[NegativeK]

A good dev I worked with was promoted to senior, due to a vacancy. They were an improvement on the decent abilities of the person who left.

The CTO confided in me one day, around six months to a year after the promotion, that the dev deserved a fat salary raise because they were doing well with their new responsibilities -- but the CTO was worried that promoted dev would expect that kind of pay raise again in the future, when the organization clearly wouldn't be able to do it.

I called the CTO dumb and told them the promoted dev was doing well at their job for the same reasons that they'll understand that fat pay raises can be a one time thing.

Whenever I think of people leaving because they aren't getting pay bumps, I don't think of managers being stingy. I think of really weird mis-expectations and what must've happened in the past to build that expectation in managers' minds.

[throwaway7ahgb]

I think about this mismatch quite often and the pay issue is sometimes debated well on HN. Mostly it is people complaining about fair wages like /r/antiwork.

I wish we had a balanced discussion from both sides (Company founder/owners and employees). The issue is complex and outliers are often used as status quo.

[erik_seaberg]

The market rate is set by the competition, who may or may not choose to follow a historic trend.

[pydry]

The CTO was more likely being dishonest rather than stupid.

Most justifications for not giving a pay raise are carefully crafted bullshit designed to sound reasonable.

After all, if the reason is "I want more money available for me and the shareholders" you can't just say it.

[jt2190]

If the company has gotten to the point that the only way to provide returns to the shareholders is to squeeze employee salaries, take that as a sign that the company can’t increase revenue and is struggling, and it’s time to look for another job.

(If, for some reason, the company is making gobs of money for the shareholders but management has still decided to squeeze employee salaries, increasing the risk of loosing key people that help generate that revenue, also leave because those managers will end up destroying the company.)