[otakucode]

You are expected to leave the company. Raises are kept far, far below the rate at which employees actually accrue value in order to ensure that employees do not stay at a company for longer than 4 or 5 years. After 4 or 5 years, the gap between what you would make anywhere else and what you can make where you already are is enormous.

There is a quote from hundreds of years ago which applies. "Make game of that which makes as much of thee." They fully intend to game you and exploit your desire for stability and predictability in your life. Play them back.

[rcoder]

It sounds like you've had some terrible experiences with employers gaming your salary, for which I'm sorry.

As a manager, I value my long-tenured employees _very_ highly and work hard to ensure they get significant raises year after year. I learned to do that by working as an engineer at several other companies that did the same.

So, if your employer doesn't work to make their best, most experienced engineers feel valued and well-compensated, by all means look for another job. But don't assume that all companies will try to force you out as soon as your salary is higher than a new grad's.

[tbrownaw]

[...] in order to ensure that employees do not stay at a company for longer than 4 or 5 years.

Training new people is expensive. Why would any sane company deliberately encourage turnover?

[kyllo]

Because high salaries are expensiver. Or at least they look that way on paper. Companies don't like paying an experienced employee 2-3x in salary what they would have to pay a new hire to do the same tasks. The training cost and quality dropoff are less visible and more externalizeable costs, but you see the salary savings the very next pay cycle.

[johnward]

I believe this to be true. However, in some cases you can get a competing offer and have your current employer match it. My experience is that suggesting you are underpaid without a competing offer doesn't get you very far. Most employers will pay you as little as possible given the market and in the tech market you can jump ship.

[rcoder]

I strongly disagree with this. It may be true at many companies, but not anywhere I would ever work (esp. as a manager).

Requiring people to have a competitive offer in-hand basically says, "if you want a raise, go interview somewhere else." That's toxic and only effective for the people who game the system.

Responsible employers owe their employees a fair (according to market, their peers, and their contributions) wage, not the minimum they can possibly get away with paying. It might save you a few bucks in the near term to play stupid games with people's comp, but the attrition will kill you in the long run.

[johnward]

"Requiring people to have a competitive offer in-hand basically says, "if you want a raise, go interview somewhere else." That's toxic and only effective for the people who game the system."

I agree with you on this. However, that's just how it works at all of the places I have worked for. Except for one. The startup I was at before we were acquired by a large tech company. However, being a startup we were already strapped for cash and were not being paid market rates but had some equity. That turned out to be decent when we cashed in but not enough for most of us to cover the salary difference.

I fully agree that employers should be proactive to ensure that good employees are happy and want to stay with the company. It should be mutually beneficial but I have yet to find a place like that. In the mega corps this just can't happen because of red tape. If you don't ask you will just get the standard 2% or whatever it is each year. Many times if you do ask the manager can't do anything about it anyway. I've brought it up that my hourly rate is 1/8 the rate I bill out at and am told that's just how it works.

[monksy]

If you are looking for a counter offer, you're pretty much burning your bridge. Nothing but resentment can come from that. Additionally it makes you look weak if you take the offer.

[johnward]

In any negotiation it doesn't hurt to have some leverage. Especially when the company already has most of the leverage in employment situations. In my experience not burning bridges is entirely overrated. I also fail to see how asking for a counter offer is "burning a bridge" but I don't ask for counters. I turn in my two weeks and tell them why I am leaving. If the company offers me a better offer (money, benefits, vacation, flexibility, etc) I may take it but I go in with the full understanding that I am leaving. There are a lot of cases where the money itself won't matter if your current employer matches because there are other things you just don't like about the situation.

I've used this tactic twice with the same employer. It's just business and any professional manager will not foster resentment. If it does cause resentment then you can solve it by simply leaving. I have no concerns over "looking weak". I'm only in this for me. It's bad enough that I trade my precious time for money. I'm going to take as much as the market will offer me. It probably sounds selfish but that's how it is. I work only to provide a decent life for my family. If I had 5 million today I would not continue to do what I do. I would find something to occupy that time but it wouldn't be trading hours for dollars.

What do you expect people to do? Work for the same company for 30 years and be happy to get maybe a 2% raise year over year?

[robbyking]

Not always.

My company offers market rate adjustments (outside of the usual review/salary adjustment periods) to retain experienced developers.

[celebdor]

How does such process work? What determines the market rate for the adjustments?

[refurb]

There are compensation consultants that many companies use to benchmark salaries. The same thing happened at my company, salaries went up quickly so they adjusted everyone. Before that new hires were getting higher salaries than people with more experience who had been there many years.

[kelukelugames]

Google famously did it many years ago. Microsoft did it a few years ago. Every engineer got a 10% raise.

[e12e]

Funny, after they'd entered into an agreement to fix the pay across (a substantial part of) the industry?

[serge2k]

IIRC Facebook didn't enter the agreement and Google was losing a lot of people.

Makes you wonder how much more we could be making.

[crazypyro]

No, that was only Steve Jobs and now that Steve Jobs is dead, there is no evil!

[asuffield]

The rate required to stop experienced developers from leaving. That's quite easy to measure. Enough of the people will leave will tell you what offer they got, and you adjust up until the rate of turnover is acceptably low.

[imaginenore]

From my experience, there's always a company willing to pay you more. If they see some company paying you X, they think your skills are worth at least X.

So your explanation doesn't really answer the question.