How do refreshers work?
Title says it all but let’s take an example. Join a company at 100k base + 400k RSUs that vest over 4 years making the estimated tc 200k a year for the first four years leaving out joining bonus and stock appreciation for simplicity. Now do refreshers kick in at the end of year 1? Let’s say you get 40k RSUs as refresher and that 40k will vest over next four years? And so on for every year after that? Aka yr 2 comp will be 210k (200k original and 10k refresher that vest at yr 2 end), yr 3 comp will be 220k and so on. Yr 5 however will be only only 140k (assuming no promo and the same refresher rate and the initial rsus run out)? Does that sound right?
What’s to prevent employees from bouncing around FAANG Co. every 3-5 years to get the initial outsized stock grant? Promotions?
Sometimes not much, which is why people tend to switch jobs around the 4 year mark. But yes, some people get promoted and benefit from growing compensation. Many see their compensation drop, sometimes sharply, at the 4 or 5 year mark. Compensation, however, is only one dimension of job satisfaction. Sometimes people are paid “well enough”, and they enjoy autonomy, mastery of their domain and authority/influence. When they leave, they start from scratch. More often than not, that is harder to leave.
Thanks for the reply! Are promotions usually accompanied by another large grant? Any idea of what the grant would look like for L3-L4, L4-L5 promotions?
Your example has too many RSU for the base salary in the initial offer that's why it looks like a massive drop. A more normal example would be something like: 160k base with 200k RSU, and then get 80k refreshers, so you start with 210k compensation, and after 4 years you would have 240k or so plus promotions and base salary increases.
Companies other than Apple give much more RSUs as initial grant
Thanks! That clarified things. Very helpful.
How does RSU refresher works when you get promotion? Do we get refresher RSU and promotions RSU both? I was recently promoted during annual performance cycle. I got RSU as refresher apart from my base increase. At least that’s what mentioned in my promotion letter. I am not sure I got Refresher RSU or my promotion RSU :(
Just
Yes