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

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#171

Post by deregulateMed » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #161

deregulateMed wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bay area is expensive for sure but such salary comparisons are always exaggerated. Housing is the only thing that makes a significant difference to the annual budget for a ~22 year old, and even a $20K salary bump is more than enough to cover the difference in rent and other basic monthly expenses. It will almost always be worth it career-wise and financially to work in silicon valley for a few years, especially at t…

Fair point.

If you can get a mortgage, I imagine it's even better.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#172

Post by throwaway09223 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

Cerium wrote: post #155

MattGaiser wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so fascinated at how my grandfather would spend decades at a company, my Dad would spend a decade, and now people decline jobs over the expectation that they stay 1 year. And I was in my first job 51 weeks. I don't think you are wrong in doing so as the market in tech moves fast while employers move like slugs, it is just such a shift from what I grew up to expect.

Things are very different in a field with long product cycles. If it takes 5 years to get a product into the field then the company has a huge incentive to retain employees.

Sure, but if you're depending on the cliff for retention you're working against your own interests: Employees will leave the 53rd week, just after you've spent all that effort training them within your environment.

Long term retention hinges on long term adequate compensation and long term quality environments. There's no need for cliffs.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#173

Post by ericd » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

arnvald wrote: post #124

marktangotango wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the hottest job market I've seen Clearly this is anecdotal, but what types of things lead you to this conclusion?

I live in EU and there are a few things that have changed: - tons of remote offers, even with technologies like Java where in the past very few offers were remote - salaries significantly up compared to 1-2y ago (getting 90-100k eur for a remote position in EU was rare, now it's not surprising to see such numbers) - companies shorten interview processes, both in terms of numbers of rounds but also the time the whole…

Are you seeing more offers from US companies? I've been assuming that SV-based engineers are sort of shooting themselves in the foot by demanding their companies go remote, because there are so many good engineers in the EU making a small fraction of what an SV engineer makes (even at 100k EUR).

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#174

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:25 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #151

kerng wrote: post #141

This is good progress. Just two months ago I declined an offer from a known and well funded startup because of a one year cliff on equity. The recruiter didn't seem to be able to discuss this matter and I asked them to make sure to bubble this sort of thing up their food chain. I never heard back afterwards. As an "old timer" in the industry a one year cliff makes absolutely no sense to me. Its like working for credi…

I am so fascinated at how my grandfather would spend decades at a company, my Dad would spend a decade, and now people decline jobs over the expectation that they stay 1 year. And I was in my first job 51 weeks. I don't think you are wrong in doing so as the market in tech moves fast while employers move like slugs, it is just such a shift from what I grew up to expect.

[deleted]

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#175

Post by bentlegen » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:25 AM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #168

bentlegen wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is new, but in my 15 year career working for startups, I've only ever had monthly vesting.

Odd, 21 years of startups here and have only ever seen annual or quarterly vests until my current role (which I just started).

Anecdotally, looks like I've had the outlier experience, I suppose.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#176

Post by davidgay » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #167

scribu wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was surprised at how large a difference getting paid every week vs every 2 weeks makes. In what way?

While this isn't much of a company relationship thing: If you're getting paid every 2 weeks, sometimes you'll get paid the first/third week of the month and sometimes the second/fourth, which can be a pain if you're trying to keep a consistent amount in a checking account while also having bill pay and auto-transfers to savings/investment accounts. Or, tl;dr, it makes it easier to automate money without leaving a lar…

And in other parts of the world, they just pay monthly. Avoids that problem...

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#177

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

In NYC my experience is that the equity vests in four years, with one year "cliffs" for four years. The three-year, the "monthly", the other stuff I hear about is fantastical to me. And the equity isn't ever really life-altering.

Maybe I'm on the wrong coast?

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#178

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

adoxyz wrote: post #2

Good, pro-employee move. Next, I'd like to see pre-IPO startups offer longer periods to exercise shares when you leave. 90 days being standard is way too low.

Naive question here. Given that there's a long-term cap gains consideration, if the company has a strong likelihood (call it greater than 50% chance) of IPO isn't it better to exercise ASAP so the shares are kept more than 12 months in time for the IPO+lockup event?

What's the real advantage of waiting to exercise, to make sure that the stock will be worth something versus wasting your call option costs? How high are these strike prices that people are holding out?

Again, I've some, but limited (but very different) experience here with equity grants and options.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#179

Post by ZephyrBlu » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

deregulateMed wrote: post #113

bboylen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm curious why you find engineering more rewarding than software. I studied engineering for a couple of years at university and dislike it a lot compared to software.

Re: DoorDash removing 1-year cliff for equity grants

#180

Post by chris11 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:44 AM UTC

spotman wrote: post #159

jamiequint wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I declined an offer from a known and well funded startup because of a one year cliff on equity" You might as well not bother interviewing at any startups if this is a deal-breaker for you. Whether you think it's fair or not this is an extremely standard term and no company is going to alter their employee stock grants on a one-off basis.

Not really true. Have achieved multiple companies removing the 1 year cliff for me.

Really? I'm surprised. My employer just removed cliffs for new offers, it does seem to becoming more popular. But my assumption is the cliff is something I couldn't easily negotiate as an individual.