Promo vs Job Hop — Career Velocity

Why this question is harder than it looks

Three things make the napkin math wrong:

• The 12-month equity cliff at the new job. A "+35% TC" offer is almost always +35% on year 2 onwards. Year 1, you earn just the cash portion (base + bonus, typically 55–65% of advertised TC). On a $400K offer with 60% cash ratio, year 1 take-home is $240K — possibly less than your current TC.
• Probability matters as much as magnitude. A +50% offer at 50% landing probability is mathematically equivalent to a +25% guaranteed offer. Most people overestimate landing probability when they want to leave. Be honest.
• Failed jobhops aren't the same as zero. If you don't land the target offer, you stay where you are — no income loss, just no upside. The expected-value calc treats failure as defaulting to the promo path, which is closer to reality than "0 if I miss."

The break-even external bump is the key diagnostic. It tells you the minimum offer you'd need (given your current promo path, cliff, ramp, and success probability) to make jobhop EV equal to staying. If your real offer is below break-even, the math is telling you to stay even if the new role looks shinier.

Math runs locally. Inputs never leave your browser. Source on github.

Real-world scenarios

• The cliff tax: how a +35% offer becomes +12% in year 1 — why most jobhop math undercounts the equity vesting gap, and the negotiation move that fixes it.
• Tech TC Breakdown — decompose your current TC and any external offer into base / bonus / RSU / sign-on to set realistic inputs for this calculator.
• Job Offer Comparison — compare two specific offers head-to-head once you have actual numbers in hand.