Sorry, didn't see this earlier. In addition to project awards (which are significant as you say) there are individual bonuses and stock refreshers for top contr

Sorry, didn't see this earlier. In addition to project awards (which are significant as you say) there are individual bonuses and stock refreshers for top contributors that can also be 'significant'. Sorry for the vague terms. Further, getting promoted to the upper levels can be rewarding as well. But you are competing against 'top-notch' (to quote op of this thread) engineers for those types of awards. You'll also sometimes hear complaints about politics in the promotion process. It seemed mostly fair to me based on the promotions of engineers whose work I was familiar with.