RSUs in practice: how employee shares work and why they attract top technical talent

Salary alone is no longer enough. The best IT professionals choose companies that offer them real product impact, transparent career paths, an engaging hiring process, and long-term compensation elements – such as RSU. Restricted Stock Units are real shares of a publicly traded company granted to employees as part of their compensation package, which vest gradually (typically over 4 years) and allow them to share in the company’s financial success. Based on monday.com’s experience building its Warsaw R&D center and Team Up’s recruitment projects, we’ve compiled six proven strategies for effectively competing with FAANG for top talent in the Polish market.

Article agenda:

1. What does today’s IT talent market in Poland looks like?

2. An offer that wins top talent – decision-making factors

3. RSUs in practice: what employee equity is and how it works

4. How to win the fight for top specialists: 6 key takeaways from monday.com and Team Up

What today’s IT talent market in Poland looks like?

But let’s start from the beginning and outline the current state of the Polish technology market. Warsaw has become one of the most dynamic tech hubs in Europe, attracting global giants from all over the world. The capital is the largest startup hub in Poland, home to more than a thousand young tech companies and the highest concentration of venture capital funds and coworking spaces in the country. Google, Meta, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft – all of these corporations have opened offices here and are actively recruiting top talent.

Poland has over 650,000 IT specialists – the largest pool of tech talent in Central and Eastern Europe.

This human capital is the reason Warsaw has become an arena of intense competition for the best engineers. Polish developers consistently rank among the top in global technical-skill rankings, making them highly sought after on the international market.

It is in this competitive environment that Monday.com entered Poland at the end of 2021, setting an ambitious goal: to recruit engineers at a level comparable to the biggest Big Tech players while offering something more – a work culture and growth opportunities that set the company apart from corporate giants.

An offer that wins top talent – decision-making factors

Modern tech talent is looking for more than just an attractive salary. In conversations with candidates, we consistently hear about four key decision-making factors:

1. Impact on the product and real autonomy

Top engineers don’t want to be anonymous cogs in a 400-person department where their work disappears in a maze of dependencies and approval processes. They want to build features from start to finish, see the direct impact of their decisions, and watch their code reach users. In smaller, agile product teams, this level of ownership is standard – in Big Tech, it’s a rare privilege.

2. Crystal-clear career development paths

Companies that operate with vaguely defined “levels” and unclear promotion criteria consistently lose to those that – like monday.com – publish their development frameworks openly. Transparency is one of the strongest magnets for talent.

Candidates need to know exactly:

• What each seniority level actually means in your organization
• What technical and soft skills are required at every stage
• What criteria determine promotions and how quickly they can grow

3. A recruitment process that builds engagement

Candidates interviewing with monday.com often repeat the same sentence: “The further I go in the process, the more I want to work here.” This should be your key success metric – not just time-to-hire, but your candidate engagement rate.

How do you achieve this? With technical tasks that reflect real team challenges, conversations with future peers (not just managers), transparent communication at every step, and feedback that adds value – even when a candidate doesn’t advance.

4. A mature, strategic role for Talent Acquisition and Hiring Managers

In Big Tech, recruiters are often seen as “interview coordinators.” In the best product companies, TA functions as quality guardians, business partners, and strategic advisors to hiring managers.

A strong recruiter understands the market, knows the technical requirements, can effectively articulate the company’s value, and protects the candidate experience at every stage. A hiring manager isn’t left alone with competency assessment – they collaborate with TA on building the entire talent acquisition strategy. This partnership is one of the most decisive factors in winning (or losing) the competition for top talent.

RSUs in practice: what employee equity is and how it works

The topic of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) is only now gaining momentum in Poland. While more and more candidates are asking about equity in compensation packages, many still don’t fully understand how RSUs work – or why they can be more valuable than traditional bonuses or even a higher base salary.

What exactly are RSUs?

RSUs (Restricted Stock Units) are actual shares of a publicly traded company that you receive as part of your compensation package – but with one key condition: you must work for a specified period before they become yours. They are not purchase options or virtual points – they are real ownership in the company that you can sell on the stock market.

Unlike a traditional bonus (which has a fixed value regardless of company performance), RSUs automatically increase or decrease with the stock price. If the company grows, your wealth grows. If it performs poorly, the value goes down. This makes your interests and the company’s goals align around the same thing: the long-term success of the organization.

How RSUs work – step by step:

Grant

When you sign your employment agreement, the company may grant you, for example, 1,000 shares. At the moment of the grant, they might be worth around USD 240 per share – a total of USD 240,000. But note: you don’t receive them all at once.

Vesting period

The shares vest gradually, typically over four years (the standard model in Big Tech):

• Year 1: 0 shares (cliff)
• After 12 months: 250 shares (25%)
• Years 2–4: quarterly vesting of approximately 62.5 shares

Cliff

You receive the first 25% (250 shares) only after completing a full year of employment. This protects the company from situations where someone joins, takes the equity, and leaves after a few months.
If you leave before your first 12 months are completed, you receive nothing.

Ownership

Once your shares have vested, they are yours permanently – even if you leave the company the next day.
After one year you have 250 shares? You can hold them or sell them.
After two years, another 250 are added to your portfolio. And so on.

Payout and management

After each vesting event, you have a few options:

• Sell immediately – convert the shares into cash at the current market price (e.g., 250 shares × USD 280 = USD 70,000)
• Hold as an investment – if you believe the company will continue to grow
• Sell partially – for example, cash out half and keep the rest

Why have RSUs become a game-changer in recruitment?

1. A real stake in the company’s success

RSUs fundamentally change the relationship between an employee and the organization. You’re no longer just a “human resource” performing tasks for a fixed salary – you become, in a sense, a co-owner of the business with a tangible share in its future.

