Now that I see it from the manager perspective, I pledge to stay sharp and become a job hopper ... as soon as I find the time to start interviewing. :^)

Organizations undervalue their employees, encouraging brain drain, and then wonder why retention is such a hard problem. It's almost comical.

It also doesn't help that salary sharing is still so taboo (in the US/Canada at least). Stinginess is hard to do when people know what they're worth and know what you're paying everyone else.

> Now that I see it from the manager perspective, I pledge to stay sharp and become a job hopper ... as soon as I find the time to start interviewing. :^)

It's true that interviewing takes up a lot of time, but you can accomplish a lot just by doing low-stakes networking. Connecting with someone new over coffee at a cafe (and/or virtually) is a 15-30 minutes, every once-and-a-while kind of thing. Even better if you interact with them before/after on social media.

Code review is mostly to think long term about code (as tests catch the immediate stuff). I have no long term future at the company, so oh well.

> IMO for the hopper it is also not easy I agree. I'm changing jobs soon and have some apprehension for the reasons you mention, plus don't forget the fear of underperforming and being deported for losing my job :/

> the goal of the job is to get paid and support your family Parents and people who pass the vibe check get strong yeses from me so no issue there /s

But in all seriousness I do feel really bad when interviewing parents or anyone with other obligations that stop them from grinding practice questions if I have to fail them because they can't solve some BS leetcode question. Unfortunately my intuition if someone is a good engineer or not doesn't matter much if they can't crank out some leetcodes in 35 minutes :/

Obviously its not bad enough yet to warrant changing the process though at top companies, so maybe I'm the one who is interviewing in the wrong ways.

There’s some benefits to rubrics (reduces differences between interviewers and is more fair to minority candidates from what I’ve seen) but I’m it definitely impacts or senior hiring.

Unfortunately there are also so many experienced developers in the hiring pipeline who actually can’t code, so doing at least one coding interview seems inevitable. I’d give less “tricky” questions but, like rubrics, the questions are standardized too :/

[1] https://blog.tryexponent.com/google-coding-interview-rubric/...

P.S. It is especially amusing considering lots of "only if I were to leetcode I could increase by X" coexist with many posts that diss on leetcode and whine that it filtered them out and it is not "relevant to the work they are doing". Perhaps the system is working then?

You hit the nail on the head.

Everything related to compensation becomes much less confusing once you accept that hiring is a market. Like any market, supply and demand drives the prices. Nothing else matters much.

Big companies have entire teams dedicated to compensation which are separate from HR and hiring managers. They carefully track these details and will fine tune their rates up and down depending on how often their offers are accepted or rejected. If every candidate is accepting the offers, they're probably too high and can be adjusted downward. If the company can't close any good candidates because they're going to other companies, it's time to raise the rates.

Of course, not every company plays this game correctly or intelligently. If the OP's company has guessed wrong and gave too low of a raise, they risk losing too many people. On the other hand, if most of the employees shrug it off then maybe they made the right call for the business.

In the long term, sometimes inflation is caused by employers being able to charge more for their products. If they can raise prices faster than their costs, then they'll be able to afford more folks to work, increasing demand in the labor pool, hence increasing labor prices (i.e. compensation).

Still, it can take several quarters for information about pricing to flow through the supply chain and impact wages.

cost of living is your total live cost including inflation. cost of labor is cost to hire replacement in the overall labor market.

most companies pay in each market based on cost of labor

If you artificially pump up the number of fake interviews, but the company is still receiving the same number of accepts from their offers, they will have no need to raise their salary offer.

True, but note that there is a cost for interviewing as well. Ad absurdum, if you interview 100 candidates and get rejected by the first 99, your hiring cost could be much higher than simply offering x% more to the first candidate.

This is not about new hires but existing employees. There is not market or rather a less flexible one. People are reluctant to leave for a number of reasons.

>> On the other hand, if most of the employees shrug it off then maybe they made the right call for the business.

But not because of market reasons.

They should in the end only care about market pressure, but there is connection between the two. The way I see it, if you are a new hire, companies pay you more to get you, so they stay ahead of the inflation and keep up with market rates.

