Article · 12 min read

How much equity should I give early employees?

Carta Free Intermediate

This is the benchmark data you need for the early engineer side of the question. Carta shows real grant sizes by hire number and role: a first engineer around one to two percent, dropping fast for later hires, far below co-founder tens of percent. Use these numbers to set an early engineer grant that is fair without treating them like a founder.

• First engineering hires typically land near one to two percent, not tens
• Grants drop sharply with each hire as risk falls and salary rises
• Technical hires usually command more equity than non technical peers