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Ask HN: So who else is getting a pay cut this year?

52 points by giantg2 ↗ HN
Inflation over the past 12 months ended October was 6.2%. I got a 1.5% raise. I will be compensated 4.7% less next year than I was this year. Even better is that based on the typical raises they give, it will take years for me to recover (or a 7% promotion).

Anyone else sharing my pain?

110 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 202 ms ] thread
mytailorisrich
Get your CV out there.
giantg2
I'm a worthless midlevel
ochronus
That’s where you are wrong! Tons of companies would fight for you.
giantg2
No way. What I've seen are recruiters casting wide nets, but not fighting to close any deals.
ochronus
Not sure what's happening there, but we've hired a few career starters recently and are usually fighting for midlevels. The market is crazy now. It's been candidate-driven for quite a few years but recently it's gotten even so. Hard to tell what you've experienced but please don't conclude you're worthless! If you'd like I'm happy to give advice/look at your resume, I've been a hiring manager for more than I dare to admit. My email address is in my profile.
pcbro141
People with 2 years experience are getting $220k+ offers, if you can crack the Leetcode interviews at big tech.
radley
Pretty much everyone is a midlevel, even the CEO.
tenpoundhammer
I was fighting all year to hire mid-level software engineers
giantg2
I guess I'm just a worthless one.
shyn3
That mentality is not going to help you. Baseball players bat 0.333 as the best players, in any other facet of life that's a failure. Fix your mind and it will make things better.
giantg2
Accepting reality will though.
tenpoundhammer
If you’ve faced a lot of rejection in your career or life it can lead to self evaluation that is not accurate. A therapist, counselor, or career coach can help you get a better sense of your actual position in the world and what to do to improve it. I’ve there and the most important thing to remember is your job is not you. Your still important and not worthless no matter what you’re job says.
AnimalMuppet
If you're "midlevel", that doesn't mean you're worthless. You may be dead-ended at your current place, but there are other places.

You may say that your skills don't transfer. You may be right. But the market (at least in some places) is hot enough right now that they may take skills that don't transfer. (They're better than "no skills" and "nobody available".)

So if you feel that you're dead-ended, the time to try to get out is now.

giantg2
The thing that makes me worthless is that I've been repeatedly screwed and don't have faith that any company will stick to their word and be fair. I've realized the carrot is tied to a stick that keeps moving away.
gemexe
There are good companies out there, trust me. Have you tried getting a professional to look at your CV and see what can be improved? If you feel that you lack certain skills, do you have a plan to address the skill gap?
giantg2
I don't think there are. My company is supposed to have great culture, work life balance, etc. All companies lie.
gemexe
Look if all companies are bad then everyone in the salaried class is living a miserable existence, which isn't true. There are lots of places (with proper compensation) that will appreciate the skills you have right now and your capacity to acquire more.

Lots of things you can do to improve your chances of getting an offer. Think like an IT pro and don't shoehorn yourself in this Neoxam/Filenet space. Get AWS/Azure certs to show people that you have some understanding of the subject matter and are keeping your skillset current. You will get something better.

giantg2
"Look if all companies are bad then everyone in the salaried class is living a miserable existence, which isn't true"

That's not how it works. I'd say 60-80% of the people at my company think it's a great place to work. In fact, we rate very highly on the Computer World survey every year. This is because the majority of the workers are given a good rating. If you are not given a good rating for political reasons, or you are held back from promotions for political reasons, that's where you will find the problem - in 10-20% of the people because that's who it has affected. There are people at work who I have shared my history with and they can't believe the company would do such things. The secrecy of performance management means the majority of people are happy because they don't see the negative side. Who cares if the company violates policies as long as they don't do it to you?

I have AWS certs. We don't get to use that knowledge on the job really. I won't get anything better due to the geographic restraints placed by my wife and the stiff competition for fully remote (I'm slow in code screens due to my language bouncing).

acquiremoney
No raise plus stock price down 50% after I joined.
giantg2
Someone like me. Nice to meet you.
itg
Same here, plus I joined the new company mid year so it kinda looks bad if I jump ship so soon.
sokoloff
Multiple, back-to-back 3-10 month stints can be a yellow flag. One isolated one? No one's going to care; do what's right for you and your family.
hpen
I got a 45% raise by being offered a new job and my employer matched it. The market is hot, look around you.
kevindeasis
This

Some companies wont even ask you interview questions and will give you an offer right away.

giantg2
Wow, that's crazy. The interviews I've had still involve questions and code screens.
hpen
Haha the easiest I had was one 30 minutes interview. No coding. Just simple questions.
abeppu
But do you want to land on that team? What are the conditions that lead a team to not even ask questions of candidates, and what do those conditions imply about their trajectory?
[deleted]
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giantg2
I lack the background. I'm not seeing anything that is better that I'm qualified for.
hpen
Congrats you must be at the top of your bracket for your skills level then. Only way I see it is to work on your skills.
giantg2
I wish. I'm in the bottom quarter of the grade range for an intermediate dev at my company. There aren't any opportunities for my skills.
hpen
Are you located outside the US? The job market might be local to the US.
cableshaft
I thought that myself but I was wrong (or at least it didn't matter as much as I thought it did). I was heavy on telecom/phone app development, there's not much out there. But I had enough web and system dev that I got a bunch of recruiters contacting me about those opportunities.
giantg2
Yeah, I interviewed for a phone system app internally. I turned it down because of lack of options afterwards.
gknoy
Out of curiosity, what do you consider your skills? What languages or frameworks you have experience with? Keep in mind that often your skill with a particular language is not what they're looking for - many of us have changed jobs to a place that used a language that was new to us.
giantg2
Most of my experience has been in FileNet and Neoxam. I have limited/inconsistent experience with AWS, Java, Python, and Android.