If you want to stay, a company's reluctance to keep up with inflation (and the market) will make it a very hard decision, even if you like the job, the people and the company.

If $X needs to increase because they can hire/retain the people they want, then $X needs to increase.

The government publishing a single inflation numbers is kind of irrelevant to the equation. If they can keep hiring/retaining the people they want, in spite of inflation going up, then nothing has to change.

I can't imagine it being that hard to imagine :) considering this is the second paragraph of wikipedia[1]:

Prices will not all increase at the same rates. Attaching a representative value to a set of prices is an instance of the index number problem. The consumer price index is often used for this purpose; the employment cost index is used for wages in the United States. Differential movement between consumer prices and wages constitutes a change in the standard of living.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

What really makes a difference is how much a competitor is willing to pay, their scale, their work environment, and how well they sell themselves.

However, if the employees are significantly above that limit, the primary reason the employee is able to justify their additional earnings must be competition in the labor market, so that should be the driving factor here as well.

I imagine that for bad or not good enough employees, the decision is rather easy for companies: let them go.

Sure, and that distinction is the entire point, i.e. retention for [Silicon Valley and similar] tech employee is likely not dominated by the value of 7% but what the labor market dictates in terms of compensation, benefits, and company culture; could be a lot higher but by-and-large not directly driven by consumer price increases.

This shopping cart doesn't necessarily represent your or mine reality.

If I compare myself now with my pre-corona self I massively reduced the need for gasoline. I work from home and don't commute > 300 kilometers per week anymore. I fill my gas tank about once every two months compared to twice per month.

So the impact of rising gasoline prices to me is way less now. While the consumer index in Germany stayed the same.

So my individually felt inflation differs massively from the average inflation that is based on a politically decided upon virtual shopping cart.

It could have something to do with my reality. Or it could not. In that regard it is an arbitrary number.

It could be higher or lower. And from experience - but that is anecdata - the more one earns the less inflation is subjectively relevant.

I'll be looking for a new job this year for sure.

I assume from the day I start that I will be gone in less than 18 months.

Eventually I got bored, stopped trying, and still walked out of reviews with average or above-average marks and same pay bump. This is after getting talks from my manager about upping my game and narrowly avoiding a PIP.

If an employer wants me to bust my ass for them they need to make it worthwhile. If my work unlocks significant value (verifiable 6 or more figures) for the company then I expect more than a token amount of that to be sent my way.

SWE pay may be high but they use that as a cudgel to keep you from claiming value proportional to your contributions, and don't even get me started on the trap that is equity compensation

The minimum amount a promotion was worth. The impact on the base salary (and the slight impact on the bonus) if you were considered important talent.

The impact on the bonus (and only slight impact on the base salary) if you had outstanding contributions last year.

The overall base increase for everybody based on seniority (higher for more junior positions).

The latter more or less covered inflation. The others improved on that (sometimes by quite a margin).

SWE work can be super impactful depending on what you're working on (especially in startups), why can't we share in more of the glory? In some companies, if you run the numbers and divide that result by the total number of hands that have touched the project you can STILL come up with net revenue or even profit that is 100x+ what you're being paid. And not seeing more than a token piece of that is just wrong.

If I knew that performance could net me 2x or more of my salary, you can bet I'd be a lot more motivated to work hard.

This is my mindset now, but man, I would like to be able to actually stay at a place for 5+ years.

My father worked at an engineering firm for over 15 years. Although this had its own cons like everything, I'm jealous of the camaraderie that my father had with his coworkers. I suspect I'll hit local maximum for pay/career at some point in my future and try to find a job where I can stay long and cultivate meaningful connections.

The two tech incapable ones are pretty annoying, or at least would be if I gave a damn about my performance there.

Also never met such mean people. Tech is so nice in comparison.

You think this has anything to do with putting in the bare minimum?

son: "dad, why can't we go to vacation this year?"

dad: "sorry son, don't have enough money. still got bills to pay and dad's company don't give enough raise."

son: "why can't you just find another job?"

dad: "that's treason son, we don't do that here. think of the team morale son."

son: "okay dad. i love you."

I have one 7 months stint in my resume and that is framed by 5.5 on one side and now more than 7 years in my current job.

