3 ms·

That’s the time to ask for a raise!

namdnay 8y ago
I’ve always wondered, does this happen in US companies? Or is it only in very small shops? I’ve worked in a variety of big European firms, and salaries and promotions are discussed once a year, at review time. Even when changing jobs within the same firm, the salary will only be aligned at the next cycle
- tonyjstark 8y ago
  Except if you have some leverage like an offer from another company, then sometimes you can make your current employer to almost match the offer. Once I improved some workflow greatly because I took extra time for it (it was about some Lua debugging, I don't really remember the circumstances), I was told that this is part of my job, so no raise. Now I don't expect raises for things like that but I only invest extra time if an issue annoys me and even then I open a ticket first. Long build times are annoying.
jeevest 8y ago
Legit reason. He’s saving hours of engineers time, every day. Hope they gave him something in some other form
- alecco 8y ago
  “But that is your job”
- mrb 8y ago
  Didn't ask for a raise right away. In general the company liked me a lot; so a few months earlier I had asked for and already obtained a +19% raise, and during perf review a few months later I got another +7% raise.
  - alecco 8y ago
    Nice employer.
user5994461 8y ago
You're gonna be very disappointed in the workplace if you expect a raise every time you're just doing your job.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  If he was just doing his job the implication is that no one else was doing theirs at the same company.
  - user5994461 8y ago
    Don't you think it's far fetched to say that every single developer at the company is useless because they didn't look into ant build settings?
    - quickthrower2 8y ago
      I’m playing devils advocate, but the point is he used initiative. He wasn’t asked to improve the build, he was curious and found a solution. Is that worth a raise? Probably not on it’s own but I was saying it’s a good time to ask for one if you are secretly thinking you should get one as you have a good good forward. On a meta level a company that doesn’t taskmaster or track everyone’s time usage will get this kind of result from time to time. Curious professional just making things better. Continuous improvement.
  - gregmac 8y ago
    And what about all the times someone looks into something like this but finds no way to improve things -- is that doing their job or wasting time?
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  Unless you're the CEO.
segmondy 8y ago
Ha! I did something like that for a company, in this case. Their core app was slow and not scaling and they were failing SLAs, I was doing sysadmin work then and not on the dev team then but I dove into the code base, found the bug fixed it, increased speed by 3000%. They had tons of DB clients inserting one row at a time to the DB. Batched them. Company went nuts everyone was happy since this has been hunting the business for months, VP came into the office and gave me a high five. CEO sent me a thanks email. Then economy shrank and pay raise was frozen. I got $0 after performance review which was excellent a few months later. My boss at that time dipped into his pocket and gave me a $100 gift card to Best Buy. I bought a VCR, VCR then was $120. :-D

I’ve always wondered, does this happen in US companies? Or is it only in very small shops? I’ve worked in a variety of big European firms, and salaries and promotions are discussed once a year, at review time. Even when changing jobs within the same firm, the salary will only be aligned at the next cycle

tonyjstark 8y ago
Except if you have some leverage like an offer from another company, then sometimes you can make your current employer to almost match the offer. Once I improved some workflow greatly because I took extra time for it (it was about some Lua debugging, I don't really remember the circumstances), I was told that this is part of my job, so no raise. Now I don't expect raises for things like that but I only invest extra time if an issue annoys me and even then I open a ticket first. Long build times are annoying.

jeevest 8y ago

Legit reason. He’s saving hours of engineers time, every day. Hope they gave him something in some other form

alecco 8y ago
“But that is your job”
mrb 8y ago
Didn't ask for a raise right away. In general the company liked me a lot; so a few months earlier I had asked for and already obtained a +19% raise, and during perf review a few months later I got another +7% raise.
- alecco 8y ago
  Nice employer.

user5994461 8y ago

You're gonna be very disappointed in the workplace if you expect a raise every time you're just doing your job.

quickthrower2 8y ago
If he was just doing his job the implication is that no one else was doing theirs at the same company.
- user5994461 8y ago
  Don't you think it's far fetched to say that every single developer at the company is useless because they didn't look into ant build settings?
  - quickthrower2 8y ago
    I’m playing devils advocate, but the point is he used initiative. He wasn’t asked to improve the build, he was curious and found a solution. Is that worth a raise? Probably not on it’s own but I was saying it’s a good time to ask for one if you are secretly thinking you should get one as you have a good good forward. On a meta level a company that doesn’t taskmaster or track everyone’s time usage will get this kind of result from time to time. Curious professional just making things better. Continuous improvement.
- gregmac 8y ago
  And what about all the times someone looks into something like this but finds no way to improve things -- is that doing their job or wasting time?
TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Unless you're the CEO.

segmondy 8y ago

Ha! I did something like that for a company, in this case. Their core app was slow and not scaling and they were failing SLAs, I was doing sysadmin work then and not on the dev team then but I dove into the code base, found the bug fixed it, increased speed by 3000%. They had tons of DB clients inserting one row at a time to the DB. Batched them. Company went nuts everyone was happy since this has been hunting the business for months, VP came into the office and gave me a high five. CEO sent me a thanks email. Then economy shrank and pay raise was frozen. I got $0 after performance review which was excellent a few months later. My boss at that time dipped into his pocket and gave me a $100 gift card to Best Buy. I bought a VCR, VCR then was $120. :-D