I don’t know about exceeding the range. If they give me a range and I tiptoe into a higher than the top range, I kinda expect to have crappy wages going forward as Im likely an outlier on the team. Unless im some rock star and they promote me right away, but for a stingy company that seems like long shot.
If you’re paid above market, you shouldn’t worry about small raises. If you’re paid below market, your biggest raise will always come from changing jobs.
Who cares? You should be planning on jumping ship every 2-3 years anyway. So the year over raises staying at a firm are meaningless compared to the outsized bumps going to a new shop.
Why? Why can't we effort to find companies to work for where we can grow and stay for the long haul? Places where we can gain experience from, for example, seeing our solutions and theories stand the test of time? Iterate on them, watch others grow meaningfully over several years, watch ourselves grow meaningfully over years.
I want to find a company and encourage the sort of company that pays all its employees fairly, well and with regular cost of living adjustments along with promotions (or raises), that I can remain with and see through it.
As employees, we should be encouraging companies to grow a culture of employee retention; and employers should be efforting toward the same.
This race to the bottom needs to stop; and, "Hacker News" wants to be a place full of startups. That is, a place full of companies that can make those decisions for their whole staff early and cultivate that style, themselves.
You can’t have that because those places do not exist at scale. Smaller companies do not have the resources for growth and large companies simply do not care about you. You’ll cap out at the small shop, and you’ll become a predictable line item in a spreadsheet at the big shop.
It’s fine to stay where you are. Stick around, know the place inside out, embrace the culture, be the culture!
But, if the goal is to maximize take home pay, the answer is to regularly find a new workplace. That’s the only way to maintain an annualized compensation growth rate that exceeds inflation.
If Bob from Accounting convinces Dave the VP your number is suboptimal or worse, counterproductive, you're gone, after 20 years of loyal and probably underpaid service.
Should is a bit strong. You lose a lot of context and relational influence when you switch companies. This is bad for both you and the teams you leave/join. If you care about the work/product, it’s definitely not a “should”.
