Re:I took a job at Amazon, only to leave after 10 months
by User23 on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @04:06PM
(#29814942)
> You had an amazing year, but you’re sitting on a bunch of stock already, so take this tiny new grant and fuck off
That's true, but it can go the other way too. One person I know got a needs improvement rating and no stock at all, but turned around and did rockstar work the next year. Because AMZN happened to have crashed about 50% in that time, getting the person back to target total compensation for the exceeds rating required granting considerably more RSUs than they would have received had they also gotten an exceeds in the prior year.
They don’t want to fix that. I’m sure they save a ton of money by backloading vesting like that. With their turnover rate, they probably pay out a pretty small portion of their awarded grants.
As I understand it (having never worked there), they are also stingy with granting new stock, and consider unvested grants in determining what to award each year. e.g. “You had an amazing year, but you’re sitting on a bunch of stock already, so take this tiny new grant and fuck off.” I’ve heard this from multiple former employees so have no particular reason to doubt it.