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Some Apple engineers rewarded up to $180k in stock bonuses as incentive to stay
- gigel82 5y agoI've heard (2nd hand) Microsoft also handed out SSAs ("Special Stock Awards") last month, but it's unclear how they chose the recipients (all across the level range and performance score range, though it appeared more targeted at ~3-4 year hires who are probably approaching their cliff and considering jumping).
- phendrenad2 5y agoAccording to TFA, it's about 10-20% of engineers, and only on certain teams. So this isn't really that significant, all things considered.
- wronglebowski 5y ago> "Most engineers received stock worth $80,000 to $120,000, with the bonuses provided as restricted stock units that are set to vest over the course of four years provided the employees stay with Apple and do not take jobs at other companies." Is that really a significant amount enough to ward off being poached? 120k over 4 years is 30k a year if linear. I would think at the pay scales being discussed they would get 30k a year just to move companies.
- judge2020 5y agoNot sure if this is how it works, but if they're awarded now and Apple maintains its current growth it could be worth 4x (AAPL is up ~400% compared to 4 years ago).
- ripper1138 5y agoExtremely unlikely that Apple will 4x again in 4 years. Last 4 years stock performance are an extreme outlier for the all big tech companies.
- anm89 5y agoLol, yeah they would be worth 12T at that point. Either the dollar implodes and Apple becomes a sovereign nation or 4x aint happening.
- rsstack 5y agoThey don't need to convince you that there's a chance for 4x growth, they need to convince those specific individuals that there's a chance. And those engineers are immersed in a culture that could affect their perception of Apple's potential.
- mgh2 5y agoApple is targeting its next 10 years' growth in three key markets: Laptops, VR/AR, and EVs. How big is each market cap?
- sofixa 5y agoVR/AR is miniscule with relatively high potential. We'll have to wait and see what they come up with, it could be great, it could be niche, no way no to know. EV has huge potential, but has a lot of competition, and Apple would be late to the party and without any serious advantages, technological, ecosystem, or otherwise. On the contrary, they'd have to build delivery and repair networks from scratch ( assuming they delegate all manufacturing). Even for their endless financial reserves, it seems very improbable they'd get anywhere serious within 10 years in the EV market. Laptops - that's a tough market with lots of competition and long retention ( as in people rarely upgrade, and tend to stick to manufacturers), many of it Apple simply cannot and could not overcome ( Windows will probably remain the de facto enterprise standard for some more time). They finally have a serious technological advantage beyond more abstract, subjective or niche ones ( better UX or light or long batter life) advantages.
- chrischen 5y agoAlso apple forays into new niches are generally hit or miss, though they do at least keep at it until it works like Apple Watch and Apple TV (which was near useless for the first 3-4 years).
- greiskul 5y agoWell, the engineer could also take a job at another company, and just used the increased compensation to buy more Apple stock. Unless they significantly believe that they working in Apple will be a significant factor in Apple stock price increasing 4x, in which case, they should probably ask for more stock.
- deanmoriarty 5y agoExcept that RSUs that will mature 4 years from now will be granted today, so you have 4 years of potential appreciation even if you don’t have the money to buy those securities today. It’s quite difficult to replicate the same strategy without taking significantly more risk (i.e. margin), and it’s a big driver in why tech comps have been huge on average, because by the time shares vest they have already ballooned.
- flatiron 5y agoThey grant your “restricted stock units” and deal them out per quarter. So it could be worth $5 or 5 million when they get them.
- halpert 5y agoYea, and that’s 30k before tax. The marginal rate is quite high for senior engineers. Most likely around 15k after tax
- loeg 5y agoThat's going to be true of all marginal compensation differences.
- spiderice 5y agoIs that relevant? Wouldn’t an extra $30k at a new company also get taxed the same amount?
- halpert 5y agoThe GP was highlighting that 30k per year is very little to keep senior talent. I was adding some perspective to how little it really is after considering taxes at the highest bracket.