My pay increased by >90 percent in my current job. The people I work with are really great and I couldn't in good conscience recommend someone for that team that goes out of their way to support each other that is only in it for themselves. I personally don't want hedonistic people on the team I am playing on.

And a word about crafting BS emotional stories around how a family suffers because someone doesn't job hop. WTF.

If one can't go on vacation because they did not receive a raise they are not acting financially responsible. Especially when having a family.

Vacation imho always should come out of a play money budget. Put aside some amount of money every month for play and/or vacation. Next to money you put to the side for emergencies. Then pay the bills and still have money to spend. This is financially sound planning.

If either one of these is missing people are not planning their financials good enough. At least imho.

If anyone ever tells their kid that they are incapable of going on vacation because of a raise too low their kid should answer that they are sad their parents are lying to them about their financial incompetence.

The majority of people do not like interviewing.

The majority of people do not like investing their own time to change jobs.

The majority of people do not want the mental and emotional burden of changing jobs and feeling guilty over it.

The majority of people do not get amazing job offers frequently and will have to manually filter to find better opportunities.

The majority of people do not like taking a risk which may not pan out. Especially while having little savings.

Job-hopping being so prevalent is a result of the market. Despite the increasing number of barriers. If you do things differently from the market that prevent those incentives, I assure you, the majority will stop job-hopping.

That being said, skipping on job hopper’s resume actually brings positive on both sides. We avoid wasting each others’ time. You are doing the right thing.

Actually, real life is way way more cruel than the 5 line dialogue that I described above. You don't know what people struggle in their life.

Maybe, hmmm, just maybe, they are supporting a few older generation women in their family that are all divorced and no longer can work? Just maybe, hmm...

Maybe, just maybe, that person has an aspiration of doing better for the world instead of chasing compensation, but limited by his/her circumstances, so he/she has to do leetcode + jumping ships all the time, just maybe.

Reality is brutal, cruel. Some people have so much, yet some people have so little.

So I pass on candidates that (on average and I might miss out on great people once in a while) tend to value short term personal gains.

In the end it is a question of how (better in which direction) one tries to influence the environment one is in.

And I decided to take an approach geared towards longevity and sustainability of the team environment.

I've increased my comp by 250% over 8 years vs your ~90% in 7 years. That's what you're missing out on.

I don't just do things purely for monetary reasons. I am glad my parents instilled quite different values in me.

I am paid above market median already in my current job. I could probably reasonably add 15 - 25 percent if I jumped once, maybe 60 percent if I jumped 3 times over 3 - 5 years.

I would have to change my role though and switch from an expert role into leadership/management with responsibility for people (wouldn't be a problem) and way less time to do the stuff I like about my job.

Btw. looking back over a somewhat longer time frame my current compensation is higher by a factor of 4.5 then around 11 or 12 years ago.

It isn't as if I would not look out for myself. Or would want to be compensated significantly below market rates. Just that for myself and the team I am part of I try to optimize for agreeableness and long-term thinking.

In short: if you are unhappy with your payment, you have to realize owe more to yourself and your family than to some random company. Find another job, negotiate as much as you can and move on.

I’m the kind of person who has eaten the same breakfast since I was 13. I have 5 of the same shoe as I don’t want to have to find another new kind of pair. I like rules and consistency and knowing a system well.

But if I don’t, I will end my career millions of dollars poorer.

Essentially as soon as I am comfortable in an org, I have to leave unless I want to forsake a big chunk of money.

Loyalty means nothing as an employee now (and for a while) in the same way that existing customers don't get the perks that new sign-ups get. Employees are being viewed more and more the same way as customers; is this an extension of "if all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail"? It worked for customers, which are people, why can't it work for employees since they're also people and therefore afflicted with the same psychological pressure points.

It's all a calculation of the individual status: Is their leaving going to cost them more than staying for a lower-than-CPI "raise"?

The "churn" cost to the company doesn't seem to be a KPI in most places. "Seat-filled = seat-filled" may be the equation, with no preceding multiplier as to the knowledge or expertise held in each seat.

A persistent, rolling wave on the sea of fiction that eventually breaks on the shores of the gritty-sanded beach of experience behind the dunes of which is built the school of hard knocks.

