5 ms·

The back-loaded vesting schedule is such blatantly cynical bullshit. It shows that they're planning to overwork you, push you to wash out, and undercompensate y

The back-loaded vesting schedule is such blatantly cynical bullshit. It shows that they're planning to overwork you, push you to wash out, and undercompensate you for the experience, which is exactly what I've seen happen to a good number of friends. Amazon has become notorious here in Seattle - everyone knows they're a burnout factory. Some people make it through, and they make good money, but you have to really care about money for that to be worth the effort. I had an Amazon interview loop on the calendar during my recent job search, a couple of months back, but it was difficult to get excited; they think so very highly of themselves, for what they're offering - and I don't just mean the money, but the culture too. They treat you like an interchangeable wage slave, not like a respected professional; it's all hoops to jump through, and procedures to memorize - dance, monkey, dance! The recruiter was shocked when I cancelled the rest of the interviews, like, aren't you even going to give us a chance? But no: I had received a good offer from an ambitious, well-organized, well-funded AI startup which was excited to have me on board. With that on the table, why would I put up with Amazon? They won't offer better pay, they can't offer a better culture, and they don't have more interesting problems to work on.

pawelos 1y ago
> The back-loaded vesting schedule is such blatantly cynical bullshit; I don’t understand the complains about it. Amazon pays monthly cash ”sign-on bonus” in the first two years, which is ~ equal to the stock that you get in the years three and four (counting at the grant price). Is this fact not advertized well enough?
- marssaxman 1y ago
  The "sign-on bonus" comes with serious strings attached. A good friend of mine got royally screwed when he mistook that bonus for real money, then got pushed to the point of burnout and had to leave; Amazon demanded a lot of the money back, but he didn't have it anymore.
  - pawelos 1y ago
    Sign-on bonus is prorated and payed monthly, you definitely don’t need to pay back anything (source: I worked at Amazon). Maybe your friend talked about relocation bonus, which you need to pay back if you don’t work long enough.
    - marssaxman 1y ago
      My friend is a native-born Seattleite, so no, it was definitely not a relocation bonus. Perhaps they recently changed their policies? I don't know, but it's not a risk I would want to take. Who would want to work for people who treated their coworkers like that?
      - pawelos 1y ago
        Alright, I did some quick research and it seems that they do sometimes pay full first year of sign-on bonus, which you need to repay (prorated). I didn’t see that that during my time at Amazon.
        stormbeard 1y ago
        IIRC they pay it out monthly if the bonus is large enough.
        pvtmert 1y ago
        Ah, I just saw this, although I wrote a (much comprehensive) reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097345 The full payment that requires pro-rates is even worse. They expect you to pay it fully back. (ie. with the deducted taxes included!) I bet it is possible to profit from a such scheme if Amazon is able to declare that as a reversed-transaction (similar to VAT-refunds) at the end of the fiscal year.
      - chihuahua 1y ago
        I worked there in 2013 and had the signing bonus paid monthly. I thought it was great since I could work there as long as I could tolerate it (10 months) and leave without regrets about having to pay back anything. Decent cash comp so I feel I got a good deal.
throwboy2047 1y ago
The problem with working at places where you care that much about money is having to work with people who only care about money.
- andy99 1y ago
  This is a serious challenge in relation to hiring also. If you want to pay for good talent, and so are prepared to pay good money, how do you avoid people who are there for the money.
scarface_74 1y ago
This is an uninformed take. Yes the RSU is backloaded. But during the first two years, you get a large monthly cash sign up bonuses so that assuming the stock stays flat, over the four years, your total comp stays flat. If the stock increases your comp goes up. I spoke to someone who is there now and when you get your yearly review, now you can choose between mostly cash vs mostly stock for your raise and most people choose mostly cash. I make the same now as I did when I was at AWS and I much prefer my all cash comp over my less cash + RSUs when I was there.
- snoman 1y ago
  RSU grants assume a growth rate (15%? I forget) so if they stay flat, go down, or grow slower than the baked-in growth rate, then you make less each year. If you do well enough, they’ll give you some RSUs to “make you whole” (as they used to say) but that doesn’t really happen anymore (or not much).
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    This is not true for your initial four year grant. I’m going to make up a number to make the math easy. Say my total compensation target was $200K. My initial 4 year offer was structured based on the then current stock price. It would have been what ever it takes where base + prorated signing bonus + RSUs would equal $200K taking into account the 5/15/40/40 RSU schedule.
sophia01 1y ago
> The back-loaded vesting schedule is such blatantly cynical bullshit. I don't understand this. A friend was recently offered an insane pay package from Amazon (compared to another big-tech). The way I saw it, the Amazon pay package was more attractive than the alternative because of the back-loaded vesting schedule. Basically they pay you out in cash for the first two years, then after that you have an option to keep working there. If the stock price goes down in the first two years, you got your guaranteed cash -- no risk (and it would be a good time to interview again). If the stock price goes up, you now have basically an option on extra exposure in the form of staying longer with highly valued RSUs, and now getting some high proportion of your pay in RSUs. It just seems straight up better? If you want the stock instead of fungible cash, just buy it on the open market?
- coredog64 1y ago
  It's bullshit because it assumes 15% IRR. So if they tell you you're getting $100K in outyear 3, it's not actually $100K, it's $65K of present value equities. If it fails to reach the target value, well, "Ownership" is an LP. You might get some more stock that vests in another year to make up for it, but that assumes you survive the PIP factory for another 12 months. Oh, and if the stock actually goes up more than 15%, then regardless of your performance you won't get a raise because you've already exceeded band penetration.
  - sophia01 1y ago
    Thats not true. They price the stocks at current market value and tell you how many you'll get + what the vesting schedule is.
JCM9 1y ago
They got away with this attitude in the earlier days but it’s really hurting them now. A good chunk of the best talent out there won’t even consider Amazon. Culturally it’s very hard to turn that around now and catch up. 90% of the folks there that I know that were good have left for elsewhere. Of the ones that didn’t most are on H1Bs and basically have no choice but to stay and deal with the toxic environment.

