New hire guidelines

When you start, MUI allows you to pick the work equipment this a relatively large degree of freedom. You get some guidelines and a budget you can spend. The budget can be used for a new laptop, screen, desk, or anything that improves your work environment to perform in your role.

Regular allowance

For all roles, we have a baseline of $72/month. People can use this credit for up to 24 months in the future. So effectively, you have an initial grant of 1,800 USD (= 72 * 25).

Role based allownace

Product, design, and engineering-related roles (e.g., dev rel, design engineer). They require more expensive hardware. So have an extra $38/month. So, effectively, added to the baseline, you have an initial grant of 2,750 USD (= (72 + 38) * 25).

Special allowance

Unlike the regular allowance, special ones have more restrictions:

For design-related roles, they require high-quality screens (e.g., Design Engineer, Designer): give an initial grant, with a 2.5-year deprecation window (instead of 2 years for the rest, as a great screen can be kept a lot longer), to buy one of: Examples of great screens:

How to use the fund

New hires should follow the same steps as in How to use the fund? but with some exceptions:

You don’t need to ask for confirmation from your manager to spend over $1,000 on a laptop (as a new hire, having a great laptop is the #1 need). (to be clear, if the policy asks to validate the laptop model, you would still need to do it).

What can I expense?

If you're not sure if something can be expensed, confirm with your manager before purchasing. In general, the stipend covers: