I'm on job #3 since graduating from college 10 years ago. The average raise amount I've gotten each year staying at a job has been 3.7%. The average bump in pay I've gotten changing jobs has been 15%. This is despite receiving an excellent performance rating every year, for 10 years, at each of the jobs. The reality of the job market today, especially at big public companies, is that the framework in which they operate does not allow them to give large awards to good performing employees.
Usually the only way to increase your pay is to get another job or threaten to leave your job if you don't get a raise. Threatening to leave is generally a one-shot deal and will probably paint a permanent target on your back.
My sad advice to maximize earnings is to stay at a job for 2-4 years then move on for a 15-20% pay raise.
1. You may find yourself doing work you enjoy and have a great boss but realize the pay is no longer competitive (and has no potential to ever become competitive). There's risk in leaving and landing in a place where the work sucks and you make a lot more money, but is it worth it? It's sad to leave work you enjoy knowing your boss desperately wants to reward high performers but is stuck playing a shell game with an arbitrarily fixed award pool.
2. I've come to realize that, even to engineering companies, doing good work is rarely the thing that leads to rewards (promotions, bonuses, raises, etc.). You'll do great work that is very valuable but watch some idiot politic his or her way into a position of influence and get rewarded for it. I used to think this was just an isolated incident but now that I'm on job #3 I understand this is just how the world turns. So when you go to look for a new job to get your 20% raise, unless you have a source to tell you how it really works on the inside, there's no way of knowing if doing good work is the thing that will be rewarded at this potential future job.
3. If you're good at getting things done and leading others you'll inevitably accumulate leadership tasks. So you'll be doing your work but also naturally end up leading the team around you. Many companies have specific slots or job titles allocated to "team leads" or similar. Unfortunately, these positions rarely go to anyone who is new (<5 years at the company). Of course everyone knows that it's rarely worth ($) staying at a job for more than 2-3 years, so who gets the leadership positions?
People who:
(1) Stay because they like their job and don't care to make more money (these people may or may not have any leadership ability)
(2) Want to leave to make more money but cannot find a job anywhere else
(3) Have some arbitrary characteristic, unrelated to actually doing any real work, the current leadership finds very important (Example: The VP of a large division wants more clout at conferences so they hire and promote PhDs into leadership positions. Why? Because within their award framework the only way to reward them is through promotions.)
This is sad because if you'd really like to stay in that "team-lead" position, or move into project management, every time you take a new job you have to start over. You get better at convincing your new boss/coworkers you're capable of this work but it's difficult to go from engineer at one company to team-lead at another. And realistically, if you never stay at a job for more than a few years is it worth promoting you into leadership positions? It's a catch-22.
Comments
I'm on job #3 since graduating from college 10 years ago. The average raise amount I've gotten each year staying at a job has been 3.7%. The average bump in pay I've gotten changing jobs has been 15%. This is despite receiving an excellent performance rating every year, for 10 years, at each of the jobs. The reality of the job market today, especially at big public companies, is that the framework in which they operate does not allow them to give large awards to good performing employees.
Usually the only way to increase your pay is to get another job or threaten to leave your job if you don't get a raise. Threatening to leave is generally a one-shot deal and will probably paint a permanent target on your back.
My sad advice to maximize earnings is to stay at a job for 2-4 years then move on for a 15-20% pay raise.
My experience has been almost identical to this and I too find it sad. Why does it have to be like this though?
Why do you feel sad about this advice?
For a couple of reasons:
1. You may find yourself doing work you enjoy and have a great boss but realize the pay is no longer competitive (and has no potential to ever become competitive). There's risk in leaving and landing in a place where the work sucks and you make a lot more money, but is it worth it? It's sad to leave work you enjoy knowing your boss desperately wants to reward high performers but is stuck playing a shell game with an arbitrarily fixed award pool.
2. I've come to realize that, even to engineering companies, doing good work is rarely the thing that leads to rewards (promotions, bonuses, raises, etc.). You'll do great work that is very valuable but watch some idiot politic his or her way into a position of influence and get rewarded for it. I used to think this was just an isolated incident but now that I'm on job #3 I understand this is just how the world turns. So when you go to look for a new job to get your 20% raise, unless you have a source to tell you how it really works on the inside, there's no way of knowing if doing good work is the thing that will be rewarded at this potential future job.
3. If you're good at getting things done and leading others you'll inevitably accumulate leadership tasks. So you'll be doing your work but also naturally end up leading the team around you. Many companies have specific slots or job titles allocated to "team leads" or similar. Unfortunately, these positions rarely go to anyone who is new (<5 years at the company). Of course everyone knows that it's rarely worth ($) staying at a job for more than 2-3 years, so who gets the leadership positions?
People who:
(1) Stay because they like their job and don't care to make more money (these people may or may not have any leadership ability)
(2) Want to leave to make more money but cannot find a job anywhere else
(3) Have some arbitrary characteristic, unrelated to actually doing any real work, the current leadership finds very important (Example: The VP of a large division wants more clout at conferences so they hire and promote PhDs into leadership positions. Why? Because within their award framework the only way to reward them is through promotions.)
This is sad because if you'd really like to stay in that "team-lead" position, or move into project management, every time you take a new job you have to start over. You get better at convincing your new boss/coworkers you're capable of this work but it's difficult to go from engineer at one company to team-lead at another. And realistically, if you never stay at a job for more than a few years is it worth promoting you into leadership positions? It's a catch-22.