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Ask HN: Is your company considering inflation in this year's comp review cycle?

• sjg007 5y ago
  Do you like your job, your boss and your team? That's worth something. Are you still growing in your position? What's the name of that book? "Be So Good They Can't Ignore You."
• hprotagonist 5y ago
  bold of you to assume we have a comp review cycle. i haven’t gotten a raise since 2019.
• hermannj314 5y ago
  Yes, our company considered inflation every year (not just the years where the media talked about it). Ultimately, it was the role of those accountable for the budget to make the claim. It all started with the budget cycle and budget increases in a division would be scrutinized. Actual or projected inflation, along with actual or projected growth and other things could all be argued and as budget rolled up to the executive committees, we would generate consensus bands for what the next year looked like. The budget cycle preceded the merit increase cycle by a full quarter, but the budget cycle is what generated the guidance we needed. The money to pay employee comes from budgets not from comp review. If your company isn't considering inflation they either don't have a proper budget process to gather the info or the accountable individual isn't doing their job to consider it. It is also possible your division was not given the money to give raises or your director blew the money on growing the team wide in head count rather than tall with raises. At the level the budgets are made, they dont care if your division has 10 well paid people or 100 poorly paid people - your division is given $X to complete Y work packages, the executives don't give a shit how the director achieves it as long as it gets done.
• whatsakandr 5y ago
  My company didn't, then raised everyone's salary by 3%.
• cfcf14 5y ago
  Borderline of being a staff-level machine learning engineer at a large technology company, and despite getting an exceptional review (and completing a major product delivery), I will also be getting a sub-inflation comp adjustment. Already started interviewing, early indications and offers suggest a 40-60% pay jump is within reach, possibly more with equity. I just don't understand why companies do this to themselves.
• faangiq 5y ago
  Remember. American companies chose this path of violence and turned all their employees into mercenaries. It is your duty to jump ship.
• ThreadedMoon 5y ago
  Definitely, salary compression issues cause big problems and the worst part is that they cause the worst retention issues with the most tenured, most valuable employees who have knowledge of your company or codebase that can’t be replaced. Making sure that they’re not taken advantage of is what encourages a lot of people to job hop. That’s worse for employers, but it’s also arguably worse for employees who actually like their jobs, when compared to a situation where their compensation would keep up with the market. If you like your job, switching companies every 1-2 years to keep up with market introduces risk and many people would be happier if their comp just remained competitive. (Shameless plug I work at a company that has a product for creating compensation bands which is a good buffer to salary compression. link if this would be helpful: https://www.aeqium.com/ https://www.aeqium.com/)
• chudi 5y ago
  I live in a country with crónica inflation (argentina) and the fact is the norm is if tour employer doesnt give a raise ay least that cover the inflation the market forces Will intercede and You are going to start interviewing in others companies.
• StoicSlab 5y ago
  I was getting constant praise, and was ranked #1 in my group. This of course did not translate to raises, for which I was getting in the low %2 range. Even when business was doing well before the pandemic, raises were meager. Promotions were always "3 years" away. I eventually had to quit and move to another job to get paid market rate. It's strange that companies think that they can pay new-hires market rate and give up on the employees that made their business.
• ruthf 5y ago
  After too many years working in corporate white collar factories, I finally realized how much I was getting screwed. Job hopping worked for me. But the best thing I ever did was to move into the consulting world. Almost doubled my salary!
• codevark 5y ago
  My company is considering whether we can keep doing what we've been doing for 35+ years for another year. Your point? I haven't seen a raise like that since the '90s (44%) (different company) (maybe you're special).
• jackling 5y ago
  My company did a 5% across the board raise late last year to make-up for inflation, since before then raises were ~2%, roughly keeping up with inflation from previous years(in Canada). This raise was on-top of the additional raise we will be getting this year in March, so it does seem like my company currently cares about ensuring we at least keep up with inflation. The expectation from talking with some coworkers is that they will continue this trend and at least give us a raise that's keeping up with inflation, although I have no proof of this. I do think you're getting screwed over here, getting a sub-inflation raise when you're exceeding expectations sounds awful. Maybe compensation works differently when you're higher up (maybe because you have far more equity/bonuses), but it couldn't hurt entertaining other offers to see what's out there.
  • htrp 5y ago
    interview elsewhere and offer your employer the opportunity to match. if you have to rebuild your network to be effective at a new firm, anyone they bring in (at a higher rate) will have to do the same
  • onion2k 5y ago
    This is a slightly controversial opinion, but I'm opposed to company wide percentage increases. 5% for someone on 100k is 5k. For someone on 500k it's 25k. So there's an unintended consequence of increasing pay inequality between the lowest and highest paid staff, increasing any gender equality, etc. If the intention of an flat company-wide increase is fairness it should be a fixed dollar amount that's the same for everyone. I've never seen a company do that though.
