Hey all, I'm currently evaluating two offers for an embedded software engineer in Seattle with roughly ~10 yoe: Apple: Base: 210k Stocks: 270k (even over 4 years) Sign-on: 100k Zoox: Base: 210k Amazon RSUs: 145k (over 3 years - 20, 40, 40) ZARs: 98k shares (over 6 years - 0, 15, 20, 20, 20, 25) Sign-on: 105k Leaning towards Apple atm due to its stock refreshers, bonus, 401k match, better health insurance and certainty of Apple RSUs over ZARs. Curious what the community thinks. #apple #zoox #offer
100k sign on is insane 🤯
Pretty typical for Amazon since they backload their RSUs
Your sign on is insane but stock grants are not good for 10yoe. Is this an l5 equivalent. Zoox ZARs are not great and have been underperforming.
I believe the Zoox offer is for L5. Can you provide more details on how ZARs have been underperforming? They are pretty opague to me, so I'm not sure how much to trust them. As for Apple, recruiter told me that 270 is the max RSU for ICT4 without requiring special approval (which I'm reluctant to push for given hiring tightness).
ZARs (SARs) are like options but you don't pay to exercise them. Because Zoox is owned by Amazon and isn't planning to IPO, Amazon has promised to buy them, so they have guaranteed value/liquidity. Their value is based on an independent valuation of the company by a third party firm. So when you liquidate them, you receive the difference between the value when you liquidate vs the strike price/value at the time you joined. In other words, they have guaranteed value but that value depends on how the valuation grows. This past year, the value increased but not a ton. Fingers crossed for better performance next year, but there's no guarantee.
What is the level at zoox. If it’s L5 then it’s a lowball for that yoe
Agreed
Unless they didn’t interview that well. Either way, I think they should take apple
Which project is more fun to work on?
Apple would definitely be more secure. I don’t know much about the other company though. Having worked at Apple for 10 years, it can be an awesome place to work. That said, it’s huge and there are pockets of awful just like any company.
Zoox is part of Amazon but I’ve heard they retained some of their culture, kind of like NUVIA (Qualcomm) or Xilinx (AMD). Their product is cool at least
Can confirm that Amazon culture doesn't permeate Zoox culture.