- test0account 5y agoIt matters if not everything is about money. Is 15k extra per year an effective boost to happiness? Is 15k enough to keep working for Big Brother, in a job with very limited freedom, professionally and socially Is 15k enough to keep working in a company that keeps users addicted to unhealthy behaviors?
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoAlso - is this even new? >50% of engineers at Google are L4+. For the last few years, at L4 you should have been getting annual ~$100k grants over 4 years if your work in The Bay. My understanding is that FB paid even more, and that Amazon was maybe 20% behind at the same level. It's not like pre-covid engineers got nothing and now you get a $120k Bonus suddenly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mancerayder 5y agoAre these on top of a cash bonus?
- mghfreud 5y agoYes, but cash bonuses are “only” around 15-25% of base pay depending on seniority. For senior engineers, rsu grants are >= base pay.
- mancerayder 5y agoSo 300 base, plus the 100 or whatever RSU grant, plus 45-75K bonus?
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoL4 base is DEFINITELY NOT $300k. I think it's quite rare for L4s to have a base higher than $200k. But total compensation is likely higher than you mentioned. You have an initial grant that vests over 4 years that currently is absurdly high - usually more than your base (after appreciation). Then you have 4 of the grants that stack each year. Plus your 15-25% cash bonus. Plus you usually get a couple small ($1-$5k) bonuses throughout the year for the projects you're working on. FAANG salaries are no joke. Especially Google and FB.
- mghfreud 5y ago
- michaelbuckbee 5y agoI work for an public enterprise software company and it's a constant drip of RSUs as performance bonuses, retention, company milestones, anniversary dates, "well we can't give you raise right now but how about some RSUs?", etc. So after a couple years as the vesting dates hit these start to stack and they end up becoming quite significant.
- ghostbrainalpha 5y ago30k works better than you would think even though its "not that much" for these workers because of the loss aversion bias.
- ja3k 5y agoNot even loss aversion replicates well.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoA bonus is a bonus. Presumably this is on top of whatever they had before, so an extra $20K to $45K per year is icing on the cake. In reality, most engineers aren't bouncing around from company to company every year trying to squeeze every last dollar out of their compensation. The strategy works well for a few iterations in early careers, but eventually it starts becoming counter-productive. If you have 10 jobs in 10 years on your resume, every hiring manager who sees it will instantly recognize that you're a job hopper who isn't likely to stay longer than a year. It also becomes difficult to really accomplish anything big if you're always leaving a company before you can really hit your stride. Most people I know who end up at FAANG level companies are interested in sticking around for at least 3-4 years, if not longer. This provides the chance to accomplish bigger things, build an actual reputation within the company, and move up the in-company career ladder. Jumping to other companies for a $10-50K immediate bonus could be shooting yourself in the foot relative to sticking around long enough to get a promotion and retention awards.
- echelon 5y ago> In reality, most engineers aren't bouncing around from company to company every year trying to squeeze every last dollar out of their compensation. Not in my experience. Most engineers spend 1-2 years, then leave. > move up the in-company career ladder. That's a hard ladder to climb from the inside. Politics lead to entrenchment. > accomplish anything big A great deal of work is plumbing and KTLO. What do the folks working on these things get? They're not great promo or resume fodder for internal mobility.
- shrimpx 5y agoMy perception is that everyone knows job hopping is normal and companies will be happy to have you for that 1-2 years if you’re good. It’s not a black mark on your resume. For me a questionable resume is someone who spent the past 20 years at Accenture or something. Signals possibility of being too entrenched in those habits to make a contribution in a new environment.
- Shebanator 5y agoAs an engineering manager, this is definitely not true for me. If you have a long history of short tenures, you aren't worth the time to bring up to speed (which is generally 4-6 months). Having a short stint or two isn't a big deal though, people work for companies that have financial problems, or they get a bad manager, or whatever.
- brentis 5y agoJust said same thing. Making $360k yr. and wouldn't even feel it.
