I was an engineer at HomeAway during last year's IPO, and all employees were under a 6-month lockup period (during which time you can not sell stock, or enter into any sort of agreement with a third party regarding stock options).
As an employee, therefore, the IPO event itself is not too significant. Unless you have $1 options (or already own stock at a very favourable price), you can't bank on a return due to the uncertainty of the lockup period. Also, the end of the lockup period itself (although completely anticipated by the market) will likely be unfavourable for the stock price as selling employees introduce more supply.
"...typical career programmer that doesn't touch a line of code between Friday night and Monday morning."
do late-night and weekend commits to a Github Firewall account count?
A pretty polarised view, here: we are all either 'career' 501 programmers, or disenchanted hackers?
What of the guys who choose companies they're passionate about and which inspire them to find spare coding time after hours and during weekends? You know, the kind of role you don't need an opining recruiter to source on your behalf.
As an employee, therefore, the IPO event itself is not too significant. Unless you have $1 options (or already own stock at a very favourable price), you can't bank on a return due to the uncertainty of the lockup period. Also, the end of the lockup period itself (although completely anticipated by the market) will likely be unfavourable for the stock price as selling employees introduce more supply.