    • barry-cotter 5y ago
      They're not aiming to be fair. They're aiming to reduce turnover. If they gave a flat amount to each person that would matter more to the lowest paid. They would in effect be penalising the higher earners. That's not "fair" either.
      • onion2k 5y ago
• christophilus 5y ago
  Hijacking this with a related question: I’m an independent contractor, and have not yet renegotiated my prices. I just hate those kinds of conversations, but at some point, it is irresponsible to procrastinate. I’d be interested in hearing from other contractors: how have you approached this?
  • bretpiatt 5y ago
    Law firms and accounting firms solved this long ago, they all send out new rate cards effective January 1, [YEAR] during Q4 every year. I would not be ashamed to do the same.
    • whiddershins 5y ago
      Like this. The reason (relating to my other comment) can literally be ‘it is 2022 and these are the new rates.’ Often that’s enough reason.
      • whiddershins 5y ago
        https://twitter.com/iononrecourse/status/1501922572421808130?s=20&t=ivs-Ih8IPfP3ZcWFPoQagw https://twitter.com/iononrecourse/status/1501922572421808130...
    • FpUser 5y ago
      My subcontractor did just that. Handed me a notice matter-of-factly mentioning inflation. I am going to do the same to my client when renewal time comes.
  • whiddershins 5y ago
    As dispassionately as possible. Be matter of fact about new prices, and try to explain as little as possible. (But always give some reason. Any reason beats no reason, but a simple even vague reason beats too many reasons.)
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• TimH 5y ago
  They're effectively giving you a pay-cut.
• dudul 5y ago
  How do you know how much equity new hires are given?
  • jurassic 5y ago
    We have a good rapport. We talk candidly about comp.
• lr4444lr 5y ago
  I think you've answered your own question: your discomfort in moving jobs is not worth to you the bump in salary you'd get. It's already been well established by many even in non inflationary times that dev salary is maximized by switching job every 2-5 years or so, subspecialty dependent.
• travisjungroth 5y ago
  > The official line is that inflation is not a factor in assessing annual comp adjustments. Then what is? Engineer comp has exploded the last few years, well past inflation. So if they're not matching inflation, and they're not matching the market (which would be even higher) then it sounds like they just pay you whatever they feel like and hope you stick around.
• ozzythecat 5y ago
  What company are you at? Amazon is increasing pay for many technical jobs, although specifics haven’t been communicated. They’re selling it as a large bump for everyone, although I already understand it’s mainly to retain talent or at least match inflation. We’ve underpaid our talent in the past compared to competitor companies.
  • sharpy 5y ago
    Amazon's pay adjustment was long overdue, and not driven by inflation. The base pay has been capped for so long, and the comp model made an assumption (a historically generous one) about stock performance that hasn't held true for quite a while. That together with their vesting schedule, something had to be done, in order to compete for talent.
    • whateveracct 5y ago
      On top of all that, Amazon's 401k "match" had a FOUR year vesting cliff iirc.
      • jthrowsitaway 5y ago
        That's horrid.
      • thrtythreeforty 5y ago
        Mine is 3 years. I just edited the offer mentally to say "410k (with mega backdoor!) but no match."
• dahdum 5y ago
  > New hires are getting 50% more equity than the total value of my unvested equity. The official line is that inflation is not a factor in assessing annual comp adjustments. Leave. They either only want you at a discount or you will get a counter offer to consider.
• mensetmanusman 5y ago
  This micro-behavior is what accelerates inflation. Will be interesting what the next few years bring.
  • daenz 5y ago
    Can you say more about this? Thanks
    • wanderer_ 5y ago
      It's simple. Inflation is driven by increasing the dollar amount for, well, everything. He is correct in saying that this is what drives inflation: If every single thing is worth 20% more, it's really just that the dollar is worth 17% less. "Inflation" is shorthand for 'price inflation' - every single price and dollar amount goes up, and, when it happens too fast, can tear an economy apart (e.g. 1942 Berliners packing cash into wheelbarrows to go and buy bread). EDIT: grammar
      • wanderer_ 5y ago
        In very simple terms, if everyone is getting paid more, then all of the stores can price everything higher... and so on. It's a cycle.
        • Calamitous 5y ago
          It's not that they _can_ price everything higher, they _must_ price everything higher. Everyone getting paid more includes the stockers, managers, bakers, truckers, farmers, everyone involved in getting (eg.) groceries to you.
    • wolverine876 5y ago
      Inflation is significantly a psychological phenomenon: If people expect inflation, they want more pay, and sellers charge more without getting complaints - they just say the magic word, 'inflation', and people accept it - a psychological phenomenon. I've heard that used to justify 25%, 50% price increases (inflation is ~7% max). :D https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/business/economy/price-increases-inflation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/business/economy/price-in... Combine that psychological effect with our current post-truth world of disinformation campaigns, and it seems to me that people can create inflation, or create more of it.