When the company succeeds – launches a hit product, gains millions of new users, signs a key enterprise contract, or grows its revenue – its market value increases. And that directly increases the value of your shares. You don’t need to ask for a discretionary bonus or negotiate a raise during the annual review. Your wealth grows automatically, in proportion to the company’s performance on the stock market.

2. A significant part of total compensation

In companies like monday.com, Google or Meta, RSUs account for 10–40% of the total compensation package. At the highest technical levels in Big Tech (Distinguished Engineer, VP Engineering), RSUs can make up 60–70% of total compensation.
This means that if you’re only looking at the base salary, you’re seeing just half — or two thirds — of the real value of the offer.

Why do companies pay so much in equity?

It’s a business strategy built on several pillars:

• Retention – 4-year vesting schedule effectively keeps people in the company. If someone leaves after one year, they lose 75% of their grant, which works like a hidden tenure bonus. Companies expect that an employee will generate more value over those four years than the cost of the RSUs, and many people stay even longer, either out of habit or in anticipation of new equity grants.
• Tax optimization – in many jurisdictions (especially the U.S.), RSUs are more tax-efficient for companies than cash compensation (i.e., anything paid out in money rather than equity).
• Alignment of interests – if the company underperforms and the stock price falls, the actual value of the RSUs decreases – the company effectively “pays less” in tough times. If the company grows, everyone benefits.
• Competitiveness – to hire top talent, you need to offer what the competition offers, and RSUs are standard in companies competing for the best specialists on the market.

3. Long-term retention

RSUs are not just a compensation mechanism – they are one of the most effective talent-retention systems the tech industry has ever created. And they work not through pressure or artificial barriers, but through simple economics: leaving the company before your vesting completes literally means leaving hundreds of thousands on the table.

4. Positioning at the Big Tech level

In today’s tech job market, there is an unspoken hierarchy of job offers that exists in the minds of top talent. At the very top of this pyramid are companies offering competitive total compensation with equity , and without this component, you may simply not even enter the game for the best candidates. For Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Netflix (the so-called FAANG), RSUs are not a premium perk – they are a fundamental, non-negotiable part of every job offer.

Are RSUs the same as ESOPs? Two similar terms, two completely different mechanisms

Although more candidates today are asking about employee equity, many still confuse RSUs with ESOPs, treating both as “some kind of shares from the company.” In practice, these are two entirely different mechanisms.

RSUs (Restricted Stock Units) are actual shares granted to the employee upfront, which unlock over time according to a vesting schedule, and once vested, they become the employee’s property. ESOPs (Employee Stock Option Plans), on the other hand, give the right to purchase shares in the future at a predetermined price, often below market value. This means that with RSUs the employee receives tangible value, while with ESOPs they must first buy the shares before they can sell them.

As a result, RSUs are predictable and financially transparent, whereas ESOPs tend to carry more risk and depend heavily on the company’s future growth.

How to compete with Big Tech for top talent? 6 proven strategies

Since we’ve already established that the competition for top talent is no longer decided solely by salary, let’s move on to some practical guidelines. Based on monday.com’s experience in building a team in Warsaw and the recruitment projects carried out by Team Up, we’ve gathered six key principles that enable companies to compete effectively with industry giants.

1. Give candidates real product impact, not just task ownership

Top engineers want to work where they can see the results of their work. End-to-end ownership, decision-making autonomy, the ability to ship their own ideas, and real influence over the roadmap are now some of the strongest recruitment magnets. Companies that give space to shape the product automatically outperform those that offer only “task execution.”

2. Communicate your culture and values

Company values matter only when candidates can see them in action – in decision-making processes, work style, the hiring manager’s communication, and the level of transparency. Authentic culture works as a powerful filter: it attracts those who fit and naturally filters out those who don’t seek such an environment.

3. Design the hiring process as a “candidate engagement journey”

Recruitment isn’t a race against time. It’s a journey in which the candidate should understand the company better at every stage — and their interest should grow.

A well-designed process:
– showcases real technical challenges,
– gives insight into the product and the team,
– builds emotional engagement between the candidate and the company.

Candidates should finish the process thinking: “I want to work here,” not just: “I completed the interviews.”

4. Show clear career paths and competency maps

Lack of transparency around promotions or skill expectations is one of the most common reasons candidates reject offers. Companies that can present a clear development map (role by role, level by level) build trust and provide predictability. This is especially critical for senior and expert-level engineers who seek long-term stability.

5. Offer RSUs and other long-term compensation components

In a market where salaries have become relatively similar, long-term incentives (RSUs, stock, equity, LTI plans) are what truly differentiate employers. RSUs align the employee’s success with the company’s success – the better the business performs, the more valuable their compensation becomes. This is the kind of benefit that attracts and retains the most ambitious, thoughtful engineers.

6. Build a true Hiring Manager–TA partnership, not just an operational relationship

Effective hiring happens only when recruiters and hiring managers operate as one team. This means:
– defining criteria together,
– running regular feedback loops,
– staying aligned in communication with candidates,
– sharing responsibility for outcomes.

Companies where TA acts as a strategic partner – not “someone who schedules interviews” – close roles faster and with significantly better fit.

Summary

The tech market is maturing – and with it, the expectations of top IT specialists. Today, the winners are not those who offer the highest base salaries, but those who combine real product impact, transparency, values-driven culture, and long-term compensation elements such as RSUs.

Employee equity shifts the hiring conversation from “negotiating a few thousand more” to discussing shared value creation, responsibility, and co-ownership. Companies that understand this shift gain an advantage not only in recruitment but, more importantly, in retention and engagement among the people who build their product.

Are you hiring for tech teams and want to win the battle for top candidates? Let’s talk.