- thewebcount 5y agoKeep in mind that it’s $30k the first year. If you get the same bonus the next year, it’s now $60k ($30k from the first grant + $30k from the second). At 4 years you’re now making $120k per year above your salary. On top of that, Apple stock has been doing pretty well for something like 15-20 years now. If you don’t immediately sell, that first $30k you got is now worth significantly more, though there are no guarantees that will continue into the future. But it certainly can work out very nicely. If you start over at a new company, you lose that extra $120k per year for the next 4 years until you’re vested at the new company.
- Shebanator 5y agoThis is apparently a new and unprecedented bonus from Apple, over and above "normal" stock compensation. I'd be surprised if they repeat this every year.
- Turbots 5y agoA lot of them get this stock option every year, meaning after 4 years, you can easily have 480k vesting over time... (120k already vested after 4 years, 360k more to come in the next 4) etc...
- ineedasername 5y agoSure, it's not going to discourage someone that is very actively looking elsewhere already. But for people on the fence? And the people that would follow them if they made the jump? That's who this is aimed at. And who knows? For the folks already looking to get out, if the first one or two opportunities to come their way don't work out, maybe they'll decide to stay too. This is especially true for anyone looking to jump ship mostly for the money: If someone wants to jump ship for an extra 40k-50k, then giving them 30k makes the difference pretty negligible, all else being equal.
- conductr 5y agoProactive vs reactive bonus logic. If you're proactive, people are generally happy and not really a huge flight risk so the bonus just keeps them from even entertaining external offers even though they're hearing rumors of people leaving for X% more. If you're reactive, well they're probably already gone and you need to give them a huge counter offer to stay, many folks believe in the "never accept a counter" rule so again, you lost your employee.
- ninkendo 5y agoKeep in mind that the stock isn’t converted to cash when they grant it. It stays as stock from the beginning, so if the company goes up in value, it’s effectively worth more and more each year so long as you don’t sell it. $180k in AAPL 4 years ago is more like $540k now. If you don’t sell the stock, even after tax you’re potentially looking at $300k over a 4 year period. Plus, if you continue to get decent bonuses each year, this grows even more. Over a typical period over the past 10 years, Apple engineers would easily expect “salary” to be considerably less than half their actual income, especially when you consider the size of a typical sign-on RSU bonus and the amount it will grow. Now of course, the longer Apple keeps growing like this, the less and less likely it is to continue its trajectory, so I don’t know if new engineers will see the same gains, but over the past several years it would have been a pretty sweet deal.
- sbarre 5y agoThis is nothing new. I've heard that some well-known tech companies are offering fairly large additional stock-based long-term incentives (up to 2-3x salary in some cases) to key senior engineering talent to keep teams together for the next few years. LTIs are a pretty standard retention practice in general, especially for key employees who are already at the top of their pay bands, but the churn in the industry over the last 18 months has probably driven up the actual value of them across the board, and potentially even shortened the vesting period.
- frozenport 5y agoWe've been interviewing a bunch of Apple engineers. I doubt the $30k a year with some difficult vesting cliff is going to keep those guys working at the dumpster fire that has become Apple.
- mistrial9 5y agoLOL - dumpster fire of money! and prestige and long-term sales channels. Apple for engineers you mean.. most people here care, but management does not care, and brags about that. I absolutely recall Apple's cynical "revenue per employee" numbers being pushed around, like a house cat who craps in the middle of a path, to show everyone who is really in charge.
- the_duke 5y agoCan you share the complaints? What's theur reason for leaving?
- m_a_g 5y agoIn what ways did it become a dumpster fire? I thought Apple was a great place to work, but now I'm curious...
- frozenport 5y agoBiggest complaints: 1) work were you perform difficult maintenance tasks, think debugging userland code from complete system dumps 2) challenging infrastructure 3) monopolization of power by established employees Reality is that Apple willing to have 10x the typical staff for marginal gains. Being part of that can be difficult and boring.
- kerneloftruth 5y agoThings change. Their products used to be so good they were considered as a standard for quality and usability. Few of the iconic companies of the past retain their status. Apple has sunk a long way; but, like IBM and Microsoft, though, there's a still a lot of air to fall through before they hit ground.