• sharps_xp 5y ago
  i had a baby just as the pandemic hit and my wfh productivity went down the drain. they just gave me a 9% raise… thanks inflation…
• optymizer 5y ago
  Not sure if it helps, but here are my stats as a FAANG senior IC. I received an "exceeds" perf rating, a 6% salary increase and one salary worth of RSUs (vests over 4 years). Others I've asked got a 3% raise (with a worse rating).
  • whiddershins 5y ago
    An entire year’s salary in RSUs? Is this common or a reaction to the times.
    • dudul 5y ago
      If it vests over 4 years it's not even that much. I recently got 3 times my annual salary in RSUs. Not sure how common it is.
      • optymizer 5y ago
        3x salary is very nice. Congrats! Outside of a promotion or discretionary awards / retention award, I don't know of anyone who had so many RSUs awarded at a FAANG. Are you an IC? Would you be willing to share your level?
    • anonred 5y ago
      I’m not the GP but those numbers are very common for refreshers at FAANG, assuming that it vests over 4 years.
    • optymizer 5y ago
      I believe it's common. I got a similar number of RSUs last year.
  • boopboopbadoop 5y ago
    What time horizon on the RSUs?
    • optymizer 5y ago
• iends 5y ago
  Staff level. Got 3.8%. Seriously considering leaving. There has been super high turnover of other senior leaders and friends. Could literally double my total comp if I spent some time doing leetcode. Probably 20% raise without leetcode. Have some silver (bronze?) handcuffs or would probably be gone already.
  • kevinventullo 5y ago
    No reason you can’t trade up silver handcuffs to platinum handcuffs :)
  • kfrzcode 5y ago
    Which negotiation tactics did you try?
    • iends 5y ago
      I'm not sure negotiation is the problem. My company has not been making competitive counters to anybody I know who has left for two years. I feel like a lot of the senior employees are S tier, FAANG caliber, great developers but the company doesn't want to pay for that level of talent in the current market. I also think leadership is completely out of touch with the hiring market. For example, I know somebody who was told to come with an offer if they wanted a raise. They came to their first line with an offer for 20% more plus more equity. The first line said they would match the salary, but ultimately some exec thought it was too much and only offered a 10% raise. The person left.
  • zamalek 5y ago
    > leetcode Please just don't. You're better than that. Here's a list of companies who don't participate in this bullshit: https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards At my current gig I was hired at staff level in Nov. 190k (please, let's normalize sharing salaries) . I could do better, but I am passionate about my job for the first time in 10 years. How much do you value happiness? You're not an imposter. Especially as an HN reader (you're actually interested in your job).
• throwaway984393 5y ago
  What about bonus? Your manager should be able to get you a bonus aside from a raise. The latters's supposed to be based on market rate, the former is a catch-all which can be performance, inflation, whatever. It'd probably only be another 3-5% though. There's usually only two choices once you get top seniority in your position: move to a different role with a higher salary cap, or find another employer. Personally, if I was happy in my role, I wouldn't leave just for money. It's hard to find an actually enjoyable place to work. You might be really lucky and just have GIG syndrome.
• sharpy 5y ago
  Got 9% bump in base, and RSU top ups - wasn't expecting any RSU, given our stock performance (yes, even with the market turmoil, it's up a lot since I joined). Biggest effective raise I have gotten without leaving for another company, and I considered myself obscenely compensated to start with. Pretty content.
• frogmantis 5y ago
  Sounds like Snap. Just leave.
• ars 5y ago
  I got 3%, it's clearly time for me to leave. Lots of other people already have.
• jdright 5y ago
  Are you me? Exactly same.. no, perfectly exact thing (to the same 5.5% and every detail there) happening to me.
• yuppie_scum 5y ago
  My C-Suite (SMB) thinks they’re the smartest guys in the room. They’re giving us 3% and telling us “it’s a bad idea to peg to inflation because we just had a long stretch of low inflation and we wouldn’t have been able to give you a raise.” I’m gonna go on cruise control for a few months and take as much advantage of PTO as I can then GTFO.
  • phendrenad2 5y ago
    Yep always funny when they try to tell you why the sky isn't blue. Sad part is it works on most people.
• DavidPeiffer 5y ago
  Circa 2015, Micron have a cost of living adjustment separate from merit increases. That always struck me as a very honest way of handling things. I'm assuming they have continued the practice, which would have been helpful considering how rapidly the real estate market shot up since then.
• outside1234 5y ago
  Is there anywhere that is tracking latest salary trends? It is hard to know what the market is for given levels - do people find that levels.fyi is accurate?
  • dboreham 5y ago
    You have to pat for "accurate" data, and then you need to pay someone to interpret it. All bigCo have such people and pay for the data (and get a discount by contributing their data).
  • charcircuit 5y ago
    levels.fyi should be accurate It tells you the date so you can see if the data is current. Smaller companies might not have enough recent data to be accurate though.
• teaearlgraycold 5y ago
  Yup - more than beat inflation, too. They gave me equity after performance review. I said it'd be nice to get more salary because of inflation. Got +14%.
