Most of your compensation never shows up as a paycheck.
RSU vests, semi-annual profit sharing, the 401(k) match, company money in your HSA — the decisions that move the needle happen outside payroll. This page is a plain-language guide to what you have, when it matters, and what to do about it.
Your 401(k) has room for $72,000 this year. Most people use a third of it.
The $24,500 you see in headlines is only the employee deferral limit. The IRS caps total additions to your account — your money, the company match, and profit sharing combined — at $72,000 in 2026. What's left in between is the space most high earners never look at.
Figures are IRS limits for 2026 (Notice 2025-67). The employer row is an illustration, not a quote of your plan. Catch-up contributions sit on top of the $72,000: $8,000 if you're 50 or older, or $11,250 at ages 60–63. Starting in 2026, if your prior-year wages from your employer topped $150,000, your catch-up has to go in as Roth.
Your benefits, and the decision inside each one.
Cirrus Logic's package is unusually broad. Enrolling is the easy part — most of the value comes from a handful of choices you make once and rarely revisit.
401(k) Profit Sharing Plan
Company match plus semi-annual profit sharing, with both traditional and Roth deferrals available.
- Pre-tax or Roth? Compare your bracket now against your expected bracket in retirement — not your salary.
- Contribute enough to earn the full match. It's the highest guaranteed return available to you.
- Where profit sharing lands. It's an employer contribution, so it counts toward the $72,000, not the $24,500.
Restricted stock units
RSUs are taxed as ordinary income the day they vest, whether or not you sell.
- Default withholding is 22%. If your marginal rate is 32% or 35%, the gap comes due in April.
- Holding isn't neutral. Keeping vested shares is an active decision to buy your employer's stock at today's price.
- Set a rule in advance. A written sell-or-hold policy beats deciding in the moment, every time.
HSA and the high-deductible plan
Cirrus funds employee health savings accounts, on top of whatever you add yourself.
- The company deposit counts toward your cap. $4,400 individual, $8,750 family in 2026.
- Invest the balance. An HSA left in cash is the only triple-tax-free account in the code, wasted.
- Save your receipts. You can reimburse yourself for today's expenses decades from now.
Disability, life and legal coverage
Group coverage is cheap and easy — and usually sized for an average employee, not your household.
- Check the disability cap. Group plans often replace 60% of base pay only, up to a monthly ceiling, and ignore bonus and RSU income.
- Group life is rarely enough if you have young children or a mortgage on one income.
- Coverage ends when employment does. Portability matters if you're likely to move.
Care, leave and education support
Fertility and adoption support, paid parental leave, backup childcare, dependent care FSA, and college coaching.
- Dependent care FSA is use-it-or-lose-it — estimate before open enrollment, not after.
- Coordinate leave with cash flow. Paid leave, PTO and short-term disability stack differently.
- 529 plans reduce Texas-resident tax bills less than you'd hope — the benefit is federal growth, so start early.
Tuition, transit and on-site care
Tuition reimbursement, commuter and shuttle benefits, on-site clinic and fitness at the Austin design centers.
- Tuition reimbursement is often the cheapest way to fund a graduate degree — check the clawback window.
- The on-site clinic can meaningfully lower your out-of-pocket spend under a high-deductible plan.
- Commuter benefits are pre-tax and quietly worth a few hundred dollars a year.
Four expensive habits, and what replaces them.
Treating the 22% withholding as the tax bill
Federal withholding on supplemental wages is a flat 22% until you cross $1 million. If your marginal rate is higher, every vest quietly underpays — and it compounds across a year of vests.
Fix: model the shortfall in Q1 and adjust W-4 or estimates
Letting company stock become the portfolio
Your salary, your bonus, your profit sharing and your unvested equity already depend on one company's results. Adding vested shares to that stack concentrates risk exactly where you can least afford it.
Fix: set a concentration ceiling, in writing, before the next vest
Front-loading the 401(k) without checking the true-up
Hitting $24,500 by June feels efficient. If your plan matches per paycheck and doesn't true up at year end, you've just donated the second half of your match back to the company.
