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 documentoffer letter, which will detail salary, benefits, and equity compensation.
An documentEmployee 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:
documentStock Option Agreement
documentStock Plan (sometimes called a Stock Option Plan, or Stock Award Plan, or Equity Incentive Plan)
documentCode 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:
documentExercise Agreement
Instructions and template for early exercise and document83(b) election, if applicable.
End of year tax documents
The resources here are a small subset of the full set of resources cited in the Guide to Equity Compensation, selected for their breadth, notability, or depth on specific issues.
Mark P. Cussen, Investopedia, Introduction To Incentive Stock Options, updated 2017