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 North Dakota changes
In North Dakota, every RSU vest, NSO exercise, and ESPP purchase carries 2.5% 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 North Dakota, 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).