• sgtnoodle 5y ago
  What does "total value of my unvested equity" mean? If you are 3 years vested in a 4 year grant, then it sorta makes sense that new employees' 4 year grants would be worth more than 1 year of your grant. With the 5.5% increase, is your compensation competitive with similar roles at other companies? Are you making enough salary to live a comfortable, satisfying lifestyle? Is the equity you have increasing in value over time better than, say, a mutual fund or ETF? Are you concerned you're not being paid your worth, or are you experiencing FOMO and anxiety because it feels like the economy is failing?
  • jurassic 5y ago
    Big companies often ladder refresher grants so you always have a lot of unvested equity just over the horizon.
    • malandrew 5y ago
      Yes but those refreshers at best total 70% to at best 80% of what new hires are getting. You’re always going to get stiffed for sticking around longer.
  • smarmgoblin 5y ago
    Serious question, how do you deal with FOMO? I’ve been at FAANG for about a year, coming from startups and lower-paying companies before. Internally it’s nothing but complaints about comp and attrition, but to me it’s the best I’ve ever been paid. My idea was to stay here long term and learn a ton before thinking about leaving, but does anyone do that anymore? Maybe I’m being naive.
    • sgtnoodle 5y ago
      I've had friends at FAANG companies get FOMO and quit, then come back within a year because the grass was browner. They've taken a comp hit in the process, but still made a firehose of money like anyone at a FAANG. People love to complain about relative inequalities without fully appreciating how good of a situation they have within society, so actually trying new jobs once in a while can be healthy and eye opening. I've been fortunate enough to always leave companies on good terms while generally happy there. I've left for exciting new projects and challenges, rather than for compensation. Part of that is I try to be an agent for change when there's something I am frustrated with. I've also always given several months notice. I also have the mentality of committing to something for at least three years. I haven't stressed out about compensation. I've always negotiated aggressively before accepting a job offer, and then just not worried about it. I've leaned toward equity over salary, and found that my salary naturally increased over time to stay competitive anyway. I have a reputation for being straight forward, honest and reliable, and that's paid off more than any negotiation or job change. I would have probably been the wealthiest today if I stayed at my first job, making a relatively comically low salary, but I wouldn't be as good of an engineer.
• kevinventullo 5y ago
  At the very least, you should interview to get a BATNA in hand with which you can try to negotiate a more significant raise.
  • kfrzcode 5y ago
    "If you can't walk away from the terms of a negotiation, then you aren't negotiating. You're just working out the terms of your slavery" [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADobcQEhrzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADobcQEhrzQ
• throw_infla_22 5y ago
  Yes. I (director) normally get (total salary * 3%) to hand out for annual cost of living adjustments, this year it is (total salary * 7%). This is at a ~2000 person US software company you've probably never heard of with so-so pay. Throwaway for obvious reasons.
  • throw_infla_22 5y ago
    And I'll add a thought in response to OP: if you're going to quit because of money, you should be doing it because your salary is too low, not because your raise was too small. Some of the places handing out big raises this year stiffed people last year, and vice-versa.
    • jurassic 5y ago
      I agree with that. Thanks for the perspective.
• janesvilleseo 5y ago
  Exceeded - 0.0% Yep I knew that going in. I helped to secure 10 million in business in 2021. They disbanded our team. To “grow” it. I applied for the “new” role. They offered less and said it would include 2022 annual raise. Told by my managers manager they would make me right at the end of 2022 through a bonus. Asked for it in writing, never heard back. This decrease in total comp plus inflation has seen my real world earned drop by 20% for 2022.
  • zamalek 5y ago
    > in writing Good shit. Make that threat real ASAP.
• saberworks 5y ago
  Really dissatisfied with pay increase this year in February. CEO talked up how everyone was going to be really happy with big bumps to make us more competitive (they have been struggling with high turnover after a couple of acquisitions). I get "exceeds expectations" multiple years in a row and did everything my manager suggested last year to try to get a bigger bump this year. I got 2% base salary increase and 5% bonus target increase. Chances of seeing the full bonus targets this year? Not high. I'll be looking for a new job this year for sure.
  • throwawaysleep 5y ago
    I have to wonder why anyone bothers to ever exceed expectations except for intrinsic reasons. I assume from the day I start that I will be gone in less than 18 months.
    • yonaguska 5y ago
      Networking. If I'd have been a better performer in the past, I'd have probably followed some of my high performing coworkers to their jobs and gave better overall job satisfaction. Being in teams that value good code and perform with good work life balance makes work enjoyable.
      • throwawaysleep 5y ago
        This is true. I’m currently working 3 remote jobs (just gathering as much cash as possible) and one is a good one with a tech firm and the other two are at technologically incapable places. The two tech incapable ones are pretty annoying, or at least would be if I gave a damn about my performance there. Also never met such mean people. Tech is so nice in comparison.
        • Seattle3503 5y ago
          > Also never met such mean people. You think this has anything to do with putting in the bare minimum?
        • 5y ago
• gwbas1c 5y ago
  Next time you have a 1-1 with your manager, point out the equity issue.
• mehrdada 5y ago
  Not to be dismissive, but why would a company specifically care about some arbitrary number called "inflation" vs overall pressure from the labor market, which presumably must have some encoding of that, considering they seem to clearly paying a person enough not to justify leaving? P.S. It is especially amusing considering lots of "only if I were to leetcode I could increase by X" coexist with many posts that diss on leetcode and whine that it filtered them out and it is not "relevant to the work they are doing". Perhaps the system is working then?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • xupybd 5y ago
    They wouldn't but they should be aware that inflation will put pressure on the labor market. People will leave if they are underpaid.
  • jurassic 5y ago
    I somewhat agree. Tech comp seems to be up a lot more than inflation and I’m sure it’s going to lead to a lot of churn.
  • kaczordon 5y ago
    Inflation is also psychosocial. If people think inflation is happening they will want to be paid more. That’s what can cause a wage-price spiral, partially.
    • xapata 5y ago
      Wages are prices. A wage is the price of labor. When wages increase, inflation is happening, by definition.
      • somebodythere 5y ago
        The price of labor can increase faster than the price of goods increases. This is usually what people refer to when they talk about the development of a country's economy, or a country getting "richer".
• voidfunc 5y ago
  Lol, no. Peanuts, always peanuts.
• xupybd 5y ago
  The economy appears to be in trouble. Your company could be afraid of that and trying to reduce costs. If this is industry wide that may become a trend.
• adenner 5y ago
  Last year's was delayed by half the year, and was 3%. This year is 3%.It is becoming harder and harder to justify staying.
  • pueblito 5y ago
    They obviously don’t care if you stay, everyone knows what the market is like right now
• BaseballPhysics 5y ago
  Not this year. Expectations were inflation was transitory. You don't budget your wage increases (which would've happened in Q4 last year) based on transitory economic conditions. This round I expect the usual 3% base plus a small discretionary bonus pool and have been setting that expectation with my staff accordingly. Depending on how this year pans out I expect the 2023 raise pool will factor in persistent inflation.
  • agensaequivocum 5y ago
    Only an uncritical look at the situation would one think that the inflation was transitory.
    • BaseballPhysics 5y ago
      Tell that to central bankers last year. You might not personally agree with it but that was the prevailing wisdom amongst economists until fairly recently. The US Fed in particular didn't start discussing rate increases until early this year, well after FY 2021 was over and 2022 budgets were set.
      • ozzythecat 5y ago
        Your post is based on a belief the central bankers are some all knowing, objectively factual, 100% competent organization. The transitory inflation parade was so ridiculous that it turned into an internet meme. It’s just like the Fed was saying inflation was 2% when housing was skyrocketing across the country. They’ve literally redefined their measures to the point that their measures have become useless and a meme.
      • BLKNSLVR 5y ago
        They're very trustworthy and have society's best interests at heart (they actually think they do, with this being a prime example because not saying that inflation is transitory could have provoked some kind of panicked reactions that could have caused more fundamental problems for society). The, admittedly few, sources of economic information I regularly seek out were saying that "transitory" was a joke from the first time it was mentioned. The combination of money printing, pandemic cheques, national debt, 0% interest rates, low-to-zero percentage bond markets (and probably numerous other things I can't remember right now) meant that raising interest rates could cause more harm than good (although it's inevitable sooner rather than later), and the same goes for slowing down the money printer. Using the word "transitory" was a one-use-only lie acting as a pressure relief valve, and it was at least semi-obvious to those paying attention.
• dymk 5y ago
  Airbnb, no Not to single them out or anything. Previous companies have never taken into account inflation for perf review. The only salary bumps I've gotten that are worth mentioning are from changing companies and negotiating a better offer.
  • dboreham 5y ago
    Yes, because inflation.
• devmunchies 5y ago
  I think the equity/stock performance in the current tech markets is a bigger problem than inflation. Many who received stock grants in the last couple years have had their value cut in half (with some exceptions like GOOG). Companies were giving equity grants based on inflated, sloshy market values. Why stay at a company where your $1MM (hypothetical) stock grant is now worth $400k when you can go to a new company and get a new $1MM grant at the current cheap market value?
  • jurassic 5y ago
    This is a huge part of the dilemma for me. My equity has, on average, traded sideways. Equivalent offers or even worse offers from companies with better stock performance could end up being worth materially more.
    • devmunchies 5y ago
      > or even worse offers from companies with better stock performance not as relevant IMO. Overcorrections might be better than current performance. Example, now is the best time to join Robinhood, get an $800k stock grant at $12/share. If it goes back up to $50/share like is was last year then that $800k would be worth $3.3 million.
