I was the first engineering hire at a start up. I built the start-up from greenfield to multi-million dollar revenue and 50+ employees.
I was doing ALL of the DevOps and security work, while also contributing to back-end development. I knew the system in and out and was working my ASS off.
When the time for yearly reviews came, I was excited to get a big raise ( to bring me in line with the median for my job title ), and a pat on the back.
Instead they announced some "point-based pay scale" and told me I was technically already over-paid for my position. No raise, no promotion.
The thing is, the point system was based on reviews from my peers. Who all did their own back-end and front-end work and were never really collaborating with me. I was just loudly as possible running things on the back-end and trying to keep my users happy.
ALL of us ended up around the middle of the chart "with expectations we will move up." "Oh, you built the company? Well uh... you're still just a senior engineer."
A week later I had accepted an offer making +50% and they were out one of their foundational engineers. Most of the other devs followed suit. So the pennies they saved lost them pounds of engineers they now had to recruit and re-hire for. What a bonehead move.
So I definitely hear you here: basing pay off of arbitrary points allocated by your peers instead of actually measuring performance is bad in my experience.
> "Oh, you built the company? Well uh... you're still just a senior engineer."
This is a key message. Unless you have a contract that says something else in writing, don't expect anything else from sacrificing at an early startup.
I was doing ALL of the DevOps and security work, while also contributing to back-end development. I knew the system in and out and was working my ASS off.
When the time for yearly reviews came, I was excited to get a big raise ( to bring me in line with the median for my job title ), and a pat on the back.
Instead they announced some "point-based pay scale" and told me I was technically already over-paid for my position. No raise, no promotion.
The thing is, the point system was based on reviews from my peers. Who all did their own back-end and front-end work and were never really collaborating with me. I was just loudly as possible running things on the back-end and trying to keep my users happy.
ALL of us ended up around the middle of the chart "with expectations we will move up." "Oh, you built the company? Well uh... you're still just a senior engineer."
A week later I had accepted an offer making +50% and they were out one of their foundational engineers. Most of the other devs followed suit. So the pennies they saved lost them pounds of engineers they now had to recruit and re-hire for. What a bonehead move.
So I definitely hear you here: basing pay off of arbitrary points allocated by your peers instead of actually measuring performance is bad in my experience.