People care about the computer they work on. When a developer on Reddit's r/ExperiencedDevs posted that their new work laptop only had 8GB of RAM, it drew 221 comments, and a thread asking "What laptop does your company give you?" drew 323. In HP's 2023 survey of 15,600 people in 12 countries, workers said they want a say in the technology their employer provides.
Most job listings don't say what equipment comes with the job, though. In October 2026 we read 103,462 job listings from four sources, and at best about 1 in 10 companies says anything about it. A good listing says which laptop you get, what budget comes with it, how often it's replaced and what happens to it when you leave. This post goes through what the listings say, what the best ones look like, and a four-line template you can copy.
How many job listings mention equipment?
About 1 in 10 companies mentions equipment in its job listings. We read every listing on the remote jobs board Himalayas, 83,453 after removing duplicates, and of the 12,611 companies that describe their benefits, 1,328 say something about a laptop, a home office budget or bringing your own computer.
| What the listing says | Companies | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Anything about equipment | 1,328 | 10.5% |
| Money for a home office or kit | 844 | 6.3% |
| A laptop or equipment is provided | 526 | 3.7% |
| Bring your own computer | 187 | 1.1% |
| Choice of laptop (Mac or PC) | 36 | 0.3% |
| A laptop refresh cycle | 3 | under 0.1% |
| Keep or buy the laptop when you leave | 4 | under 0.1% |
For comparison, 4.7% of the same companies mention a learning budget. Very few say which laptop, and almost none say how long it lasts or what happens to it when you leave.
Do startups mention equipment in job listings?
Y Combinator startups rarely mention equipment either, even though most of their jobs are engineering roles. We read 4,085 listings from 1,440 YC companies on Work at a Startup, and 5.3% say anything about the laptop or a budget, rising from 1.9% at companies of 10 people or fewer to 15.5% at 51 to 200 people.
| Team size | Companies | Has a benefits section | Mentions equipment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 10 | 744 | 34% | 1.9% |
| 11 to 50 | 429 | 59% | 6.5% |
| 51 to 200 | 168 | 73% | 15.5% |
| Over 200 | 61 | 69% | 13.1% |
Most of the smallest startups don't list benefits at all. At 51 to 200 people, about 1 in 6 companies says what equipment you get. Only a third of these YC jobs list remote as an option, and in an office a laptop is usually taken for granted, which is probably part of why the numbers are lower than on Himalayas. Our post on what YC startups list instead goes further into the startup data, including the AI tool budgets that the newest batches now offer.
Do office jobs mention equipment?
Office jobs mention equipment even less often than remote ones. In Sweden and Norway we read the live office and engineering ads on the national job boards, 15,924 ads from 4,323 employers, leaving out jobs like nursing, shop work and driving. About 1 in 100 employers or fewer mention a computer, a phone or home office kit.
| Listings | Companies | Mention equipment | For comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remote jobs (Himalayas) | 12,611 | 10.5% | 4.7% mention a learning budget |
| YC startups | 1,440 | 5.3% | |
| Office jobs, Norway | 1,144 | 1.1% | 61% mention a pension |
| Office jobs, Sweden | 3,179 | 0.7% | 19% mention a wellness allowance |
When everyone works in an office, the computer is probably taken for granted, so the ads cover what differs between employers, like the pension or a gym allowance. Once the laptop has to be sent to someone's home, companies seem more likely to write it down. The Norwegian ads that do mention it are short and specific, for instance "Gode utstyrsordninger for mobil, PC, hodetelefoner og hjemmekontor" (good equipment for your phone, PC, headphones and home office).
What do the best job listings say about equipment?
The best job listings say what you get in one or two plain lines under benefits, usually naming the laptop and the budget. Here are some we liked, from companies of 2 to 65 people:
- "Full desk setup on day one (laptop, monitor, keyboard) + a $200 stipend to make it yours." (Confido, 65 people)
- "$1,500 One-Time Setup + $500/Year Annual Learning & Home-Office Stipend." (Bree, 2 people)
- "If you're on our Engineering teams you'll receive the latest MacBook Pro and our Growth & Ops teams receives a MacBook Air." (Healthtech 1, 40 people)
- TorkLaw's company-issued laptop is "upgraded every 3 years" and is "yours to keep afterward".
