Title. Have internship offers from both and factoring return offers into my decision. Assume everything is equal (skills, previous internships, etc). Microsoft's position would be in SV, not Redmond.
Microsft SV return offer (based on this year) will probably be something like 120k base, 10% target bonus, 120k RSU/3.5y, 30k signing. On the high end (no special approvals), 130k base (L60), 10% target bonus 150k RSU/3.5y, 50k signing / 2y. Target refreshers are negligible.
Microsoft has free food in SV. Free food > refreshers
Same
Apple may screw you with the return offer, something to consider in your calculus. Heard a bunch of cases where people had a verbal offer to come back for full-time and then had it revoked, apparently due to lack of req/headcount. Something similar happened to me as well. You can probably find the threads from searching.
The initial offers will be similar. But apple has better refreshers, meaning year 2 and onwards, apple will win out. People tend to only look at initial offers and don't consider refreshers for some reason so just a reminder.
Gotcha. Just to make sure I understand correctly, say you get 100k/4 years at Apple. Year 1, you get a 40k stock refresh over 4 years. Stocks year 1: 25k Stocks year 2: 35k Stocks year 3: 45k Stocks year 4: 55k Stocks year 5: 40k Would this be accurate? What do the refreshers look like at Microsoft?
Msft stock refresh is very small or nonexistent unless you are one of the top performers. At Apple you get decent refreshers as long as you are not a bad performer. If you are a good performer, you get even more.