- livinglist 5y agoI know a team at apple where four senior engineers quited in past two months… it’s just crazy
- ksec 5y agoAny Reason?
- gjsman-1000 5y agoWell, I’d love to work for Apple, but I have no interest into moving from Minnesota suburbs to the Bay Area with all of its sanitation and ludicrous cost of living problems. If I was Apple… it was the wrong time to build fancy headquarters. You got a few years, and now the area around it is falling apart and your employees have fallen in love with remote work.
- tshaddox 5y agoJust FYI, while cost of living is a problem pretty much everywhere in the Bay Area, the infamous sanitation issues are isolated to an incredibly tiny portion of the Bay Area.
- bagels 5y agoWhat is that even referring to? My sewer works just fine and trash is picked up regularly.
- k8sToGo 5y agoPoop everywhere
- flunhat 5y agoPoop on streets is very common in San Francisco. Most of the bay area doesn't have that problem, though. Map: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab720912642b6aedafdb02a76d2a4 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab72091...
- libria 5y agoIs this animal poop or human specifically?
- storyinmemo 5y agoHonestly it's a game to identify which. Accidentally left my garage in an 8 unit apartment building open once. Had to clean up the poop 15 minutes later. Human, if you're wondering still.
- SirHound 5y agoApple is clearly an incredibly successful company but to take an example why would an energetic young developer ever choose to work on Apple Music over Spotify? I say this as an Apple Music subscriber but one is a company that is existentially all in and the other that sees a revenue stream. This is evident in the quality of the respective products. If you’re not in the AR/car divisions then what is the point.
- TingPing 5y agoI get your idea, but Spotify isn't exactly an innovative company either. They made a product that was successful and they simply maintain it while also exploring other revenue streams (podcasts, Car Thing).
- lozenge 5y agoSpotify: not shuffling your playlists for 10 years.
- astrange 5y agoMusic streaming is a terrible business to be existentially all in to because the record labels own all the actual music and have all the power over you. But you can’t do anything about it either. So there’s not much reason to invest in it.
- Beaver117 5y agoBecause they are just engineers, not the owners of the company.
- SirHound 5y agoThat’s almost precisely my point. If I wanted to atrophy on a subpar product I’d choose Apple Music too. But I admit I say this not knowing the general compensation of either product.
- oarsinsync 5y ago> why would an energetic young developer ever choose to work on Apple Music over Spotify? I say this as an Apple Music subscriber but one is a company that is existentially all in and the other that sees a revenue stream I imagine some people had similar thoughts when considering Netscape Navigator vs Internet Explorer. > If you’re not in the AR/car divisions then what is the point. Some people are more interested in a stable paycheck and will take a bullshit job to enable it.
- surfer7837 5y agoThis is only a good thing for us. More demand/competition should mean wages rise
- uejfiweun 5y agoPretty much everyone I know who worked in Software at Apple had a bad experience. The common refrain was that engineers are treated like crap at apple, and it's the designers who get all the glory. It makes me excited for the future of software engineering to see moves like this. Clearly Apple, and many other companies, are starting to understand just how critical devs are to a modern business. And they are finding that to get good devs, you have to treat devs well too, in order to compete with companies like Google & Meta. My bet: salaries, especially for experienced engineers, continue to skyrocket.
- jjtheblunt 5y agoI worked in software & hardware engineering at Apple, we don't know one another, and nothing you cite as the common refrain was true anywhere around our world. We were treated excellently, and I loved it. (Quit for a science job far away, total non sequitur, not because of Apple)
- ozzythecat 5y agoThis is a recurring theme of posts that authoritatively attempt to describe the “hopeless” working conditions of highly compensated employees at big tech company <X>. I’ve been at one of the FAANGs for about 7 years. I’ve been on some amazing teams but also my share of office bs and difficult people. From reading HN’s characterization of my work environment, I’m depressed, completely stressed out, and everyone I work with is a horrible human being. I mean, if I wasn’t depressed before, I’m more likely to be depressed after reading some of these posts. As much as folks on even this site rally against FB, the constant stream of negativity or opinions - on why we should all hate X or why Y is evil - is easily found even here on HN.