I once had an offer that was 20 percent higher than the current salary I received at that time. I passed on it. I valued working with my coworkers more.

I have a standard of living that is fine by me. I do not complain. My SO was able to go back to university and we still have our house, are able to pay the mortgage, put aside play and emergency money.

Sure. I could already make more money. But to what end? What should I do with it? I would probably increase the amount of money I donate as I did with every raise. I would put more into my retirement fund. Other than that? I would probably buy more crap.

Why should I care about theoretically making millions more (or hundreds of thousands in Germany to be more realistic). I enjoy the fact that I can trust in my colleagues offering help and trusting my knowledge and my opinion. We know each other well enough to trust each other and have a good relationship. We can be vulnerable with each other.

Something I did not have before.

Why would I throw this away just because I theoretically could make a few bucks more?

Wow. I just realized why I value my team/environment so much (and believe me, there are a ton of things I am unnerved about at my current job regarding processes from the parent company).

Not to be snarky but... "millions"? the answer is right there in your question. You are making it seem like getting that extra money is going to cost OP their health or family, when in reality, the higher paying job will likely have better WLB and more interesting technology.

Yeah. Exactly.

Why should I want to earn millions while doing something I despise. As if money was worth living against my values. Not everybody buys into this ideology.

I actually don't do things purely for monetary reasons. Gladly my parents instilled some better values in me.

To be clear - I definitely have no problem with earning money. I absolutely like to make money if it coincides with my values. But only then.

So there goes some of the the reasons I am not working there.

People job hop either because the payment is not enough, either the work environment is bad. As a hiring manager, if you want to have stable teams on the long run, you just have to make them happy. Push for decent salary raises and provide them a nice environment.

> I've job hopped too

Nice double standard, lucky that your current employer didn’t apply your heuristics to you, so you could close the door behind you.

Changing jobs is such a hassle, I suspect most people wouldn’t do it as often if companies were nice places to work with raises to match the market. But that’s harder to do than blame candidates and only hire those that appear to settle for less.

Actually I wouldn't schedule an interview if I needed the skills for six months. I would rather hire a freelance person because that would give me more control and flexibility. Even with the ability to let someone go within 2 weeks in the first 6 month of an employment in Germany.

Companies were giving equity grants based on inflated, sloshy market values. Why stay at a company where your $1MM (hypothetical) stock grant is now worth $400k when you can go to a new company and get a new $1MM grant at the current cheap market value?

well put.

I accepted an offer at a high-growth, public tech company in January. I talked with my hiring manager after the stock got hammered and we agreed to push my start date to April to take advantage.

The strike price (value per share) is based on the average stock price N days before my starting day. If I started Feb 1st, the strike price would be based on the N days before Feb 1. If I push my start date to April 1st, it would be based on avg stock price N days before April 1st.

I would rather get $1mm worth of stock at $60/share than $1mm at $110/share, for example.

not as relevant IMO. Overcorrections might be better than current performance. Example, now is the best time to join Robinhood, get an $800k stock grant at $12/share. If it goes back up to $50/share like is was last year then that $800k would be worth $3.3 million.

Could literally double my total comp if I spent some time doing leetcode. Probably 20% raise without leetcode.

Have some silver (bronze?) handcuffs or would probably be gone already.

Please just don't. You're better than that. Here's a list of companies who don't participate in this bullshit: https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards

At my current gig I was hired at staff level in Nov. 190k (please, let's normalize sharing salaries) . I could do better, but I am passionate about my job for the first time in 10 years. How much do you value happiness?

You're not an imposter. Especially as an HN reader (you're actually interested in your job).

That’s over a 100% increase from your current rate.

I’d personally recommend practicing leet code, if that’s the thing holding you back… maybe 1 problem a day. By the time you actually decide to change companies, you wont be interview prepping just before an interview.

Oh yes, I know, and I am envious. My soul and mental health is worth more. Solving problems makes me feel alive. Parroting answers does not.

