wealthschema/archetypes/a-06-tech-employee-with-equity
A-06Accumulation EarlyAccumulationhigh tax complexity

Tech Employee with Equity

Mid-level tech employee with significant RSU/option grants, concentrated stock position, AMT exposure, high base salary.

A-06 is the mid-level tech employee post-RSU-vest-cliff: equity has become a material balance-sheet line, supplemental withholding under-withholds at vest, AMT preference items appear on ISO exercises, ESPP discount triggers add another tax-lot wrinkle, and concentrated-position risk in employer stock is the dominant portfolio-construction question.

Age Range
30–42
Net Worth
$1M–$5M
Cohort
Accumulation Early

About this archetype

A-06 captures the early-accumulation tech employee whose equity compensation has matured past the F-01 'scheduled but not realized' stage into materially-vested-and-counted balance-sheet wealth. The defining technical surface is the equity-comp stack: §83 RSU income recognition at vest with the supplemental-withholding 22% default rate that systematically under-withholds at the A-06 income range (median $267k), §422 ISO exercise mechanics with AMT preference under §56(b)(3) — the canonical 'exercise-and-hold creates phantom income' scenario — §423 ESPP qualified-disposition timing rules with the discount-as-ordinary-income wrinkle, and §83(b) elections on early-exercise pre-IPO equity where the election window is 30 days from grant. Concentrated-position risk in employer stock is the dominant portfolio question: median investable assets of $955,578 are heavily weighted toward employer equity, and the corpus is the right fixture for testing 10b5-1 plans, exchange funds, and direct-indexing-as-diversifier UX. Backdoor and mega-backdoor Roth are mandatory at this income range. The §1411 NIIT triggers on any sizeable taxable-brokerage gains.

Cash-flow shape is unusual: high W-2 base salary plus supplemental RSU income that arrives in quarterly chunks at vest, creating the AGI-volatility problem that breaks naive monthly-average withholding calculations. Median combined gross of $267,158, median net worth $1.42M, median liquid net worth $606,307 — substantially higher than A-03 at the same family-structure stage. 27 of 32 households are homeowners (84% — highest of any Accumulation Early archetype), 27 carry mortgages, 16 carry student loans (the A-05-style training debt that has not yet been paid off despite the high income), and 13 carry auto loans.

A-06 is distinct from neighbouring archetypes because of the equity-compensation tax surface that no other archetype carries at this scale. A-03 (Dual-Income Professional Couple) has similar combined income but professional-W-2 with no equity-comp tax wrinkles. A-05 has similar income but a debt-heavy balance sheet rather than equity-heavy. P-01 (Peak Earner — Corporate Executive) is the same equity-comp surface 10–15 years advanced with NQSO, SERP, and deferred comp added. P-06 (Sudden Wealth Recipient) overlaps when an A-06 household has just hit a post-IPO liquidity event. CR-01 (Crypto-Heavy / DeFi Investor) shares concentrated-position risk but with crypto rather than employer stock. F-01 is the pre-vest precursor.

Defining characteristics

  • RSU concentration
    Vested RSU stock typically dominates the household's brokerage holdings, with 30–60% concentration in a single employer name. The relevant testing surfaces are 10b5-1 sale-plan UX, exchange-fund eligibility, and direct-indexing-as-diversifier construction.
  • AMT
    §56(b)(3) AMT preference on ISO exercise (without sale) is the canonical phantom-income scenario. Tax-software flows need to handle the AMT credit carryforward under §53 and the disqualifying-disposition unwind path correctly.
  • ISO options
    Incentive Stock Options under §422 with the qualifying-disposition holding period (two years from grant, one year from exercise) versus disqualifying disposition. The corpus exercises both branches.
  • 83(b) election
    Available on early-exercised pre-IPO equity within 30 days of grant. The corpus reflects households that have made the election (typical for pre-IPO joiners) and those that have not (typical for post-IPO joiners), exercising both tax-treatment paths.
  • ESPP
    §423 qualified ESPP with the 15% discount typically taken at the lookback-low share price. Qualifying-disposition vs disqualifying-disposition timing is the relevant tax-lot tracking surface.
  • Tax diversification
    Concentrated-position risk drives the household toward asset-location and direct-indexing-as-diversifier construction. The corpus is the right fixture for testing tax-loss harvesting against employer-stock holdings.

