I've heard of Amazon's hard $160K salary cap many times over the years. The rest of the compensation is through stock and bonus. It wouldn't be unreasonable for a senior engineer hired in at total annual compensation of, for instance, $350K, but only $160K of that will be in salary.

I'd guess they have some leeway make exceptions to the cap, and I have no idea if it applies to management track positions.

Leeway on the cap is only for bay area employees and maybe employeees of acquisitions.

They do have a max salary limit. When you first join, before your stock vests they give you an extra hire on bonus. This has clawback restrictions, something like you lose a quarter of it when you leave before 2 years (someone current there will know the rules better). So if you were going to make lets say 200k a year you'd get that extra 40k divided into 4 quarterly parts to equal it out. Then after you start getting stock this 'extra' goes away. I had an offer like this a few years ago, but I don't recall the exact details of clawback.

It's still kind of amazing that so many people go there, I guess it's that great big top line number when you add in stock. I know so many people who left there before 2 years, cause they hated it so much. What are the places that don't suck there?

Your sign on bonus is paid monthly over two years. The first year you get paid more of it since you only get 5% of your RSUs, the second year you get paid less since you get 15% of your stock vest.

There is no clawback - I checked my paperwork. I think one of my friends told me that he did get part of his bonus when he was first hired. In that case there would probably be a clawback.

When I was hired as an SDE I in 2014 the first year of the sign on bonus was paid upfront, so there was a clawback.

A friend hired as an SDE II at the same time had a higher sign on bonus, not paid as a lump sum, so no clawback.

Lots of stock grants and bonuses. It's only base salary that's capped.

Does that not cause people cash-flow problems? In my experience things like mortgages are based on how much you're guaranteed to be paid and if you just say you hope to get a bonus and you hope your shares are worth something they won't be happy.

If your total compensation is something like a quarter of a million as an Amazon engineer does that mean you have to live much more frugally for your first year until you get your bonus and shares?

Yes, but this is offset by Amazon's sign-on bonus. According to online sources, Amazon's stock vesting schedule is:

5% in year 1, 15% in year 2, 40% in year 3, 40% in year 4.

This is unfavorable compared to other top-paying tech companies, however Amazon may offer a sign-on bonus for years 1 and 2 to help even out the total annual comp.

> Yes, but this is offset by Amazon's sign-on bonus.

Aaah, I see how it all works together then.

Not really, that offsetting by sign-on bonus is a lie too: other companies not only offer a higher sign-on bonus, but also monthly or quarterly vesting in even chunks.

It’s not “a lie”. They tell you the total comp target and it’s made up of salary+bonus+RSU. You either accept it or you don’t.

The idea that it balances their compensation out versus the rest of FAANG is a lie though.

A lie by who? Amazon?

Yeah, Amazon's compensation structure is really bad compared to other FAANG companies. Perks are worse (pre-Covid-19, at least). And most people seem to think work-life balance and company culture is worse.

On the other hand, AMZN stock has done much better than Facebook, Google, Apple over the last five years, so at least they have that.

> On the other hand, AMZN stock has done much better than Facebook, Google, Apple over the last five years, so at least they have that.

Yes, but you don't have to work at AMZN to buy their stock. And RSUs are just another name for 'cash compensation, that was immediately spent on buying company stock'.

True. But if your target comp over the first four years was hypothetically $900K based on salary+bonus+RSUs and the stock went up significantly during that time you would end up making more. Of course if the stock goes down....

I think I heard that Amazon bases future grants on the assumption that the stock price will increase 15%. But I can tell you that my salary+bonus+RSU when they made an offer was based on the stock price not changing.

Amazon’s sign on bonus is paid and vests monthly if it’s for a substantial amount.

No. My mortgage looked at taxes, which show the value of shares I received each year (and bonuses). Plenty of people earn income outside a salary - think of a successful sales guy, where most of their income is commissions.

The bank wants to sell you a loan. They aren't going to intentionally leave money on the table by intentionally ignoring what an RSU is

The banks include RSUs if you have two years of history of receiving them. Otherwise they ignore the stock plan.

The same goes for the sign on bonus, they ignore the bonus portion of comp unless there is two years of history and an expectation that it will continue.

Source: I have been at Amazon for 2.5 years and checked with a LOT of banks.

That's salary. It's not uncommon for total yearly comp to be north of $300k, and very likely closer to $500k/yr. It's just paid differently. I'm not sure why their base is so low though.

Does seem strange - what happens when you want a mortage on a Seattle-price house? Do you tell them you only get paid £160k but you're definitely going to be getting a big bonus this year. Who would believe that?

Income is income in the US. Doesn’t matter if that income is monthly or one big check at the end of the year.

They look at what they can verify on your taxes. So let’s say you made $350k at Amazon last year, that’s all they really worry about. Doesn’t matter if only half of that was salary. They’d still consider your income as $350k and use that to approve whatever amount you’re looking to borrow.

If you just started at Amazon they wouldn’t be using your income to verify anyway. They’d want your previous work history going back, in some cases, 5 years.

Total compensation is stock + cash. This is just the cash cap

I’m an L7 SDE in Seattle, hired 2 years ago.

Year one comp was about $520k (160 base, 320 bonus, 40 RSU)

Year two comp was around $580k (160 base, 280 bonus, 140 RSU)

This year I’m on pace to gross near $700k (160 base, no bonus, 500+ RSUs)