At my last company, the stock price when I joined was at $150/share, it rose to over $200/share and crashed to under $30/share by the time my initial vesting date came. I lost six figures of expected TC based on my original offer (over half my total compensation). Since it was a 1 year cliff, I couldn't do anything to diversify or limit my risk because my RSUs were not mine until they vested.
Lesson learned, but I don't think there's an archetype of engineer that prefers that kind of risk profile over large cash payments each month. My downside for Y1 at Amazon is 4% of the agreed upon TC.
Oh, I COMPLETELY misread due to my biases. My fault. You are completely right.
Perhaps I'm not as good as a negotiator as I thought (or the schedules are within the past two years) b/c I haven't ever received an offer that balances the agreed upon TC as you describe. It sounds great!
I agree, I think it's mostly framed as something Amazon does to screw over employees by dangling stock they might not ever get a few years out. I'm not even arguing about the other points for the parent of my original comment, but the vesting schedule at Amazon is severely underrated in my opinion.
Lesson learned, but I don't think there's an archetype of engineer that prefers that kind of risk profile over large cash payments each month. My downside for Y1 at Amazon is 4% of the agreed upon TC.