pawelos 1y ago

> The back-loaded vesting schedule is such blatantly cynical bullshit; I don’t understand the complains about it. Amazon pays monthly cash ”sign-on bonus” in the first two years, which is ~ equal to the stock that you get in the years three and four (counting at the grant price). Is this fact not advertized well enough?

marssaxman 1y ago
The "sign-on bonus" comes with serious strings attached. A good friend of mine got royally screwed when he mistook that bonus for real money, then got pushed to the point of burnout and had to leave; Amazon demanded a lot of the money back, but he didn't have it anymore.
- pawelos 1y ago
  Sign-on bonus is prorated and payed monthly, you definitely don’t need to pay back anything (source: I worked at Amazon). Maybe your friend talked about relocation bonus, which you need to pay back if you don’t work long enough.
  - marssaxman 1y ago
    My friend is a native-born Seattleite, so no, it was definitely not a relocation bonus. Perhaps they recently changed their policies? I don't know, but it's not a risk I would want to take. Who would want to work for people who treated their coworkers like that?
    - pawelos 1y ago
      Alright, I did some quick research and it seems that they do sometimes pay full first year of sign-on bonus, which you need to repay (prorated). I didn’t see that that during my time at Amazon.
      - stormbeard 1y ago
        IIRC they pay it out monthly if the bonus is large enough.
      - pvtmert 1y ago
        Ah, I just saw this, although I wrote a (much comprehensive) reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097345 The full payment that requires pro-rates is even worse. They expect you to pay it fully back. (ie. with the deducted taxes included!) I bet it is possible to profit from a such scheme if Amazon is able to declare that as a reversed-transaction (similar to VAT-refunds) at the end of the fiscal year.
    - chihuahua 1y ago
      I worked there in 2013 and had the signing bonus paid monthly. I thought it was great since I could work there as long as I could tolerate it (10 months) and leave without regrets about having to pay back anything. Decent cash comp so I feel I got a good deal.

throwboy2047 1y ago

The problem with working at places where you care that much about money is having to work with people who only care about money.

andy99 1y ago
This is a serious challenge in relation to hiring also. If you want to pay for good talent, and so are prepared to pay good money, how do you avoid people who are there for the money.

scarface_74 1y ago

This is an uninformed take. Yes the RSU is backloaded. But during the first two years, you get a large monthly cash sign up bonuses so that assuming the stock stays flat, over the four years, your total comp stays flat. If the stock increases your comp goes up. I spoke to someone who is there now and when you get your yearly review, now you can choose between mostly cash vs mostly stock for your raise and most people choose mostly cash. I make the same now as I did when I was at AWS and I much prefer my all cash comp over my less cash + RSUs when I was there.

snoman 1y ago
RSU grants assume a growth rate (15%? I forget) so if they stay flat, go down, or grow slower than the baked-in growth rate, then you make less each year. If you do well enough, they’ll give you some RSUs to “make you whole” (as they used to say) but that doesn’t really happen anymore (or not much).
- scarface_74 1y ago
  This is not true for your initial four year grant. I’m going to make up a number to make the math easy. Say my total compensation target was $200K. My initial 4 year offer was structured based on the then current stock price. It would have been what ever it takes where base + prorated signing bonus + RSUs would equal $200K taking into account the 5/15/40/40 RSU schedule.

sophia01 1y ago

> The back-loaded vesting schedule is such blatantly cynical bullshit. I don't understand this. A friend was recently offered an insane pay package from Amazon (compared to another big-tech). The way I saw it, the Amazon pay package was more attractive than the alternative because of the back-loaded vesting schedule. Basically they pay you out in cash for the first two years, then after that you have an option to keep working there. If the stock price goes down in the first two years, you got your guaranteed cash -- no risk (and it would be a good time to interview again). If the stock price goes up, you now have basically an option on extra exposure in the form of staying longer with highly valued RSUs, and now getting some high proportion of your pay in RSUs. It just seems straight up better? If you want the stock instead of fungible cash, just buy it on the open market?

coredog64 1y ago
It's bullshit because it assumes 15% IRR. So if they tell you you're getting $100K in outyear 3, it's not actually $100K, it's $65K of present value equities. If it fails to reach the target value, well, "Ownership" is an LP. You might get some more stock that vests in another year to make up for it, but that assumes you survive the PIP factory for another 12 months. Oh, and if the stock actually goes up more than 15%, then regardless of your performance you won't get a raise because you've already exceeded band penetration.
- sophia01 1y ago
  Thats not true. They price the stocks at current market value and tell you how many you'll get + what the vesting schedule is.

JCM9 1y ago

They got away with this attitude in the earlier days but it’s really hurting them now. A good chunk of the best talent out there won’t even consider Amazon. Culturally it’s very hard to turn that around now and catch up. 90% of the folks there that I know that were good have left for elsewhere. Of the ones that didn’t most are on H1Bs and basically have no choice but to stay and deal with the toxic environment.