My experience with Amazon is that my signing bonus was in two parts: Part one is in your first year where you get a lump sum signing bonus with your first payc

My experience with Amazon is that my signing bonus was in two parts: Part one is in your first year where you get a lump sum signing bonus with your first paycheck (paid monthly) with the understanding that if you leave you would pay back a pro-rated amount proportional to how many months were left in the year. Part two is in your second year and is paid partially with every pay check and if you leave you don’t pay anything back, you just don’t get the remainder of the money to be paid out the rest of the year. After year two stock vests tend to vastly outpace the signing bonus pay but I’d imagine this varies on the stock price.