- ksec 5y agoI think there is a major difference between Steve-Jobs era and Tim Cook era. Lots of people's past experience may have been Steve Jobs or slightly past Steve Jobs era from 11 - 14, where most of the things stayed the same. I tend to think 2015 was a turning point. And everything after is Tim Cook era. Also depends on org as well, for example vast majority of bad comments could be traced back to Apple IS&T. And you dont even need insider story to tell, simply judge them by IS&T's output on iCloud and any services.
- mgraczyk 5y agoInteresting, Apple pays $180k over 4 years to prevent good engineers from going to Meta. Meanwhile, Meta gives >$1M in discretionary equity to top performers to prevent them from leaving. I don't think Apple picked a big enough number here.
- lolsal 5y agoMeta has a moral/ethical cost as well as a branding tax.
- stathibus 5y agoI don't have an insider perspective on this, but from where I'm sitting, it sure looks like the giant bag of money is sufficient and Meta/Facebook hasn't had to worry about any of those things for a long time.
- greiskul 5y agoThe giant bag of money is the tax. If they weren't having problems with retention and hiring because of the ethical dilemma, they wouldn't have to offer such a large retention bonus.
- hugi 5y ago
- fermentation 5y agoI think context matters a lot with these recent articles about eng salaries. Hiring any mid-level and up engineer is tough right now, and Amazon recently bumped their salary bands by quite a bit. I think other companies are now catching up.
- sugarpile 5y ago"The giant bag of money" has been a thing for a long time -- it predates whatever branding issues people perceive them having lately.
- howmayiannoyyou 5y agoIn 1979 an inflation-led recession rocked the US economy, abated for about 3 quarters, then returned for another 4 quarters starting in 1981. I expect the same to happen in the months ahead, and in that context Apple's offer is attractive. For anyone who hasn't lived through a deep recession, or an inflation-led recession (stagflation)... it really sucked.
- xxpor 5y agoThose recessions weren't inflation led, they were intentionally caused by the fed to break inflation.
- howmayiannoyyou 5y agoI don't know what you think inflation-led means, but that's exactly my point. But for inflation, no Fed rate intervention, no liquidity scarcity, no recession... inflation started/led to it. You are one pedantic person. You must be a lot of fun at parties.
- qbasic_forever 5y agoBack in 2008 or so I remember rumors of Google giving million dollar stock awards to keep engineers from leaving, particularly female or other under-represented classes. These Apple award numbers sound downright stingy for a trillion dollar tech company.
- stathibus 5y agoOn one hand it seems like it would have happened already, but I still have to wonder if the FAANG arms race will have consequences in 5-10 years when all these overpaid engineers call in rich and decide to go work on something more interesting and with less bureaucracy in the way.
- jstx1 5y agoHow do you imagine it playing out? It's unlikely to happen at huge scale since most people won't happily take a huge paycut regardless of how well-off they are. And there's enough people who want to work at those companies to replace the ones that leave.
- stathibus 5y ago> most people won't happily take a huge paycut regardless of how well-off they are. I would, but I guess I could be in the minority there.
- clintonb 5y agoIt depends on individual priorities. Some folks just enjoy stacking cash. If you can do that, and maintain the status of being a top engineer at a well-known company, why rock the boat? Additionally, it’s really hard to step away from solving large scaling issues, and go back to trying to finding your first customers/building an MVP. I’ve been at startups and large companies. I like the money and challenges at large companies, and I don’t have crazy hours.
- Waterluvian 5y agoSpeaking of employee stock options, Does anyone have a recommended resource that details what practically happens to my options when a company IPOs? I know there’s a lot of variables but I imagine there’s some common patterns and things to be aware of. The entire thing is Greek to me and might become very important soon.