I was somewhat headhunted by UiPath. Huge money. Crazy salary. First round I had whiteboard problems with the most awesome engineer that there is. Absolutely aced that, the engineer missed a meeting over shooting shit about algorithms. Second and third leetcodes were engineers that were clearly running off known solutions, and couldn't rapport over best or alternative solutions. I absolutely made a fool of myself, and I'm really good at that stuff.

Leetcode encourages parrots, and I need to believe that I'm better than that. Arriving at the thesis of a doctorate of a tenured scholar in the heat of a 1.5hr interview is hardly a representation of how valuable an engineer is.

I am so glad I failed. I was kicking myself at the time for tolerating the bullshit (I had a gun/green card issues at my back), I knew that I should have walked away.

I generally expect a leetcode interview to lead to either an environment where there's a lot of fires and putting out fires is the only high status thing (at which point maintenance and fundamentals get ignored - no one notices the service that didn't catch fire); or else you get a very snobbish environment where you're expected to memorize answers (at the expense of saying "I don't know" and spending a couple hours doing research)

(Some people are fine with this, of course, but I personally find it exhausting)

Yeah this isn’t true at all. Much of the leetcode paradigm exists because companies want to hire top tier talent, and they want to fill head count at significant scale to quickly ramp up new teams or entire organizations. There might be a better style, but this style has worked well enough for these companies to establish $1 trillion+ market caps, regardless of how you feel about it. And no one wants to risk moving off this because of how expensive it is to hire and fire.

I've worked for some phenomenal companies that treat employees incredibly well and compensate them top of the market. They required some leetcode to get in but other than that, the culture was fantastic and the quality of my peers was/is top notch.

To me it seems like you just don't want to spend a few weeks prepping and you're coming up with reasons to justify it.

I've obviously spent weeks prepping and passed leetcode interviews: otherwise I couldn't comment on the drawbacks I've seen working for such companies.

Spending a few months doing some leetcode revision to pass some interviews that could personally yields me hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of dollars, is a very acceptable trade-off. Many people accept that because the risk/effort/reward ratio is very worthwhile.

I've worked in two FAANG companies and the level of talent and skills is phenomenal, an order of magnitude over anywhere else I've ever worked. They all played the game, and continue to play the game, and receive the rewards for doing so.

Choosing not to participate because you dislike the process isn't going to change the hiring process.

Sounds like there are about 2-300,000 points …

For example, I know somebody who was told to come with an offer if they wanted a raise. They came to their first line with an offer for 20% more plus more equity. The first line said they would match the salary, but ultimately some exec thought it was too much and only offered a 10% raise. The person left.

There are a few reasons I encourage other employers to peg annual raises to the same number:

- It’s usually a very fair number; never egregious for increasing costs. - Someone else gets to do the math, and you have a very easy number to tell prospects in interviews for what to expect. - It helps keep social security solvent.

We also use this number as a guideline for increasing our billable rate during contract negotiations. It has most of the same benefits.

Even in the same role YoY, don't they become more knowledgable, experienced, capable? Take on new responsibilities? Don't they deserve to share in that added value to the company?

It's a simple, sustainable model. We don't grow, but we don't shrink. We exist. That's enough.

The value is very much based on what a person does, where they do it, who they do it for, and when they do it.

All those other factors will usually outweigh modest personal growth.

Lame example: being a better typewriter repair person today, working in a barbershop. No matter how well that person does their job, they may not add more value this year than last.

Leave. They either only want you at a discount or you will get a counter offer to consider.

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

Yep

I knew that going in. I helped to secure 10 million in business in 2021. They disbanded our team. To “grow” it. I applied for the “new” role.

They offered less and said it would include 2022 annual raise.

Told by my managers manager they would make me right at the end of 2022 through a bonus. Asked for it in writing, never heard back.

This decrease in total comp plus inflation has seen my real world earned drop by 20% for 2022.

Good shit. Make that threat real ASAP.

Exceeded expectations on both 2 years.

Raise for inflation doesn't even take into adjustments knowledge and experience gained.

Looking at TeamBlind astronomical TCs, I feel I'm not valued enough. Especially not when my peers are making $70k more than me.

The company: we sell terminal.

I am interviewing hard these days. Leetcoding again. It sucks to interview again, because I like my teammates, my manager. And instead of working with my best effort for my employer, now I have to juggle interviews and Leetcode/system design/behavioral preparation.