Corpus signature

n = 32 households

Aggregated across the 32 A-06 households in the shipped v3 corpus corpus. Numbers describe the corpus, not population claims.

Median income
$267k
p25–p75 $244k–$305k
Median net worth
$1.4M
mean $1.4M
Liquid net worth
$606k
median
Investable assets
$956k
median
Income distribution
$200k–245k
9
$245k–290k
12
$290k–335k
5
$335k–380k
6
Net-worth distribution
$475k–975k
11
$975k–1.5m
5
$1.5m–2.0m
10
$2.0m–2.5m
6
Goals across the corpus
Retirement32 / 32
Education funding17 / 32
Debt payoff16 / 32
Emergency fund16 / 32
Home purchase5 / 32
Liability composition
Credit cards32 / 32
Mortgages27 / 32
Student loans16 / 32
Auto loans13 / 32
  • 27 of 32 (84%) are homeowners; the remainder rent.
  • TX, MA, GA account for 9 of 32 households — 28% of the corpus.
  • Median adult-member age is 35 (range 26–43 across primaries and spouses).
  • 17 of 32 (53%) carry one or more dependents.

Representative household

A-06-seed-13
Lauren D.Single Parent·SC Metro Area, SC

Lauren is a single-parent A-06 household with two dependents (18 and 14) and a $604k taxable brokerage that dominates the liquid balance sheet — the equity-comp-as-portfolio-concentration signature the archetype is built around. Income ($334k) and net worth ($1.84M) sit above the corpus medians ($267k / $1.42M) but the asset mix is the diagnostic: brokerage almost matches the $648k retirement-account total, indicating accumulated post-vest RSU sale proceeds rather than long-tenured 401(k) compounding. Retirement and debt payoff are on track; education funding is materially behind with the older dependent already 18 — exactly the planner-UX edge case where a single-parent equity-rich household needs the 529-vs-taxable-account decision tree run against an imminent first-tuition draw rather than a 10-year horizon.

Gross income
$333,865
Net worth
$1,839,205
Liquid NW
$815,956
Age
40
Top goals on this household
Education funding
$551,250
Retirement
$5,615,100
Debt payoff
$9,546

Schema fields covered

Every A-06 household ships with — at minimum — these JSON fields populated. The full schema is documented in the data set you purchase.

members[].age
income.combined_gross
net_worth.total
filing_status
accounts.taxable.lots[].acquisition_date
accounts.taxable.lots[].cost_basis
accounts.taxable.lots[].unrealized_pnl
taxes.wash_sale_flags

Who builds against this archetype

Three buyer profiles draw on A-06 most heavily. Wealth-management platforms targeting tech employees with equity comp use the corpus for 10b5-1 sale-plan construction, exchange-fund eligibility checking, AMT-aware ISO-exercise calculators, and direct-indexing-as-diversifier UX against concentrated employer-stock positions. Tax-software teams (premium consumer tax-prep platforms, professional tax-prep software, plus equity-specific compensation-planning tools) use A-06 for §83 RSU income with supplemental-withholding underwithhold detection, §56(b)(3) AMT preference on ISO exercises with §53 credit carryforward, §423 ESPP qualifying-disposition tracking, and §83(b) election handling. Equity-management platforms use A-06 for the canonical employee-perspective view of grant, vest, exercise, and sale.

Testing scenarios this corpus is calibrated for

  • 0110b5-1 sale-plan construction with blackout-window scheduling and the §16 short-swing-profit rule for any A-06 household with insider status.
  • 02AMT-aware ISO exercise calculators with §56(b)(3) preference item, §53 AMT-credit carryforward, and the disqualifying-disposition unwind decision.
  • 03Exchange-fund eligibility checking for households with concentrated employer-stock positions large enough to meet QPAM minimums.
  • 04Supplemental-withholding shortfall detection at RSU vest where the 22% default flat rate under-withholds against the household's effective marginal bracket (35%–37% at A-06 income).
  • 05ESPP qualifying-vs-disqualifying disposition tracking with the §423 §1.5 holding-period requirement.
  • 06Direct-indexing-as-diversifier portfolio construction against a concentrated employer-stock position with tax-loss harvesting across the diversifier sleeve.

