Thanks to inflation, you don't have to actually lower salaries to effectively lower salaries. You just give raises that don't keep up with the rate of inflation

Thanks to inflation, you don't have to actually lower salaries to effectively lower salaries. You just give raises that don't keep up with the rate of inflation. Employees with low ratings would usually either not receive a raise or the raise would be small (~1%). Low rated employees would also usually get small equity grants (under $5k/yr). But even delivering this kind of news is hard. If the employee has been through an EoY period before, they're conditioned to expect a nice raise and news like this feels like an insult. As far as how to determine how much you're worth, you can look at GlassDoor and the spreadsheets that have been circulating. There's also salary data out there...not sure how you get it, but my company gave it to managers to guide our decisions on pay. They were dumb enough not to limit it the positions that we managed, so I got to see pay ranges for my position and even look at what I'd get paid in various other parts of the country. But the best way that I know of to gauge your worth is to spend time applying for jobs. Since most recruiters will drop you if you throw out an oversized salary requirement, it's not that time consuming to start at a number you know is over and work down to the point where you start getting put in their hiring pipeline. I also advise people to actually go through the full process as much as possible, as long as you can keep your current employer from finding out. When you come into the process wanting the high end of the salary band, you need to nail the interview process, and practice really does help you avoid being nervous and gives you the ability to read your interviewer better so you can give them what they're looking for. Also, for engineers, the hiring process can actually be fun when you remove pressure from the equation. If you don't care if you pass or fail the process, you're just going to try to solve problems and learn about better engineering practices which you can incorporate into your own work. Many places will even give you a free lunch.