn’t it mandatory to pay holiday accrued? Because it’s been, well, accrued…

[zrail]

That's true in less than half of US states.

[chamblin]

For what it's worth, Stripe is the only place I've ever worked that did not pay out accrued PTO. It does so only in jurisdictions where it is legally required.

[brantonb]

My company switched from PTO to “unlimited time away” to avoid paying out accrued PTO upon departure. Their original home state didn’t require it, so they didn’t. But then they acquired some companies in states that did require it and also let us all work remotely. It was cheaper for them to drop formal PTO and replace it with hand-wavy “time away”.

[stephen_g]

Wow. Can’t do that here (Australia) - I think to have an unlimited leave policy, you’d still have all employees accrue annual leave (PTO) at the legal rate, and then just let employees take free leave once their annual leave balance reached zero. Any balance you have when you leave (or are made redundant) then has to be paid out.

[shagie]

It varies based on state. https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/pto-payout-l...

In California, accrued vacation is part of wages and must be paid out as part of wages. However, unlimited PTO policies typically don't accrue vacation.

In Washington, it's "read your contract." If your contract doesn't say that they pay out accrued PTO upon separation, they don't.

[bombcar]

It depends and some places go to "unlimited" for this reason, or combine sick and PTO and other stuff.

The smart businesses would just actually bank the dollar amounts and not worry about it, but those are rare.

[jeffbee]

This is exactly why companies go to unlimited PTO. They don't want the accrual on their balance sheets.

[patch_cable]

It is not in most of the US.

[shaftoe]

No. It can say otherwise in your employee handbook.

[ehnto]

It should be in your contract, which means it was up for negotiation. Unless that's what you mean. While there's such high demand for tech workers, I would expect to see people being smarter with their contracts and picking up on things like that, start setting precedents.

At the moment the precedents are still heavily employee biased, but you ask for whatever you want in your contract during negotiations. Negotiate your sick pay, negotiate your PTO, negotiate your vesting schedules and exit terms, negotiate your hours and time in lieu policies. Negotiate your Intellectual Property terms. That one is super common to see lopsided toward the employer. We don't have unions or award rates, so we also miss out on some of those protections, hence why we need to make sure it's in the contract.

Even the nicest, fairest business owners I've worked for will start with industry standard contracts that do their best to shaft you, because it's industry standard and they don't see it as lopsided. But I've never had trouble negotiating for this stuff to be made clearer and fairer.

[0x0000000]

> It should be in your contract, which means it was up for negotiation.

Generally, employees in America do not have contracts. While plenty of things are open for negotiation during the offer/hiring process, I doubt you'll get an exception to a corporate policy on paying out on PTO if it's not something they already do.

That said, IME, accrued PTO has always been paid on departure (voluntary or not). For this reason, most of the places I've worked heavily encourage (or even require) taking PTO, because it's a liability on their books.

[sgtnoodle]

It seems common in the tech world, though? Amusingly, my current contract is from when the company was small, and explicitly guarantees provided lunch.

[ehnto]

> Generally, employees in America do not have contracts.

Is that true? The company surely has terms for you, like expected working hours, terms about your sick leave, performance and health terms, out of office expectations, intellectual property disclosures and NDAs? Non-compete clauses? When does all that become binding if not through a contract?

[khuey]

A typical American tech worker's "contract" covers IP assignment and NDA. None of the other stuff is legally binding, and either side is free to change it or walk at any time.

[deelowe]

> It should be in your contract, which means it was up for negotiation

I've never seen this in the US. The only things typically up for negotiation is the sign on bonus/equity and base pay. If you start trying to negotiate vacations and holidays, you're going to look pretty silly.

[ehnto]

I'm doing my best to understand this and be empathetic. Best of my brief research you haven't got any law bound entitlements so whatever the "status quo" is has been set by employers. So what I'm understanding here is that it's not even an agreement, it's just an understanding? Trying my best not to be inflammatory, as I understand this is a cultural thing for the US. But in a country with so little workers rights and entitlements, that high end workers are not even able to protect themselves with contracts seems silly.

> The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require payment for time not worked, such as vacations, sick leave or federal or other holidays. These benefits are matters of agreement between an employer and an employee (or the employee's representative).

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/workhours/vacation_leave

[differentview97]

I think the concept is, you protect yourself with the cash you earn. Similarly to SW contractors in EU.

[brianwawok]

Not silly, happens all the time.

Everything is negotiable. That said, the bigger the company, the harder it can be.

F500 company and you want a line out of your mid-level developer contract? Their legal likely doesn't have time and they will just hire someone else.

Startup? Literally write your own contract.

[sgtnoodle]

I vaguely recall striking out some sentences I didn't like, and initialing it. My current employer didn't mind.

[lotsofpulp]

> The only things typically up for negotiation is the sign on bonus/equity and base pay. If you start trying to negotiate vacations and holidays, you're going to look pretty silly.

Everything is up for negotiation. Just depends whether or not you have options. I have seen PTO negotiated in the US.

[jaywalk]

What? Negotiating PTO is pretty standard in my (US) view. I know plenty of people who've done it.

[fredophile]

This is better than standard in the US but I'm not sure I'd be happy if I was one of the laid off employees.

That 3.5 months and healthcare buys them some time to start interviewing and line up new work. However, they're competing with everyone else that's been laid off recently. There's another article on HN right now about Lyft laying off staff. Meta is getting pummeled in the stock market right now and Google has recently had hiring freezes. I'm not sure now is a good time to be looking for tech work in SF.

Unused PTO should be paid out. That was already earned by the employees.

Accelerated vesting is only good if you can afford to use it. How long do they have to exercise their options? What's the secondary market like right now for Stripe stock? Are they allowed to sell stock currently or required to hold it? In a worst case scenario, people could be unable to exercise their options because they don't have the savings to cover the tax bill and want to hold onto cash because they're unemployed and need the liquidity.

As for healthcare benefits, that's a result of a very broken system in the US and not something that should be celebrated.