[salarycommenter]

I am very wary of making this about respect or the individuals in the company who didn't grant you better compensation. It's toxic for yourself and if other people find out you think that way it can spoil relationships. Never underestimate how the people you work with at your old jobs can end up being stepping stones to bigger and better things later on.

I believe no one in my management chain could have done significantly better. They had their budget and even if they had moved things around in my favor it would have just been a different level of inadequate.

Structurally the entire industry is biased towards preventing you from achieving what I call equilibrium. Equilibrium is where you can't leave your current job for a >10% raise.

I believe it's just a cost saving measure (assuming the ability to pay exists which it may not) and the industry has decided that the average wage suppression is more valuable then the cost of the turn over it creates. I'm not going to pass judgement on whether they are right or wrong.

Ability to pay is a big factor. Most of my prior employers could only offer a fraction of what I currently make.

[dfrage]

The bottom line the US is that respect is ultimately measured in dollars. I won't argue there isn't some toxicity to that, but a company that doesn't reward the vastly increased value of its developer employees as they move from entry level to journeymen to experts will suffer greatly from it, often fatally.

If employers can't afford market salaries, they should think very hard about the issue and see if they can't address it in other way, or accept that they're going to deserve and get no loyalty from most of their employees.

[blackflame7000]

It kind of reminds me of the Brain Drain Microsoft experienced in the mid 2000s and saw them fall behind apple and google as the top of the tech food chain.

[hnuser355]

I agree. No need to make it emotional and confrontational with a “respect” interpretation in my opinion. Of course this is hard but if I can do it I imagine the best approach will be to simply make the best choices for my career while recognizing management has their own bizarre incentives I will never understand.