Careers
Equity Vesting Schedule
An equity vesting schedule is the timeline governing when a recipient earns full ownership of granted stock options or restricted stock, most commonly four years with a one-year cliff followed by monthly or quarterly vesting for the remainder.
"Granted" and "vested" are not the same thing: a grant is a promise, vesting is the process of that promise becoming real, incrementally, contingent on continued employment. A grant can be revoked (for unvested shares) if employment ends; vested shares generally cannot.
Refresh grants — additional equity issued partway through an existing vesting schedule, common at larger tech companies as retention tools — typically carry their own new vesting schedule and cliff, layered on top of whatever is still vesting from earlier grants.