Documents and Agreements

This section covers a few kinds of documents you’re likely to see as you negotiate a job offer and sign on to a company. It’s not exhaustive, as titles and details vary.

• When you are considering your offer, make sure you have all of the documents you need from the company:

  • Your ​document​offer letter, which will detail salary, benefits, and equity compensation.

  • An ​document​Employee Innovations Agreement, Proprietary Information and Inventions Assignment Agreement, or similar, concerning intellectual property.

• If you have equity compensation, at some point—possibly weeks or months after you’ve joined—you should get a Summary of Stock Grant, Notice of Stock Option Grant, or similar document, detailing your grant of stock or options, along with all details such as number of shares, type of options, grant date, vesting commencement date, and vesting schedule. It will come with several other documents, which may be exhibits to that agreement:

  • ​document​Stock Option Agreement

  • ​document​Stock Plan (sometimes called a Stock Option Plan, or Stock Award Plan, or Equity Incentive Plan)

  • ​document​Code Section 409A Waiver and Release (sometimes part of the Stock Option Agreement)

• If you are exercising your options, you should also see paperwork to assist with that purchase:

  • ​document​Exercise Agreement

  • Instructions and template for early exercise and ​document​83(b) election, if applicable.

• End of year tax documents

  • You should receive a form ​document​3921 or 3922 from your company if you exercised ISO options during the year.