      • travisjungroth 5y ago
        If you can predict individual stock prices with such accuracy, you’re wasting your time doing anything else.
  • malandrew 5y ago
    I’ve been thinking the exact same. Changing companies is effectively “buying the dip” because equity grants are always normalized in dollar quanta terms. I’m wondering if the market has bottomed out or not since that’s the best time to switch companies.
    • devmunchies 5y ago
• cebert 5y ago
  If tech employers don’t consider inflation when considering compensation increases, they’re encouraging their employees to start looking elsewhere. Employees will then realize if they’re not being paid market value. Either this is myopic on the part of employers or they want a reduction in staff or churn in staff.
• soared 5y ago
  I’m only 7 years into my career and I’m technical roles but not a dev. I’ve never received a raise without a title bump. Are yearly or same-role raises common in general?
  • exdsq 5y ago
    I'd say yes, I've had one at every company I've worked at for > 1 year, however they're much smaller than moving companies. I once had a 20% raise to get up to market value but < 10% for the rest of mine.
  • jthrowsitaway 5y ago
    I believe this thread is mostly referring to CoL increases, which are commonly determined annually yes. Usually the minimum is tied to ~inflation. If you did well during your last review cycle it'll be a few percent more on top of that.
  • lhorie 5y ago
    Yes, they are. Typically raises are annual and increase pay by 2-5%
• rr808 5y ago
  Wow lucky you got 5.5%. My bank employer gave me 0% raise and the best guy who worked for me got 3%
  • BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    Time to have the discussion to find out how much you're worth to them.
• khazhoux 5y ago
  I didn't see many engineers the last two years demanding pay decreases because of the money they save by not having to commute to work...
  • adastra22 5y ago
    My employer paid for transportation, so…
  • optymizer 5y ago
    money that went towards: * higher utility and Internet bills * increased wear-and-tear on the house * purchasing equipment and home office furniture out of pocket or using your existing tech equipment * increased vehicle maintenance cost (decreased usage lead to more rust, damaged batteries in the cold weather and selling is ultimately not worth it, at least in my case) Engineers saved time, yes, but not as much money as you might think.
  • Calamitous 5y ago
    ...and I didn't see any pay raises because of all the money companies were saving by no longer leasing, stocking, conditioning, and maintaining office facilities. Your point is?
    • khazhoux 5y ago
      My point is that generally speaking, people are very one-sided on matters like this. When employee compensation grew enormously (probably 2x or more) over the last 10 years, no one complained that it was too high compared to inflation. Now inflation is increasing, and people complain that their yearly raise didn't keep up. This in a field where even average engineer have comps of many hundreds of thousands a year.
• wkirby 5y ago
  I’ll chime in as a business owner. We peg our raises to the SSA cost of living adjustments. This means our bump for employees at the end of 2021 was just under 6%. If current trends continue, likely a similar number at the end of this year. There are a few reasons I encourage other employers to peg annual raises to the same number: - It’s usually a very fair number; never egregious for increasing costs. - Someone else gets to do the math, and you have a very easy number to tell prospects in interviews for what to expect. - It helps keep social security solvent. We also use this number as a guideline for increasing our billable rate during contract negotiations. It has most of the same benefits.
  • gameshot911 5y ago
    Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but doesn't this mean that you don't give your employees any raise in terms of real dollars? Even in the same role YoY, don't they become more knowledgable, experienced, capable? Take on new responsibilities? Don't they deserve to share in that added value to the company?
    • mdavis6890 5y ago
      Perhaps knowledgeable, experienced, capable - but not necessarily more valuable. The value is very much based on what a person does, where they do it, who they do it for, and when they do it. All those other factors will usually outweigh modest personal growth. Lame example: being a better typewriter repair person today, working in a barbershop. No matter how well that person does their job, they may not add more value this year than last.
    • wildzzz 5y ago
      I'm sure this 6% raise is just the baseline for everyone. If you are promoted or stand out amongst your peers, then a larger raise is in store for you.
    • amisure 5y ago
      "Pegged" does not mean "Equal To"
    • 5y ago
• Ithrowthisaway 5y ago
  Last year got raise 3%, this year just got raise 5%, but my TC currently ($190k base + $30k bonus) is still lower than people I know. 2 years ago when I joined, my peers got $250k base already and I was getting $180k base. Exceeded expectations on both 2 years. Raise for inflation doesn't even take into adjustments knowledge and experience gained. Looking at TeamBlind astronomical TCs, I feel I'm not valued enough. Especially not when my peers are making $70k more than me. The company: we sell terminal. I am interviewing hard these days. Leetcoding again. It sucks to interview again, because I like my teammates, my manager. And instead of working with my best effort for my employer, now I have to juggle interviews and Leetcode/system design/behavioral preparation. And I will not stop interviewing until I get a better job, even if it takes me 365 days or more.
  • barbazoo 5y ago
    Why is it so important though to earn as much as or more money than your peers?
