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Public Company equity guide: 59% of postings mention equity. 4-year vesting, often quarterly after year 1. Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) are the universal instru
59% of Public Company job postings explicitly mention equity as a compensation component. Based on 264 active job postings from 149 companies.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Postings mentioning equity | 59% |
| Median equity % (where disclosed) | — |
| Vesting schedule | 4 years / 1-year cliff (standard) |
| Companies in dataset | 149 |
| Type | % of grants | Postings |
|---|---|---|
| Equity | 73% | 113 postings |
| Espp | 12% | 19 postings |
| RSU | 9% | 14 postings |
| Options | 6% | 9 postings |
Role-level equity data coming soon.
Top companies hiring at the Public Company stage: Roblox · PepsiCo · Relativity Technologies · CoreWeave · Axon · Aon · Klaviyo · GitLab.
4-year vesting, often quarterly after year 1. Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) are the universal instrument.
Stock options give you the right to buy shares at a fixed price (the strike price). They're more common at earlier stages (Seed, Series A, B) when the company is private and the strike price is lower — the upside is higher if the company grows significantly.
Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) are grants of actual shares that vest over time. They're more common at later stages and public companies, where a set dollar value is easier to communicate. RSUs have value at grant; options are only valuable if the company's value exceeds your strike price.
What equity can I expect at a Public Company startup?
59% of Public Company job postings explicitly mention equity as a compensation component. 4-year vesting, often quarterly after year 1. Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) are the universal instrument.
What is a 1-year cliff?
A cliff means none of your equity vests until you've been at the company for 1 year. After the cliff, the remaining equity typically vests monthly over the next 3 years.
Should I negotiate equity or salary?
At Public Company companies, equity upside can dwarf base salary over a 4-year hold. If you're confident in the company's trajectory, negotiate for more equity at a lower salary rather than vice versa.
Seed Stage Equity Guide → | Series A Equity Guide → | Series B Equity Guide → | Series C Equity Guide → | Series D / Late Stage Equity Guide →
Equity data is aggregated from 264 active job postings at 149 Public Company companies tracked by Recruiting from Scratch (2025–2026). Equity mention % counts postings with a non-null equity_type field. Equity % figures come from postings that explicitly list a percentage range; coverage is partial (~155 postings).
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