And I will not stop interviewing until I get a better job, even if it takes me 365 days or more.

In the end, one of the main reason why we work is for money.

I don't even need to earn $250k like them. If they were giving me $240k I would've been okay. But $180k, come on...

I have family to feed. I am an immigrant with no help from parents. I gotta do what I gotta do.

If you are earning 180k vs. 250k earners who you have nothing to learn from, move on, even if you move to another 180k but with smarter folks.

Contribute to React. Contribute to Boost. Contribute to Scala. What are you using, or what do you wish you could to use? Contribute to that.

Let me tell you a secret. A friend of mine is the no. 1 maintainer of a very popular OSS. 60k stars. He got paid way way way lesser than me.

It's already been well established by many even in non inflationary times that dev salary is maximized by switching job every 2-5 years or so, subspecialty dependent.

Then what is?

Engineer comp has exploded the last few years, well past inflation. So if they're not matching inflation, and they're not matching the market (which would be even higher) then it sounds like they just pay you whatever they feel like and hope you stick around.

Personally, I'm running a tiny IT-consultant company together with six close friends. Because the market is so volatile for us, everyone is paid based on the company's result, with a definite minimum of $120,000/year (2021. This is then adjusted for inflation every year. Everything else is bonus, except a lot goes into running expenses (of course) and a "war chest" for worse times.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Employers%27_organisa...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Norwegian_Confederati...

(FWIW this means that my salary, teaching undergrad-level math classes to high schoolers, is going from $74K to $81K.)

The reason (relating to my other comment) can literally be ‘it is 2022 and these are the new rates.’

Often that’s enough reason.

is there a more lightweight model where for say 10-20% they'll handle searching, billing, rate negotiations, late payments and disputes?

i'm not sure if i'd go into contracting again without something like that. it takes far too much energy to be the asshole that is necessary to not get screwed in business (for yourself) and it detracts from the actual work and life satisfaction in general.

Be matter of fact about new prices, and try to explain as little as possible.

(But always give some reason. Any reason beats no reason, but a simple even vague reason beats too many reasons.)

Baffled me for years until I started to understand that I needed only to offer fewer and simpler reasons to get my ideas implemented.

With the very high inflation numbers, I can't stop thinking that I learned a lot of things, I'm more effective, yet, I get paid less and less. Due to churn and team growth, I also count as one of the people who have been here "long enough" to have context of different things.

My salary today, adjusted for inflation, is significantly lower than when I started.

The company is okay, I work from home most of the time, I go to the office maybe one a month? The main reason I plan to stay until the end of the year is that I got a 50 day holiday (that I'm not sure I could get anywhere else, most places in Germany offer in the range of 25-30). We also have a 10% time for self improvement (learn anything you want).

Lots of people ask about inflation and salary, and they want a raise. The company is delaying discussions about compensations, but I assume we won't get even inflation rate increase.

This forces me to re-evaluate whether I can afford to stay any longer, as other companies offer a better salary.

My current plan is to use some part of the holidays, and the company's self improvement time this year to upskill and leave at the end of the year if I can't get my salary back to market rate.

Doubt this is relevant, seems like a red herring. What do you want? Just get paid more and call it a day, right? What level of collaboration do you really want? Just join another company, and if there are leadership expectations that cannot be met, then just get the normal level of performance review so that when you do become effective you can get the higher evaluation later, compared only to your moderate performance earlier. No need to overachieve.

Jesus, that's a tone-deaf official line. Are they also not updating their prices? What are company's annual statements and financial figures looking like?

> New hires are getting 50% more equity than the total value of my unvested equity

Request an increase in equity to the equivalent that a new hire is getting by default. If not, you may have to decrease your rate of productivity (or working hours) in line with the difference between the raise percentage and the inflation percentage.

The money to pay employee comes from budgets not from comp review. If your company isn't considering inflation they either don't have a proper budget process to gather the info or the accountable individual isn't doing their job to consider it.

It is also possible your division was not given the money to give raises or your director blew the money on growing the team wide in head count rather than tall with raises. At the level the budgets are made, they dont care if your division has 10 well paid people or 100 poorly paid people - your division is given $X to complete Y work packages, the executives don't give a shit how the director achieves it as long as it gets done.