Fix: confirm the match formula, then set the deferral rate to land in December
Spending the HSA like a checking account
An HSA is the only account that goes in untaxed, grows untaxed, and comes out untaxed for medical costs. Paying this year's copays out of it converts a 30-year asset into a debit card.
Fix: pay small costs from cash flow, invest the balance, keep receipts
The Cirrus year, in the order it actually happens.
Most planning mistakes are timing mistakes. These are the five moments where a decision is either available or gone.
Reset your deferral rate
Payroll does not raise your contribution percentage when the IRS raises the limit. Recalculate so your deferrals land near $24,500 in December rather than in July, and confirm your Roth-versus-pre-tax split still matches your bracket.
Decide before the shares land
Apply the sell-or-hold rule you wrote when you weren't watching the stock price. Check the withholding shortfall against your actual marginal rate, and note the cost basis — it's the single most commonly mis-reported number on tech-employee returns.
Run the tax projection
With profit sharing and one or two vests behind you, a projection in July still leaves time to act: adjust withholding, harvest losses, time charitable gifts, or fund a donor-advised fund with appreciated shares instead of cash.
Re-elect deliberately
Rolling last year's elections forward is a decision, not a default. Revisit the medical plan against your expected spend, size the FSA elections honestly, and confirm every beneficiary designation — including the 401(k), which passes outside your will.
Close out what expires
Deferrals, dependent care FSA balances, charitable gifts and Roth conversions are all calendar-year deadlines. IRA and HSA contributions are the exceptions — those run until the April filing deadline.
The advice changes with the stage, not the salary.
Building a financial foundation
Capture the full match, build a cash reserve that lets you hold shares rather than sell them under pressure, choose Roth while your bracket is low, and get student loans on a strategy instead of autopay.
Optimizing your wealth
Equity compensation strategy, concentration limits, backdoor and mega backdoor Roth mechanics, education funding, real estate decisions, and modelling a job change or a competing offer before you take it.
Making work optional
Testing whether the number actually works, sequencing withdrawals across taxable, Roth and pre-tax accounts, planning health coverage before Medicare, and running Roth conversions in the low-bracket years between paychecks and RMDs.
Creating a legacy
Beneficiary and titling review, gifting strategy, charitable planning with appreciated stock, and coordinating with your estate attorney and CPA so the documents and the accounts agree with each other.
Before you book a call.
Is Pioneer Wealth part of Cirrus Logic's benefits program?
No. Pioneer Wealth Management Group is an independent, fee-only registered investment adviser. This page is educational and is not sponsored, endorsed or reviewed by Cirrus Logic. Your official plan documents and your HR team are the authority on your benefits.
What does "fee-only" mean, and why does it matter?
We're paid by our clients and no one else. No commissions, no product sales, no revenue sharing. We act as fiduciaries, which means we're required to put your interests ahead of our own — including when the right answer is "keep doing what you're doing."
Should I sell my RSUs as soon as they vest?
There's no universal answer, but there's a useful framing: because the shares are taxed as ordinary income at vest, selling immediately triggers little or no additional tax. Holding them is economically the same as taking that cash and buying company stock with it. If you wouldn't buy it today, that's information. The right policy depends on your concentration, your cash needs and your time horizon.
Pre-tax or Roth in the 401(k)?
Compare your marginal rate today against your expected marginal rate when you withdraw — not your salary, and not the balance. Texas residents have no state income tax to deduct against, which nudges the math toward Roth for many people early in their careers and toward pre-tax at peak earnings. Most households end up wanting both, in different proportions over time.
How much of my net worth should be in one stock?
There's no regulatory line, but concentration is the risk that has ended more tech careers-turned-retirements than any market crash. What matters is deciding your ceiling in advance, in writing, and having a scheduled way to sell down toward it — so the decision isn't made emotionally on a red day.
Do I need enough assets to be worth talking to?
Book the intro call and ask. It's a conversation about what you're trying to figure out, not a sales meeting, and we'll tell you plainly if you'd be better served elsewhere or by doing it yourself for now.
Every journey requires a trusted guide.
Bring your benefits guide, your latest vest statement and your questions. We'll spend the first conversation understanding your situation — no cost, no obligation, no pitch.
Austin, TX 78703
(512) 334-6800
Also in Albuquerque, North Dallas and Kingsport, TN.