- toast0 5y agoI'm sure there's variables, but your company will most likely setup something with a brokerage and then you'll have to create an account there and have an employer equity account which will track your options. When you exercise them, the shares will go into your regular brokerage account and you can trade them like anything else (potentially subject to trading windows and other temporal conditions). Once you've got shares, you can transfer them out to a different brokerage if you like paperwork. Hopefully at a decent brokerage like e-trade or fidelity or schwab or even whatever Merril Lynch is called these days, and not ComputerShare, which is terrible.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Waterluvian 5y agoThanks. I was under the impression that until my options became stocks, my interface would be some person in the finance department. If my options appear in some managed brokerage account of mine, that makes this a lot more transparent.
- toast0 5y agoEventually, it should be in a managed account. But it may take a while post IPO to set it up. It depends how much experience the finance department has, but the brokerages know how to do it.
- nws 5y agoThis document was very helpful to me https://docdro.id/ZtXxCNd https://docdro.id/ZtXxCNd
- carlycue 5y agoApple is the biggest brand in the world and consumers love the company more than any other brand. Meta/Facebook is a peanut when it comes to the consumer hardware space. AR/VR will probably replace the smartphone in 10 years but I don’t think Apple has anything to worry about. Apple will cannibalize the iPhone themselves.
- root_axis 5y ago> AR/VR will probably replace the smartphone in 10 years What? How? Why? Those devices have completely different uses...
- SirHound 5y agoAR is a superset of the smartphone
- MarcellusDrum 5y agoI'd argue that since most of the younger generation uses their phones for social media, AR/VR has real potential in replacing traditional social networks in the next decade. The only thing I can think of that wouldn't fit well in AR/VR is reading articles.
- fdgsdfogijq 5y agoAmazon upped their L5 and L6 pay bands by 100k on the upper end. These companies are having trouble retaining and attracting talent, word has also spread on the internet about poor treatment of employees. 30k a year is nothing when someone else will give you a 150k raise.
- 71a54xd 5y agoFuck me, how do I position myself as a developer being poached for $200k?
- qbasic_forever 5y agoGo to one of a dozen or so privileged colleges that FAANGs almost exclusively hire from. Or more realistically, know someone who is already at one of those companies and can vouch for you and get your resume looked at by a recruiter. After that it's mostly a matter of how well you can handle a high pressure tech interview loop.
- compiler-guy 5y agoGoogle abandoned the "hire from only the best colleges" mantra years ago. It will hire anyone who makes it through the interview, regardless of college.
- qbasic_forever 5y agoYes but good luck getting the attention of a recruiter without something flashy on your resume, or a Googler's recommendation.
- deanmoriarty 5y agoHave you tried just emailing recruiters directly on LinkedIn? My resume isn’t flashy (no-name college and no-name work experience) and certainly it wasn’t a few years ago. Yet, a few years ago I managed to get interviews setup with every single FAANG company, and accepted to interview at three of them. I entered through the front door with no connections, by simply searching recruiters on LinkedIn and “spamming” a couple directly (spam = one single message).
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- supernova87a 5y agoApple is reaching a size where the un-coordination of its leadership and processes as it has grown (while yet rigorously enforcing other negative aspects of corporate culture) are producing a place that is harder and harder to enjoy working for. It worked for a while when the company was small enough and lines of command were short enough for leadership to control effectively, but it has grown while the people processes have not been consciously updated to fit. Maybe this is just 1% problems. So let me be specific and you judge. Promotion within Apple is getting nearly impossible as a career path, because company-wide "standards" on how to promote someone (above a certain level) invite division-wide scrutiny and justification to peers (of the people doing the promoting). Not to say that it was a huge career path in the past (you had to be lucky), but at least you got paid competitively. Now, can't pay someone market rate because that would be going out of band. While at the same time, people who come in as "headline" hires from external are given not nearly such scrutiny and instead get $Ms and hiring bonuses and directorships. AIML, I'm looking at you. Strict standards for the masses, bonuses for the leadership. And Apple is also not good at training/setting up/teaching people how to advance while working inside the company. So you are practically incentivized to leave and come back for your career advancement (once you realize it and want to stop banging your head against the wall). But not in any way that was deliberate, which loses the company a good deal. Maybe doing that better could have saved the company the billions they're having to pay now to keep people. I remember a Steve Jobs quote where he said, "we don't hire smart people to tell them what to do, we hire them so they tell us what to do." It doesn't feel that way much at all now, because seems like Apple just wants labor. And the annual review system is a joke. It serves just to gather feedback from peers and file it away in the drawer, since the salary bumps and bonuses are already all determined top-down from leadership. So what's the point of giving feedback or striving out of your way (unless you have some project that's got major visibility on the line)? I thought that Apple was a welcome exception from the college-kids-software-companies, with some more maturity and rigor to it. Turns out every company has issues. Eventually you come to accept what the company is in your small pocket of it, and take it or leave it.
