[Bahamut]

I found this absolutely true in my short stint as a software engineer so far (1 1/2 years) - I have switched jobs twice, the first switch giving a 50% raise, and the second giving an 80% raise.

Companies don't seem to be interested in retaining quality talent these days (or developing it), and get used to paying a certain amount for that talent, even if he/she is worth a lot more. It is in each person's self-interest to then seek out the compensation & promotion the person deserves, assuming all other things being equal.

[thejdude]

My experience is the absolute opposite, but maybe that's the difference between the US (or CA) market and the German one. Germany seems to pay people by seniority, not by their abilities (which, I think, sometimes causes unemployment for older developers). Maybe it's an "equality" thing - so all developers your age will make roughly the same.

Even with excellent reviews by my bosses (not to mention being a well-respected team member and the go-to guy of choice for technical questions), they wouldn't even give me a 10% pay increase. Switching jobs also didn't help (I got maybe 3% more), but at least a single company didn't get to reap all the profit from having me around.

Right now, I don't even bother anymore. All public job offers are for consulting companies, which seems to be very profitable (basically: you get paid less than the internal employees at companies that hire you, and the consulting company keeps 70% of the hourly rate they get paid; you get maybe 30%).

Sometimes there are article what nice salaries you're supposed to get, but if there aren't even jobs available?

[Pxtl]

Start a consulting company with one employee.

[thejdude]

Lots of people actually do that, but it involves lots of work that you might not want to do if you're interested in (and really good at) software development.

[objclxt]

Why not consider freelancing? When I'm hiring full time positions I don't normally see anything wrong with someone who's going to a new job every couple of years - but I'd definitely have some big, red flags for someone who was jumping ships every nine months.

This is because hiring takes time, and is expensive. If the person I'm hiring is only going to be staying around for nine months, I'd be better off hiring a freelancer. To put it another way: what changed in those nine months for you? You must have felt at month 1 the compensation was reasonable?

Whereas with freelancing you a) are always getting the market rate, and b) can move around with impunity.

[Bahamut]

To be fair, my second move was mainly to relocate to the Valley (in large part for personal reasons, although it doesn't hurt that it's an attractive region for salary). I'm hoping to stay at this particular job for longer before switching, and I think for my next move, it would have to be a lead developer position (I have turned down several high profile lead developer jobs already due to my feeling not ready yet) - freelancing full-time definitely does sound attractive from an income perspective since I do charge a significant rate, but I'm worried about freelancing being a static gig professionally. I also like working on teams since I can learn a lot from others, and teach others as well.

Even with the cost of hiring, I have been an extraordinarily valuable asset to the places I have worked, far more so than they have anticipated. I have gotten high praise for my quality of work and working well on a team (& across teams). I think employers just never expected me to progress professionally so quickly.