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Yes it is separate. At Amazon the signing bonus you owe if you leave within one year but the relocation bonus you owe if you leave within two; both are prorated
by rifung 9y ago
Yes it is separate. At Amazon the signing bonus you owe if you leave within one year but the relocation bonus you owe if you leave within two; both are prorated
- bsder 9y ago> At Amazon the signing bonus you owe if you leave within one year but the relocation bonus you owe if you leave within two; both are prorated Um, wow. Yet another reason not to work at Amazon. How does Amazon still get employees when they just seem to pile these kinds of irritating, anti-employee behaviors up one after another?
- Dobbs 9y agoThey also clawback their contribution to the 401k if you leave before (iirc) three years.
- icelancer 9y agoThis is common in the normal business world. Most 401k vests over a period of three years with a prorated clawback mechanism.
- msthrow 9y agoAre these bonus terms not standard? These prorated periods are the same for Microsoft. How else do you stop someone walking out on day 1 with 50k cash?
- jon_richards 9y agoThe alternative would be to have a "guaranteed" bonus after a certain amount of time, but people overwhelmingly prefer having something now, even if it means they might lose it later.
- bsder 9y agoI'm surprised about the relocation for 2 years. I would have expected one year for anything. Two years is an eternity in tech. > These prorated periods are the same for Microsoft. Ah. Understood. > How else do you stop someone walking out on day 1 with 50k cash? If that happens enough that you have to actually worry about it, you have much bigger problems.
- stale2002 9y agoThe bonuses are quite high, is the reason. Amazon pays competitive salaries. They are probably a bit below Google or Facebook salaries, but compared to an average SF startup, they pay literally 50-100% more. (the offer I just got from them was 80% more than my SF startup salary). Some of their behavior is indeed "annoying" ie they have a weird stock options vesting schedule, but if you actually do the math, and think with your head, you see that their total compensation is quite competitive. The moral of the story is, if you care about compensation, don't work for startups. Even the "less competitive" companies like Amazon, with "scummy" behavior like claw backs, are still miles ahead of the average startup, in terms of compensation.
- phamilton 9y ago> 80% more than my SF startup salary Were you making 100k or something? Or are you looking at total comp?
- stale2002 9y agoI was looking at total comp. Total compensation is way high at big companies. And total compensation is the only thing that really matters. You get RSU stocks that are actually worth a bunch. You get huge signing bonuses, you get great benefits as well as 401K matching. All that adds up to something like 70k+ a year in "not salary" benefits, even though it just as good as cash (on top of a much higher base salary ).
- phamilton 9y agoI've seem most BigCo offers to be a bit lower salary than startup offers (at senior or staff level engineer, excluding Netflix) but total comp is indeed much higher.
- phamilton 9y agoI've had similar repayment terms on every signing bonus I've gotten. Especially at large public companies, a huge chunk of your comp is either a bonus at year end or stock on a vesting schedule with a 1 year cliff. When switching companies, it's fairly common to get a sizeable signing bonus to compensate for the reduced cashflow for the first 12 months.
- lochlan 9y agoMy understanding is that you no longer have to pay back the signing bonus. Not sure about relocation bonuses.
- simonebrunozzi 9y agoOr two years, which sometimes happen at Amazon.