Already started interviewing, early indications and offers suggest a 40-60% pay jump is within reach, possibly more with equity. I just don't understand why companies do this to themselves.

This round I expect the usual 3% base plus a small discretionary bonus pool and have been setting that expectation with my staff accordingly. Depending on how this year pans out I expect the 2023 raise pool will factor in persistent inflation.

Wage increases are as transitory as inflation numbers. If the inflation per year is 3% then 7% then 3%, you don't skip the 7% just because it was an outlier.

You might not personally agree with it but that was the prevailing wisdom amongst economists until fairly recently. The US Fed in particular didn't start discussing rate increases until early this year, well after FY 2021 was over and 2022 budgets were set.

The transitory inflation parade was so ridiculous that it turned into an internet meme. It’s just like the Fed was saying inflation was 2% when housing was skyrocketing across the country. They’ve literally redefined their measures to the point that their measures have become useless and a meme.

The, admittedly few, sources of economic information I regularly seek out were saying that "transitory" was a joke from the first time it was mentioned. The combination of money printing, pandemic cheques, national debt, 0% interest rates, low-to-zero percentage bond markets (and probably numerous other things I can't remember right now) meant that raising interest rates could cause more harm than good (although it's inevitable sooner rather than later), and the same goes for slowing down the money printer.

Using the word "transitory" was a one-use-only lie acting as a pressure relief valve, and it was at least semi-obvious to those paying attention.

The other piece is equity, and the detail you’ve given here is insufficient. Total new hire grants are irrelevant, the question is how much are you vesting annually and where is the stock trending compared to other companies you could work for.

Of course there are other factors like how you much you enjoy the environment and work, but the important thing is to consider the holistic situation and not get hung up on a narrative about inflation which is at best an excuse papering over broader feelings you are experiencing.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADobcQEhrzQ

If the intention of an flat company-wide increase is fairness it should be a fixed dollar amount that's the same for everyone. I've never seen a company do that though.

I'm sure that any company that implemented a policy like that would lose some senior staff (maybe not such a loss if they're people who think perpetuating inequality is good), but the junior staff would be much more likely to stay. If the point is staff retention, then you have to consider which staff you want to keep.

You want to keep the higher paid staff more than the lower paid staff. That’s why you pay them more.

Which staff you want to retain depends on a lot of things other than seniority and pay, but that's not the point. More senior staff are already being paid more.

Let's reframe this problem slightly. Imagine you have two people, one on 100k and the other on 500k. The difference in 'value' is measured as 400k. If you give both of them 5% raises, so one is 105k and the other is on 525k, the difference in value is now 420k. Why has the pay differential between junior and senior staff increased by 20k now? If you don't fix it, over a couple of decades you're going to be paying your junior staff an order of magnitude less than the seniors. How do you justify that?

Here's another example. Imagine there's a company where seniors are paid slightly different amounts despite doing the same work. One is on 200k and another is on 180k. If you give both of them 5% that's really giving the higher paid one 1k more (10k vs 9k). You can't claim that it's fair to give someone a bigger pay rise on the basis that they already earn more. That makes no sense.

Blanket percentage-based pay rises don't work. Companies should be more intelligent and work out more nuanced solutions.

That it does not accord with your intuitive sense of fairness is not an argument that other people have to bow to. Treating everyone the same according to a blanket rule, uniformly applied, is absolutely a kind of fairness.

Fairness is a subjective judgment, not a property of the universe. Which criteria to be used in making decisions is a choice, not something immediately obvious.

if you have to rebuild your network to be effective at a new firm, anyone they bring in (at a higher rate) will have to do the same

Amazon is increasing pay for many technical jobs, although specifics haven’t been communicated. They’re selling it as a large bump for everyone, although I already understand it’s mainly to retain talent or at least match inflation. We’ve underpaid our talent in the past compared to competitor companies.

Biggest effective raise I have gotten without leaving for another company, and I considered myself obscenely compensated to start with. Pretty content.

