DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants • Hacker News Board

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#111

Post by zo1 » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

jshen wrote: post #77

whimsicalism wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what sort of compensation are you offering? Also - I'm talking about last year, not now. But I am recently out of college and have not even passed resume screen by a few companies despite referral, credentials, etc.

We’re not a big tech company, so comp isn’t quite what it is at Amazon, FB, etc. but, it’s solid. 100k+ salary, annual grant of restricted stock units, good health and other benefits etc. Having said that, there’s a contradiction in claiming that college grads can’t find jobs while suggesting that a company offering six figures can’t find people because of comp.

Are you offering remote? That might be a big factor that could influence things at this point in time.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#112

Post by deregulateMed » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #87

digianarchist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsing /r/cscareerquestions it looks like entry level folks are having a hard time breaking into the industry. Employers are mostly recruiting senior levels it seems.

I know many new college grads who got offers from multiple tier-1 and tier-2 silicon valley software companies in the same range as what I got as a senior engineer with 8 years of experience a few years ago. I'm talking base salary $160K-$180K, $300K equity grant, 10% annual bonus, sign on bonus, relocation...the works. Not to say that everyone can simply walk in to these jobs (and they shouldn't!), but if a graduati…

Is it really "the works" if you have to move to SV?

I'm profiting 100k/yr in the Midwest, and it's a junior-ish position.

Could be worse, could be Tesla 90k/yr revenue.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#113

Post by deregulateMed » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

bboylen wrote: post #47

digianarchist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsing /r/cscareerquestions it looks like entry level folks are having a hard time breaking into the industry. Employers are mostly recruiting senior levels it seems.

As a self taught guy transitioning from chemical engineering, I hope its not too hard. Starting my search in a couple months

I did this.

Engineering was more rewarding than software, but software pays better.

I do engineering in my personal projects now.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#114

Post by nostrademons » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

soheil wrote: post #83

nostrademons wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they do this to keep bad hires from sticking around until the cliff. It takes a lot to fire someone legally - oftentimes you have to document ~6 months of poor performance, put them on a PIP, give them a chance to remediate, etc. Combine that with normal long ramp-up times in a tech company, and by the time you know it's not working out and can fire them, they're pretty close or past the 1 year vesting point…

I get the point about unhappy employees sticking around just for their cliff to vest, but what about attracting a new breed of employees looking for short term employment?

That's already a risk in tech, because wages are so high but ramp-up times are pretty long.

They get weeded out relatively quickly and usually run out of desirable employers, though. That's why employers are skeptical of employees with multiple short-duration stints or gaps on their resume.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#115

Post by RussianCow » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

breck wrote: post #51

RussianCow wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one that doesn't see that as unreasonable? It's not like you aren't accruing equity during that time; you still get the full year's worth of options at the 365 day mark. And the ramp-up time with new engineers can be so long that the first year isn't nearly as productive as consecutive ones. A buddy of mine who worked at a giant company (not strictly tech but you'd recognize it) said he heard from his b…

I think the larger the company the longer it takes to ramp up, but at a small startup you can have a big impact in month one. I've always found the one year cliff funny, since investors don't have a cliff. I've been hoping startups would start doing this for a while, and think DD is really a pioneer here and think this will become a trend. I know personally I turned down a few opportunities at promising startups simp…

> I know personally I turned down a few opportunities at promising startups simply because I was young, in my twenties, and a year felt like a long time. I found the probability of a life changing event that would require me to move and leave a company too high, and didn't want to bust my butt for 10 months with a salary cut, then have to leave and get no equity. So I said "no" to a few opportunities that otherwise would have been great.

I'm curious: Did you try to negotiate? I have had luck negotiating the terms of equity in the past, but I'm not sure if my experience generalizes.

> Currently incentives first your first year are to focus on not getting fired. Now it can be on making an impact.

If someone is so unmotivated at a job that they're not making an impact, I don't know if removing the cliff would help; they likely shouldn't have taken the job in the first place. If you join a new place and realize that it's a poor fit, it's usually best to cut your losses and move elsewhere immediately, even if your equity hasn't vested. The presence of a cliff doesn't significantly change that math.

I agree about missing out on hires because of the cliff, I just don't think it's that unreasonable to have one.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#116

Post by jshen » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

bboylen wrote: post #80

jshen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something is off then. Are they in big cities? Do they not know where/how to apply? We’ve had a hard time hiring anyone, including entry level.

What city are you in, if I may ask?

We offices in several cities. LA, Seattle, and more.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#117

Post by MattGaiser » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

deregulateMed wrote: post #104

MattGaiser wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a surprising number of people who graduate CS/CE without writing any meaningful amount of code. To me a decent junior should be able to build a basic Hacker News. There are a lot out there who have never done so much as make a web page with more than copy/pasted Jquery and expect to get jobs.

I've seen these people get a job in testing and never leave... Or they move to a program management position. On the flip side, self taught coders can do pretty much anything with bad form. Although even at my job I find myself doing things with bad form unless the task requires it to be written well.

This is one of my concerns about myself.

I have never really had the opportunity to work with experienced developers for a long period of time (at least not experienced with the work I was doing) so for all I knew I am doing all sorts of things with bad form.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#118

Post by potatolicious » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #63

jypepin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've seen is generally the conversion happens once for the whole package, when you sign. So if the stock grows during your vesting period, the value increases (goes both way obviously). I think here they are mentioning value based, which means that instead of being given X amount of shares/rsu over 4 years, you're given "the equivalent of $X" at the begining of each years. So after 1 year, of the stock doubled i…

That's typical, but I've heard of a move away from it, to a plan where you get a set dollar amount every month(?) and it's converted to employee shares at the market rate then. Sounds like DoorDash just moved to it, and someone has linked a Blind thread where apparently Stripe/Instacart have, and I heard from a friend that Lyft just moved to that as well. I can see the importance of this from the company end - with t…

Agreed, this seems deeply negative for the employee. It's not semantically different than just being paid a cash bonus, except you are forced to buy company stock with said cash bonus.

Which I suppose you can just immediately sell and get back the cash - which begs the question of why not just model this as cash bonus compensation entirely?

The entire attraction of equity is that it can appreciate as it vests - that your (presumed) contribution to the company's market cap during your tenure is rewarded.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#119

Post by MattGaiser » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

fridif wrote: post #109

MattGaiser wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a surprising number of people who graduate CS/CE without writing any meaningful amount of code. To me a decent junior should be able to build a basic Hacker News. There are a lot out there who have never done so much as make a web page with more than copy/pasted Jquery and expect to get jobs.

>"To me a decent junior should be able to build a basic Hacker News" In what time period? With what features? With what non functional requirements? Show me a senior who can! I have a better test for evaluating anyone's skills: Write a function that puts Strings in an array. Then write another function that goes searching for a string in an array. Write a unit test to confirm your code is working. Explain what happen…

I would be satisfied with anything approaching a forum, with wide flexibility in specific features.

If you know enough about a web framework to get it going, use it to complete a specific set of tasks, and get it deployed with a database, it would put you ahead of a heck of a lot of grads that I know.

I wasn't suggesting this as an interview question, but more a self check for juniors. Can you actually bring something end to end? Yours works better in an interview setting, although it seems fairly trivial.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#120

Post by novok » Wed, Jul 07, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

TBH I'd feel jittery working at door dash. COVID is going to end completely soon and the boom in deliveries is going to drop with it, probably along with their stock price. If was to go work there, I could start selling every month.

But they also don't give you units of RSUs as stock comp, just cash equivalents, so that is another major downside working there.