This sounds like basically every job to me. Are there actually places that will give you raises to pay you what you're worth without having to fight or leave?
Whenever a topic like this comes up on HN or Reddit, most of the comments I see are incredibly pessimistic about the job market and/or reek of entitlement. I'm not saying that we should make excuses for exploitative employers but unless you get extremely lucky when starting out, you just have to show up and put in the work, even when the works sucks, even when the pay sucks. Then after a little while, put that shit on your resume and move on to something better. Rinse, repeat.
I guess I'm one of the pessimists.
I'm 10 years in and nothing has gotten better. The benefits have been eroding too. It never paid off and I have trouble seeing it ever pay off if the first third of my career has been so terrible. I've become disengaged, which I'm sure will lead to a vicious cycle.
Are you maybe not applying for those higher positions? Junior devs will always be taken advantage of unless you know someone. I even took a Jr Dev job (on paper) only 6 years ago or so, because the manager knew me. I was paid more than the senior developer, and he reported to me in practice.
I'm an intermediate developer. I've unofficially filled roles like senior dev and tech lead. I've also worked as an ASC (supposed to be reserved for senior devs). Oh well
It’s like a spectrum where few people are fully one or the other. And some people are “fixed” in one part of their life and “growth” in others. Virtually everyone has both traits and must work to find opportunities to be more growth-oriented — assuming of course, that’s something they really want to be.
I don't even feel like applying to most jobs. If it's not paying more than I make now, why should I waste my time? Such a pain to filter out jobs without it listed.
https://www.huschblackwell.com/newsandinsights/updated-faqs-...
>Under EPT Rule 4.3 (A), the promotion posting requirements do not apply to employees who are entirely outside of Colorado. However, if a Colorado employer has a promotion opportunity available anywhere in the company, even outside of Colorado, its Colorado employees must be notified. Under EPT Rule 4.3(B), job postings and promotional opportunities do not need to include compensation information if the job will be performed entirely outside of Colorado or if the job is posted entirely outside Colorado (i.e., not on the internet).
>INFO #9 instructs that the out-of-state exception applies “narrowly,” only where the job is tied to non-Colorado worksites (e.g., waitstaff at restaurants outside Colorado). Therefore, postings for remote positions that can be performed anywhere are subject to the EPEWA’s requirements, even if the posting states that Colorado applicants won’t be accepted. However, a non-Colorado job that may include “modest” travel to Colorado is still considered an out-of-state job not subject to the transparency requirements.
Consider yourself as an employer and assume your employees have perceived switching cost C > 0.
Your employee will approach you with bids b_1, ..., b_n all of which are substantially larger than C. So to keep your employee you will need to pay C plus some premium. In fact, not just any premium, but probably something close to max(b_1, ..., b_n).
If you can make good guesses at C and b_1..b_n, then you can retain employees by ensuring you're always giving raises between C and max(b_1, ..., b_n).
And all of that assumes that employees are fungible at any particular price point. They're not; employers also have switching costs. Among two otherwise equivalent employees you'd much prefer the one you already have.
And then you have to develop a working relationship with your new boss and employer, and your new colleagues; you have to learn new tools and platforms, which may make you much less productive for up to a year. And all of these learnings carry risk - for whatever reason, the new job might not work out, and you might have to move again, this time maybe with a shotgun to your head.
The employer-employee relationship isn't symmetrical, even if you are a superstar engineer. No company has ever relocated just because a superstar engineer decided he preferred a warmer climate. Basically, staff are fungible, employers are not.
Makes the $1000 I got from that class action lawsuit look pretty piddly, though - if the whole industry's salaries were increased by 50% in a day, how much were we being underpaid before?
I once negotiated a a raise in salary (of about $15k a year) because they wanted me to move to a much more expensive city. No quitting threats, it was just decided that it was a requirement for me to relocate.
Then, the week I arrived in the new city, I got another $10k raise. It was because we’d just lost another senior employee to a large company and they wanted to preemptively retain me, but it was one of the few “out of nowhere” raises I have ever had.
But in general, it isn’t in a business’s best interest to just offer raises without any negotiation or discussion. If a person isn’t asking for more, why should you offer it? Like, morally, I totally see the argument to do it preemptively, but as a business function I don’t.
It’s true that the best way to get a promotion or a significant raise is to get an offer at a competitor. And that sucks. But, it is also possible to make the argument for a promotion or raise without threatening to quit. I’ve done both over my career and while the competing offer tactic usually works faster, it isn’t a pre-requisite.
The one important thing to note is that if you are going to leverage another offer for a promotion/raise, you need to be prepared to walk if the company says no. If you don’t, you will never have any leverage ever again. So my advice is always to not make idle threats you aren’t willing to back up. I’ve had job offers before for substantially more money but at places I did’t want to work at. I don’t take those offers to my current employer (assuming I still want to work there). Instead, I use that knowledge of my value/worth to leverage get an offer at a place I would leave for OR to craft a better argument when I present my case for promotion/pay raise at my current employer.
It demonstrates that a business values its employees, literally, and this does build good will. Honestly, this is how you keep the better employees, and you're probably keeping them at below-replacement rates, even if yo do give "generous" raises. I have a friend who gets a consistent 4-8% annual raise and he refuses to interview because he likes that reliable growth.
Replacing a worker is a dice roll, and if you already have a five, it doesn't really make sense to let them leave for greener pastures in the hopes of scoring a six on the next role.
But it definitely doesn't make sense to keep raising pay on take-em-or-leave-em middling employees. Let them keep doing a mediocre, but useful job for a few years until they leave, then hope you role a five or six on their replacement.
Don't draw your revolver until you are ready to use it. This rule is universal - it applies in employment, personal relationships, and gunfights.
Some companies prosper in business by being run properly, others do it by sheer coincidence.
It's business. If they treat employment as some kind of "friends" relationship, they will go broke, and you will lose your job.