The first step is some event triggers a reduction in supplies for some commonly needed good. In Zimbabwe they chose to expel white farmers and replaced them with black farmers, many of whom who had little to no experience in farming. Food production rapidly plummeted and many farms simply ended up being completely abandoned.

The second step is rising prices as a result of the first. Wheat isn't inherently worth 5 coppers. It's worth however many coppers people are willing to pay for it. If there's half as much wheat to go around as before, people are going to be willing to pay more to ensure they are the ones who get their wheat.

The third step is an entity, usually a government, trying to solve the problem by attacking the effect rather than the cause. The government of Zimbabwe saw many people were quickly becoming unable to comfortably afford food. And so they responded by giving people more money aiming to bring them closer to their previous buying power.

The fourth step is a new increase in prices. This time the supply of wheat has stayed the same, but people suddenly have more money to bid on it. So again people are willing to pay more to ensure they get their wheat.

The fifth and final step is: goto the third step.

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The end result is Zimbabwean's becoming quite capable at big figure math alongside the complete collapse of their economy. For instance we saw the introduction of the world's first $100 trillion bill. In a nutshell, giving people more money to combat inflation is like trying to put out a fire by dousing it with the only liquid you have - gas.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe

Lets call a properly measured inflation I. Let I_z, I_usa be inflation of Zimbabwe and USA respectively. The first derivative of I increases faster in third world countries than in those countries with world reserve currency status: d(I_z)/dt >> d(I_usa)/dt. That's why the US likes to project military power, that's why the super wealthy class in the West support wars to project the power in order to control the first derivative of I.

"Inflation" is shorthand for 'price inflation' - every single price and dollar amount goes up, and, when it happens too fast, can tear an economy apart (e.g. 1942 Berliners packing cash into wheelbarrows to go and buy bread).

EDIT: grammar

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/business/economy/price-in...

Combine that psychological effect with our current post-truth world of disinformation campaigns, and it seems to me that people can create inflation, or create more of it.

With the 5.5% increase, is your compensation competitive with similar roles at other companies? Are you making enough salary to live a comfortable, satisfying lifestyle? Is the equity you have increasing in value over time better than, say, a mutual fund or ETF? Are you concerned you're not being paid your worth, or are you experiencing FOMO and anxiety because it feels like the economy is failing?

Internally it’s nothing but complaints about comp and attrition, but to me it’s the best I’ve ever been paid. My idea was to stay here long term and learn a ton before thinking about leaving, but does anyone do that anymore? Maybe I’m being naive.

Complaints on comp and attrition, I've seen literally in every large-ish company I or my friends have worked at. It's a lot of politics.

Since your at a FAANG, learn a lot, build network, and that shiny company name on your resume will help you move later when the time comes.

I've been fortunate enough to always leave companies on good terms while generally happy there. I've left for exciting new projects and challenges, rather than for compensation. Part of that is I try to be an agent for change when there's something I am frustrated with. I've also always given several months notice. I also have the mentality of committing to something for at least three years.

I haven't stressed out about compensation. I've always negotiated aggressively before accepting a job offer, and then just not worried about it. I've leaned toward equity over salary, and found that my salary naturally increased over time to stay competitive anyway. I have a reputation for being straight forward, honest and reliable, and that's paid off more than any negotiation or job change. I would have probably been the wealthiest today if I stayed at my first job, making a relatively comically low salary, but I wouldn't be as good of an engineer.

I don’t feel that I should be anything higher than L4 but at the same time it’s hard not to feel the FOMO and insecurity that comes with being “behind” in a hot market.

There's usually only two choices once you get top seniority in your position: move to a different role with a higher salary cap, or find another employer. Personally, if I was happy in my role, I wouldn't leave just for money. It's hard to find an actually enjoyable place to work. You might be really lucky and just have GIG syndrome.

Not to single them out or anything. Previous companies have never taken into account inflation for perf review.

The only salary bumps I've gotten that are worth mentioning are from changing companies and negotiating a better offer.

I decided to leave and I am already in contact with some headhunters that were already nagging me on Linkedin etc. Good thing it's so easy to find a new job these days. Companies should try harder to hold their trained employees.

In the long run (maybe after my next job) I might turn to freelancing.