I think the point is that (using your example) you can get a 100K base, 400K stock, and the 175K signon at a different company.

The point is that while Amazon may offer you a higher signon in lieue of equity, at other FAANGs the choice can be both.

FWIW I've seen recently (in the past year or so) non-AMZN FAANG sign-ons well north of $200K (split over 2 years), along with a top-of-line stock package that vests linearly.

Overall, AMZN's backloaded vesting schedule may be "evened out" via the use of generous signing bonuses, but ultimately is still uncompetitive with other FAANGs. More generally AMZN's TC - no matter which way you cut it - tends to trend lower than competing-tier peer companies.

Hmm, maybe I'm just ignorant of what's out there, what company gives out 200k sign-on and a linear stock vest? I'm mostly using an example of an SDE 1/2 (hence 200k offer) and for the most part I've only seen Amazon give a sign-on that high and over 2 years. For Sr engineers, I've seen Amazon offers north of 700k sign-on split over 2 years

What company is only giving $25k in signing bonuses? Everyone I know who works at a (non-Amazon) FAANG got significantly more than that.

For what role/company? A 200k offer implies SDE 1/2 and a 25k sign-on is probably median for that, even big tech. Of course there is Meta giving insane sign-on but for the most part it's around 25k

I assumed those numbers were made up to show scale. Is Amazon really giving $175k sign-on bonuses to SDE 1/2 positions? Are their sign-on bonuses ~7x higher than other companies' for higher level positions as well? That seems crazy.