Typical comp shape
Director of products usually earn large rsu + psu grants. Common employers include Airbnb, Salesforce, Atlassian. Director-level PSU vests often include relative TSR metrics that produce zero or 2x payouts, complicating forecasting.
What Kentucky changes
In Kentucky, every RSU vest, NSO exercise, and ESPP purchase carries 4% state tax on top of federal. For a senior director of product with $300k+ of equity income, the state layer routinely adds $25-45k to the annual bill.
Planning cadence
For a director of product in Kentucky, 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).