    • gameshot911 5y ago
      For me it's always been about a sense of fairness, not the nominal amount.
    • Ithrowthisaway 5y ago
      It is not about that, but it is about knowing my value. Am I wrong? I don't even need to earn $250k like them. If they were giving me $240k I would've been okay. But $180k, come on... I have family to feed. I am an immigrant with no help from parents. I gotta do what I gotta do.
      • zamalek 5y ago
        Knowing your value is actually being the stupidest person in the room. If you are at the top then it is logically impossible to guage your worth. If you are earning 180k vs. 250k earners who you have nothing to learn from, move on, even if you move to another 180k but with smarter folks.
• barbazoo 5y ago
  If you're happy with your role and your life around it, why not just not care about the money?
• amha 5y ago
  Elite private high school in SFBay (not tech, but all of our families are tech/VC). Everyone is getting raises of max(8%, $6700), working out to an average per-employee raise of 8.6%. Inflation is the main stated reason. (FWIW this means that my salary, teaching undergrad-level math classes to high schoolers, is going from $74K to $81K.)
• thatwasunusual 5y ago
  In Norway we have employers' organisations[0] and unions[1] that takes care of the overall wage adjustment negotiations, and it usually ends up higher or equal to inflation. Personally, I'm running a tiny IT-consultant company together with six close friends. Because the market is so volatile for us, everyone is paid based on the company's result, with a definite minimum of $120,000/year (2021. This is then adjusted for inflation every year. Everything else is bonus, except a lot goes into running expenses (of course) and a "war chest" for worse times. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Employers%27_organisations_in_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Employers%27_organisa... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Norwegian_Confederation_of_Trade_Unions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Norwegian_Confederati...
• vmception 5y ago
  > Past a certain level of seniority it's a big ordeal to change jobs, rebuild your network within a new company, rebuild reputation and social capital, etc. Doubt this is relevant, seems like a red herring. What do you want? Just get paid more and call it a day, right? What level of collaboration do you really want? Just join another company, and if there are leadership expectations that cannot be met, then just get the normal level of performance review so that when you do become effective you can get the higher evaluation later, compared only to your moderate performance earlier. No need to overachieve.
• phendrenad2 5y ago
  Don't count on it. First of all, "exceeds expectations" really means "meets expectations". It's pass/fail, and you passed. Programmers are interchangeable cogs, if you stand out it doesn't matter because your excess potential will go to waste. In fact, it can be red flag to management because you're trying too hard, you could start feeling too important or better than the rest of your team, and could leave as a result. (That said, many of us can't help but stand out). Secondly, I think it's well-established that developers will leave after 1.5 years or whatever the average is, and to keep someone you really need to throw a lot of money at them. Smart companies (like MANGA) structure their entire culture and process around this. The best people will move on after a few years. The truly great will get pulled aside and get extra sweeteners added. But that's like 1%.
• jh00ker 5y ago
  I'm a new manager, having been an SWE IC for 15 yrs. I just did comp planning for the first time. I was given such a small budget for my team, it's not even funny! The system is designed so that most of the staffing budget goes to new hires, not to reward existing employees. Even promotions are fairly small, compared to what you could get by leaving. It's a game of chicken between you and your company: how long are you willing to tolerate small annual raises while more money goes to new hires before you decide to become a new hire at a new company, yourself? Now that I see it from the manager perspective, I pledge to stay sharp and become a job hopper ... as soon as I find the time to start interviewing. :^)
  • rubicon33 5y ago
    Fascinating! How do you plan to stay sharp if I may ask?
    • throwawaysleep 5y ago
      I personally just constantly interview. I find the time for that by no longer seriously reviewing any code. Code review is mostly to think long term about code (as tests catch the immediate stuff). I have no long term future at the company, so oh well.
      • alibero 5y ago
        Guess it's time to start giving strong no hires to job hoppers then /s
        • throwaway5486nv 5y ago
          The problem is this is great news to other competitors and its not possible to bring everyone on board. Its probably not even legal.
          • alibero 5y ago
            It's ok if my employer's competitors are advantaged because I'm switching jobs soon to get that sweet sweet pay bump anyways :)
• dasil003 5y ago
  Inflation is just one factor in your comp, and not the most meaningful. Some companies are thinking about inflation for employee compensation and some aren’t, their revenues are also affected different ways, but this is not really your concern. The main question for you is whether you are underpaid overall and could get more elsewhere in absolute terms. If so then you have leverage, if not you can still bluff but it’s a dangerous game that depends primarily on management’s perception of your value (so don’t overindex on your internal monologue). The other piece is equity, and the detail you’ve given here is insufficient. Total new hire grants are irrelevant, the question is how much are you vesting annually and where is the stock trending compared to other companies you could work for. Of course there are other factors like how you much you enjoy the environment and work, but the important thing is to consider the holistic situation and not get hung up on a narrative about inflation which is at best an excuse papering over broader feelings you are experiencing.