- "We provide a budget every 3 years to renew your equipment, and after 3 years you get to keep the 'old' gear!" (Kaleidos)
The first three say what you get, and the last two answer the questions almost nobody covers: how long the laptop lasts and who owns it afterwards. Bree lists two people on its YC profile and still wrote it down, so you probably don't need an HR team to do this.
What should the equipment section of a job listing include?
The equipment section of a job listing needs four things: the laptop, the budget, the refresh cycle and the leaving rule. You can copy this and change the details:
- Laptop: MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro for engineering. A monitor and keyboard too.
- Budget: $500 when you start for your desk and chair.
- Replaced: every 3 years, or sooner if it stops working well.
- When you leave: after a year it's yours to keep. Before that, you can buy it or send it back.
The numbers above are the common ones. In 18 public company handbooks we read, 12 of the 14 that give a refresh cycle say 3 years, and the most common leaving rule is that the laptop is yours for free after a year, which is what GitLab and Mattermost do. Our guide to laptop refresh cycles goes into the 3-year choice in more detail.
How much home office stipend is normal?
A typical home office stipend in a job listing is $500, paid once when you start. About 130 companies on Himalayas state an amount, and the one-off figures mostly fall between $300 and $1,000.
| How it's paid | Companies stating an amount | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Once, when you start (or no period stated) | 79 | $500 |
| Every year | 13 | $500 |
| Every month | 21 | $100 |
A $500 budget covers a monitor and a chair but not a laptop, and only 98 of the 844 companies that offer kit money also say a laptop is provided. From most of these listings you can't tell whether the budget is meant to cover the laptop too, so it helps to say both.
Should a job listing say if you need your own computer?
Yes, and about 1% of companies do, mostly for contractor, customer support, tutoring and telehealth roles, with lines like "Must have your own laptop and stable internet connection". It's a real cost for the candidate, so it belongs in the listing rather than the offer letter.
It depends a lot on where the job is. On Himalayas, 3.0% of companies hiring in Asia and 2.9% hiring in Latin America ask for your own computer, against 0.3% of companies hiring in Europe.
Why does it help to spell out equipment in a job listing?
Spelling out equipment helps candidates know what they're getting and whether they need to spend money themselves, and it means you've agreed the refresh and leaving rules before anyone starts. It may also help your listing stand out, since only about 1 in 10 companies does it.
If the listing says whether the laptop is yours after a year or comes back, people know where they stand from the start, and there's less to argue about on their last day. Our post on equipment retrieval and offboarding covers what happens when that isn't agreed, and our free equipment agreement template puts the same rules in writing when you hand the laptop over.
The rules only work if you know who has which laptop and when it was bought, because that's what the refresh date and the one-year rule depend on. AssetJay keeps that for small teams: each person's equipment, purchase dates and value in one place, free for up to 25 assets.
How we did this research
We pulled all 130,651 jobs on Himalayas through its public API on 25 October 2026 and removed duplicates, leaving 83,453 listings from 19,871 companies. We also read every job page in YC's public jobs sitemap the same day, 4,085 unique listings from 1,440 companies, with team size from each company's YC profile. We counted companies rather than listings, because a company's benefits text repeats across its jobs. For Sweden we used every live ad in Arbetsförmedlingen's open data from Platsbanken and for Norway every active ad in NAV's public job feed, keeping only office and engineering occupations: 14,267 Swedish and 1,657 Norwegian ads. NAV's feed doesn't include every Norwegian job ad.
A script sorted each sentence into categories, with Swedish and Norwegian phrases for those ads. On Himalayas we read 30 random matches per category and 80 to 87% were correct, on YC we read all 80 matches and counted the 76 that were correct, and for Sweden and Norway we read every match and counted by hand. The script misses some mentions, so the shares are likely a little low. Himalayas lists only remote jobs and YC is mostly engineering roles at startups, so the Nordic office jobs are the closest we have to an ordinary office.
