I'm curious about how pay for particular positions at particular companies trend over time. It seems a little tricky to find the data since glassdoor doesn't seem to offer additional breakdown by year. Other sites don't seem to have sufficient datapoints. What has your experience been with annual raises? And do you find salary-reporting sites to be accurate? Or possibly filled with outdated data?
Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
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Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#2Varies wildly from company to company. Some will keep an eye on the market, and make sure they are paying you market rate. If you're great, they'll make sure you're paid more than market so you don't have any reason to even talk.
However, many companies will only open their checkbooks when you're hired, or when you have an offer they need to counter. These are the companies that suck to work for because everyone is talking and interviewing to get their next raise. How can you trust your employees?
Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#3This will largely depend on the company - its size, its domain, and it will also depend on one's position within the company.
For example, the same senior C/C++/Java dev can have recurrent annual 10% raises in a larger enterprise or government outlet. He may also get irregular 20-30% performance based raises that sometimes double as retainers. While more likely to happen in a small companies, I saw it happen in larger (500+) companies too. Alternatively, he may get a year-end or a project-end bonus. finally, he can also get no increase, which is the kind of bonus favoured by the game development sweatshops.
No wonder there's no unified stats on this. How can there be.
Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#4This will largely depend on the company - its size, its domain, and it will also depend on one's position within the company. For example, the same senior C/C++/Java dev can have recurrent annual 10% raises in a larger enterprise or government outlet. He may also get irregular 20-30% performance based raises that sometimes double as retainers. While more likely to happen in a small companies, I saw it happen in large…
Someone in an HR role would have familiarity with this.
Also, glassdoor would be able to provide stats on this for decently large companies if they implemented this. I'm just a little hesitant to trust their numbers as is since some tech companies have obviously been around for a while...
Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#5This will largely depend on the company - its size, its domain, and it will also depend on one's position within the company. For example, the same senior C/C++/Java dev can have recurrent annual 10% raises in a larger enterprise or government outlet. He may also get irregular 20-30% performance based raises that sometimes double as retainers. While more likely to happen in a small companies, I saw it happen in large…
No only the position.
Having worked in two multi-nationals, they generally have a band or grade system. For the given band there's a min, max and midpoint. But, this is broken down by country, and in the USA often broken down by Bay Area, NYC, rest of country.
And like the other comments, at these places annual bonuses, project bonuses, and spot bonuses are usually budgeted for. If you don't hear about them, and you're in a big co. ask your manager, and if they don't know then you've got the wrong manager!
Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#6I've never worked at a company that had raises that kept up with the market. I've been a software developer since 1985.
Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#7Experience to date has been that without promotion, pay-rises within a company have always trailed inflation.
So either you get promoted, and at that point you've negotiated a substantial raise (to offset the real decline in earnings and to protect your actual earnings in the years after the payrise)...
Or...
You go get a job elsewhere.
It's a sad fact that the majority of real pay rises that I've ever seen, and that others I've spoken to have seen, have all come as a result of changing employer.
This is a UK perspective btw.
Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#8I've never worked at a company that had raises that kept up with the market. I've been a software developer since 1985.
Agreed. If you can under pay by an amount that is less than the perceived pain of looking elsewhere, that's sane if you have a short term view.
Other option you'll see in big corps is to use old technologies only. This gives them an excuse to underpay, and makes it harder for their devs to leave to a fair market salary role!
Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#9Experience to date has been that without promotion, pay-rises within a company have always trailed inflation. So either you get promoted, and at that point you've negotiated a substantial raise (to offset the real decline in earnings and to protect your actual earnings in the years after the payrise)... Or... You go get a job elsewhere. It's a sad fact that the majority of real pay rises that I've ever seen, and that…
In Brazil it's the same thing.
Re: Ask HN: Salary Increases Over Time
#10Experience to date has been that without promotion, pay-rises within a company have always trailed inflation. So either you get promoted, and at that point you've negotiated a substantial raise (to offset the real decline in earnings and to protect your actual earnings in the years after the payrise)... Or... You go get a job elsewhere. It's a sad fact that the majority of real pay rises that I've ever seen, and that…
South African too