Well, if they didn't get a bonus for underperforming/not hitting the target, that's totally fine. Which is what is happening here, the target bar simply got rai

Well, if they didn't get a bonus for underperforming/not hitting the target, that's totally fine. Which is what is happening here, the target bar simply got raised. As for an employee quitting on their own accord before the bonus dispersal date (which they otherwise hit the bar to receive), every tech company I worked for or have friends working at, they have pretty fair systems for dealing with it. Generally, there is a cutoff date (which is usually about 4-6 months before the bonus disbursal/announcement date). If you leave at any point after that date, but before the bonus announcement/disbursal date, you still get your bonus in full. If you quit before the cutoff date, it gets prorated based on how many days you were an employee between the previous cut-off date and the upcoming one. There is also usually an extra nuance in math for people who just started working at the company and been there less than a year, but that detail is largely irrelevant. For a specific example, at MSFT, they had a cut-off date somewhere mid-june. The bonus got announced early september and disbursed in mid-second half of september. If you quit at any point after that date in June, you get your full bonus. If you quit exactly 2 months before the cutoff date, lets, say mid April, you get full_bonus*10/12.