Equity for a first employee
luckydude: The people saying 5% are probably wishful thinkers.  It's a fact of life that in all but very very few cases it is only the VC's and (sometimes) the founders that get rich.There are exceptions, I got a tiny part of google because I was there (briefly) very early and that paid off nicely.  And there are other examples of non-founders doing well, where "well" means life changing amounts of money (measured in millions).But people need to keep in mind that those are exceptions, not the rule.
Most non-founders end up with what amounts to a nice bonus, a year or two's salary.Unless I'm mistaken this question was sort of "what's normal for this situation?".What's normal varies but not by much.  5% is  high.  I agree with tptacek, 5% is what you give the 2nd CEO (which is a different topic, that's usually 5% wasted because that CEO will probably drive your company out of business.  Anyone remember the Pepsi guy running Apple?).  .5-1.5% sounds about right for the first engineering hire.Remember, you can always give out more stock but it is close to impossible to take it back.