• felipellrocha 5y ago
  As much as I'd like to help people here, having come from a country where for a long-time inflation was so expected that it was baked into everything, I can say, we don't want to assume that much inflation into salary increases. That's a spiral that can quickly go out of control.
• BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  > "inflation is not a factor in assessing annual comp adjustments" Jesus, that's a tone-deaf official line. Are they also not updating their prices? What are company's annual statements and financial figures looking like? > New hires are getting 50% more equity than the total value of my unvested equity Request an increase in equity to the equivalent that a new hire is getting by default. If not, you may have to decrease your rate of productivity (or working hours) in line with the difference between the raise percentage and the inflation percentage.
• chaostheory 5y ago
  Unless you have a key position in a competitive FAANG company, the answer is always the same. If you want a real raise, change jobs. Historically, US companies have set this precedent and it hasn’t changed for anyone but people working in either FAANG or certain fintech or finance companies.
• lhorie 5y ago
  Got a 4% raise here. AFAIK, none of the big tech companies are doing comp adjustments based on inflation. They never did, they never purported to, and they never will. From my observations, employees are particularly antsy about this comp cycle because most stocks are down anywhere from 25 to 75% from recent highs and people want to see some sort of "silver lining" to compensate. For my company, equity refresh grants were priced to the stock price average for February, meaning a higher number of actual stocks than if the stock had been higher (though to be fair, there were additional drops in most stock prices in March) The "exceed expectations" stuff is mostly fluff. You know how you don't want to be an asshole to your close coworkers? That sums up performance appraisal forms. Your manager isn't the one setting raise budgets and because of the current high attrition in the industry, they don't want to piss anyone off, so dividing their pot equally among reports is the "safe" option. I'm willing to bet most bay area tech people here at L5/L6 levels got somewhere around $7k-10k raises regardless of previous comp. There is however an extra "secret" compensation pot that not many people are privy to: performance bonuses. That one can be a 6 digit number equity grant on top of regular TC, and are given to people that a company really doesn't want to lose. My personal impression is that the heuristics for whether you get this bonus are not related to perf appraisal at all, but rather they're related to having made significant contributions to your boss' boss' boss' OKRs. IMHO, if you're staff level (~500k TC) or above and you didn't know about what I just said, moving is kinda risky. To put it in context, according to levels.fyi, less than 10% of the engineering workforce at big tech is at that level or above. When interviewing, you're typically competing to be better than 50% of the people at that level, according most companies' hiring criteria. This means you realistically need to have a high degree of confidence that you're top ~5% material and that your not getting a perf bonus was in fact unfair due to an objective reason (rather than "I think I'm awesome because my boss said so in perf appraisal"). For L5 (~400k TC), the odds are a bit more forgiving, though not that much (you need to be top ~15%, give or take some). I have conducted a few hundred interviews for Senior SWE positions and the stats for job offer acceptance rate hovers around 1 in 10, which more or less corroborates. FWIW.
• serial_dev 5y ago
  I was also thinking about the same. I work in Germany, non FAANG, so the salaries are lower. I started one year ago. With the very high inflation numbers, I can't stop thinking that I learned a lot of things, I'm more effective, yet, I get paid less and less. Due to churn and team growth, I also count as one of the people who have been here "long enough" to have context of different things. My salary today, adjusted for inflation, is significantly lower than when I started. The company is okay, I work from home most of the time, I go to the office maybe one a month? The main reason I plan to stay until the end of the year is that I got a 50 day holiday (that I'm not sure I could get anywhere else, most places in Germany offer in the range of 25-30). We also have a 10% time for self improvement (learn anything you want). Lots of people ask about inflation and salary, and they want a raise. The company is delaying discussions about compensations, but I assume we won't get even inflation rate increase. This forces me to re-evaluate whether I can afford to stay any longer, as other companies offer a better salary. My current plan is to use some part of the holidays, and the company's self improvement time this year to upskill and leave at the end of the year if I can't get my salary back to market rate.
• throwcean 5y ago
  Similar for me. I also work in a non FAANG but big, well-known company. This year's average salary increase was set to 2.7%, despite having a "record year" and despite last year only getting 1.2% "because of Corona". I decided to leave and I am already in contact with some headhunters that were already nagging me on Linkedin etc. Good thing it's so easy to find a new job these days. Companies should try harder to hold their trained employees. In the long run (maybe after my next job) I might turn to freelancing.
• throwaway5486nv 5y ago
  The only way to get the best salary for your current skill set is to change jobs every 3 years. There is no working around this unless you want to become manager and get away from coding as your primary job.
  • actually_a_dog 5y ago
    How exactly does moving into management "get around" this?
• musicale 5y ago
  No.
• wink 5y ago
  I don't think I've ever worked for a company in Germany that had the inflation as a part of any compensation review, actually getting more at all every year was kinda rare. As this is only like 5 companies in 20 years I wouldn't want to claim authority though :P