Edge cases and what's not in this corpus

A-06 is the mid-level tech employee with vested equity at scale. The pre-vest new-grad tech worker with scheduled-but-unrealized grants belongs in F-01 (New Graduate Tech Worker) — A-06 picks up after the first cliff. The recent-IPO household with a sudden $5M–$50M liquidity event from option exercise plus stock sale belongs in P-06 (Sudden Wealth Recipient) — A-06 models the steady-state employee whose equity has matured incrementally, not the liquidity-event windfall. Founder-level equity holders pre-liquidity with material paper wealth in their own company belong in a custom blend closer to P-02 attributes. Households with similar concentrated-position risk but in crypto/DeFi rather than employer stock belong in N-01 or CR-01 (Crypto-Heavy / DeFi Investor). Finally, A-06 does not stress post-divorce equity-comp division (QDRO-adjacent for restricted stock) or the cross-border-vesting visa-status interaction — those layer onto S-01 or F-06 respectively.

Calibration notes

Income and equity-component distributions during v3 synthesis referenced public compensation-band data for mid-level engineering, product, and data roles at large public-tech employers, with concentration in CA, WA, NY, MA, and TX metros reflecting empirical employer-hub geography. RSU-vesting schedules referenced typical 4-year-1-year-cliff or 4-year-quarterly grant structures. AMT and ISO prevalence referenced the IRS Statistics of Income tabulations on Form 6251 filers in this income band. Per CLAUDE.md §9 the v3 corpus is frozen; these notes describe priors applied at synthesis rather than a reproducible regeneration path. The corpus does not model specific company tickers or grant histories — concentration is parameterised by percentage, not by name.

How this differs from related archetypes

Frequently asked questions

What does the A-06 archetype represent?+

A-06 — Tech Employee with Equity models the mid-level tech employee post-vest-cliff with materially vested RSU, ISO, or ESPP positions. The defining tax surface is §83 RSU income recognition, §56(b)(3) AMT preference on ISO exercises, §423 ESPP qualifying-disposition mechanics, and §83(b) elections on early-exercised equity, plus the concentrated-position risk in employer stock that drives 10b5-1 and exchange-fund decisions.

How does A-06 differ from F-01 (New Graduate Tech Worker)?+

F-01 is pre-vest — RSU grants exist on paper but have not yet produced realized equity income, so AMT and ISO mechanics are theoretical. A-06 is post-vest with equity as a material balance-sheet line, supplemental-withholding shortfalls, and concentrated-position-risk planning as active concerns.

Does A-06 model both ISO and NQSO scenarios?+

The corpus is calibrated toward §422 ISO mechanics with §56(b)(3) AMT preference items because that is the typical mid-level tech compensation structure. §83(i) NQSO is the modal vehicle at the senior-executive P-01 stage; A-06 households whose options are NQSO rather than ISO are present but less frequent in the corpus.

What concentration levels does the corpus model?+

Median investable assets are heavily weighted toward employer equity at 30–60% concentration ranges; the corpus does not model specific company tickers but parameterises concentration as a percentage of investable assets. The testing surface is 10b5-1 plan construction, exchange-fund eligibility (typically requiring $1M+ concentrated position), and direct-indexing-as-diversifier construction.

Does A-06 stress backdoor and mega-backdoor Roth?+

Yes. Combined household income at A-06's median ($267k) is well above the §408A direct-Roth-contribution phase-out, making backdoor Roth mandatory annually. Mega-backdoor Roth via after-tax 401(k) plus in-plan Roth conversion is available at most large tech employers and is the relevant testing surface for retirement-plan UX.

Is the A-06 corpus regenerable?+

No. The shipped v3 A-06 corpus is frozen as of the corpus drift confirmation on 2026-05-09. Sampler improvements land in a future v4 release; the current 32 households are not reproducible from current code.

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