Typical comp shape
Analytics engineers usually earn rsu or isos at pre-ipo. Common employers include dbt Labs, Snowflake, Airbnb. Analytics engineering is a newer category, so grant sizes vary widely and benchmarking against levels.fyi data is unreliable.
What North Carolina changes
In North Carolina, every RSU vest, NSO exercise, and ESPP purchase carries 4.25% state tax on top of federal. For a senior analytics engineer with $300k+ of equity income, the state layer routinely adds $25-45k to the annual bill.
Planning cadence
For a analytics engineer in North Carolina, the three planning windows are: after each RSU vest (withholding check and sell-vs-hold), before any ISO exercise (AMT model at federal only), and in Q4 (estimated tax top-up to clear the safe harbor).