- shrimpx 5y ago> It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's another thing, I have eight different bosses right now. — Peter Gibbons, Office Space
- renewiltord 5y agoOutside the industry this is significant. Inside the industry this is nothing.
- emerged 5y agoDoes Apple hire remote only engineers?
- thewebcount 5y agoI know some people working there who are remote. (For example one lives in New York but works for a team that is located in Cupertino.) From what they’ve told me it all depends on what you can talk your manager (or a hiring manager) into. If you’re good enough and they want you badly enough, you can get what you want.
- brentis 5y agoWould $180k over 4yrs move the needle if making $340k yr salary? Think not.
- clintonb 5y agoIn the near term, no. Long term, with appreciation, yes. The bonus is paid as equity, not cash. If the share price doubles, that bonus is $360K, not $180K. The hope is that you’ll be incentivized to stick around for the appreciation.
- samspenc 5y agoI wonder if this will continue though. As some of the other comments point out, Apple stock has increased by 400% over the past 5 years, it's difficult to imagine that it will keep "popping" like this over the next 5 years.
- giantg2 5y agoMeanwhile, I'm over here with an effective 4.7% pay cut as my "merit" increase.
- choppaface 5y agothese offers seem to be _down_ from 10 years ago when the retainers were 10x as large? https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/google-offers-staff-engineer-3-5-million-to-turn-down-facebook-offer/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/google-offers-staff-engine... That was Facebook-Google though. Apple likes to do no-poaches... https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po...
- tlogan 5y agoMy expirence from other large companies is these bonuses will be given to wrong engineers. But that is the nature of the beast. Nobody yet figured out the fix.
- sfblah 5y agoMaybe management thinks the stock is overvalued?
- bezospen15 5y agoWhat skillet is needed for these jobs that in so much demand? I've been working with infrastructure/VMware for 10 years and just a year in Azure. Looking for a quick way to catch up and ride this gravy train.
- davzie 5y agoThe comments talking about the amount not being enough etc is what I really hate about this place. The amount of money referenced can be life changing for a lot of people and even the concept of getting a bonus for many people is just not part of their reality. If you don’t keep your feet, this place can very easily make the ordinary developer feel like they’re doing something wrong in their career and question why they also aren’t earning exorbitant amounts of money. Not that I’m projecting!
- marnett 5y agoYou make a good point, but I think having open and honest discussion around compensation is better than having that conversation slip behind closed doors. I've always admired the software engineering field - it stands out from Investment Bankers, Doctors, and Lawyers as a highly paid profession with a culture of compensation transparency.
- kshacker 5y agoSlightly off topic. I saw this news at Bloomberg which is what is referenced by macrumors. Noticed that picture selling PowerBook G4 which was sold between 2001-2006. Really? News media just stopped investing in photos? This is even before the iPhone era:) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-28/apple-pays-unusual-180-000-bonuses-to-retain-engineering-talent https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-28/apple-pay...
- ksec 5y agoGood Catch :) I looked at it and I thought it was the new MacBook Pro, until notice the tag next to it.
- pjbeam 5y agoAn extra (small seeming) refresher doesn't seem like news?
- gremlinsinc 5y agoSomeone should make a platform that's like Linkedin meets ebay... You basically list your resume, salary, and companies can bid for you... No need to apply, etc..just get offers.