There was something of a cliff at certain levels if you didn't get promoted around the third year. Something about the offer package would subsidize your base p

There was something of a cliff at certain levels if you didn't get promoted around the third year. Something about the offer package would subsidize your base pay for a limited number of years until your stock started to vest, to smooth out your pay. However on the third year that subsidy would go away, and depending on the stock performance, your future stock grants could adjust down as well. In practice because the stock had been running up so much pre-2022, by the time the stock vested it was up a good amount. So if your stock grants & stock price performance after the third year weren't "just so" you could see your TC slip because the salary subsidy went away.