The options are very limited with Nexoam and FileNet. Especially with family constraints like not moving.

gknoy
Interesting. I'm sure my unfamiliarity with those colors my response (for which I am sorry), but if you have experience coding in Python and/or Java, and are willing to work in those, there are likely companies looking for that (even if they are not looking for FileNet or Neoxam).
giantg2
Yeah, I've been looking. I'm not finding anything really better. I put in a couple applications for things that would be about 50-100% raises. Had an interview for one, but wasn't selected (faster people at the code screen... plus it was in JS, which I'm very rusty at).
dyeje
Nobody cares what your internal performance rating is. People are desperate for warm bodies. Start apply, start talking to recruiters. You will get paid more, you can do this.
a_cool_username
If you're an even remotely competent developer in a language used by more than one company, have a reasonably firm grasp of the English language, can work with others reasonably well, and can be bothered to apply for jobs, then there are definitely plenty of opportunities for your skills. Plenty of companies don't even care about the language, they figure you'll pick it up. The only way this isn't true is if you are already hugely overpaid or if you come off terrible in interviews. A year ago I would have said "or are a convicted felon" but I think plenty of companies don't even care about that anymore, that's how huge demand is. You don't even have to live somewhere with jobs anymore so long as you have a reliable Internet connection!

If you just sit around letting your current company take advantage of you, and complaining about not getting a big enough raise you definitely won't find those opportunities though. You have to interview a lot.

giantg2
They don't allow me to become an expert by having me be full stack in multiple stacks with frequent context switching. I tend to be slow in the code screens.
andrew_
Fake it 'till you make it! Anecdotal, but every successful dev in my immediate circle did that at one point in their career to get over a hump or past a plateau.
giantg2
I could apply to a tech lead position that's open... HR would likely throw a fit.
andrew_
In the current company? Bad idea. They're not likely to ever value you like a fresh company would.
giantg2
Options are limited here. It might be bad but should be better than my current situation.
theandrewbailey
I got a new certification and a raise, that while I was thankful for, wasn't quite what I was expecting. I interviewed somewhere else, and my company matched the offer. All total, 40% raise this year.
gabrielsroka
This may be a bit of a nitpick but I don't think what you said is exactly true. Inflation only covers certain expenses. It doesn't include things like mortgage or credit card payments that are for things that you bought in the past.

So certain things will be more expensive but other ones won't.

giantg2
Things like mortgage are just assumptions that one already has it locked in. I believe housing is included in CPI. At any rate, the value that I'm being compensated next year is less than the value I received this year.
gabrielsroka
Rent is included. Did your rent go up?

I'm on a 1-year lease, so my rate didn't change. It might change when the lease ends next year.

PeterisP
The relationship between salary and inflation is not about the increase in your specific expenses, but about the decrease in the value of the dollar.

If one employee has fixed rent and another has had a 20% jump in rent, that's not a factor that should matter when assigning raises, but the generic average inflation value definitely is, as last year's $100k is simply worth more than this year's $102k.

xienze
> At any rate, the value that I'm being compensated next year is less than the value I received this year.

Not to be that guy, but has your company’s revenue increased at least as much as inflation has? If not, how can you expect them to pay you x% more “because inflation”?

giantg2
They are a financial company and the market has been insane over the past year.

Makes it sting even more when they tell you to have financial acumen and then play dumb with the inflation pay cut.

smt88
Inflation is an average. I have relatives whose costs have gone down. If you're not exposed to housing rental, your costs probably haven't risen nearly that much.

If you're working remote, try to fix your pay by moving somewhere cheaper. Regardless, you should apply to some other jobs.

giantg2
Cost have gone down? How? Food is up about 20%, electric 40% or so. Etc.
smt88
There was a huge discussion of inflation on another thread. Basically, for some people, the pandemic reduced their rent enormously for whatever reason.

For me personally in a major US city, most food is exactly the same price.

giantg2
Really? I'm seeing shrinkflation or 10-20% increases on many items. It can be easy to miss too, like $2/lb meat going to $2.40/lb.

That's interesting that rent is dropping. Maybe that's only in very small locales?

smt88
Rent went down (perhaps temporarily) for some people who stayed in dense, expensive places with low quality of life (certain parts of the Bay Area).

As Americans run out of savings, we should see more of this kind of thing. Rent prices are unsustainable in many parts of the country.

cableshaft
I got a 60% raise by switching jobs this year. Although part of the reason it was such a jump is because I stayed too long at a company that had basically frozen raises for several years already and my responsibilities increased without recognition.

I thought companies weren't really looking for my skills because it was .Net heavy and I wasn't getting too many pings by recruiters. But then I flipped the switch that advertised me to recruiters and I got bombarded.

Job market is hot out there, it's not worth sticking around for a company that thinks a 1.5% raise is acceptable this year. Let them find out the hard way they need to offer a lot more money to get and keep people.

giantg2
Wow, that's huge!
cableshaft
This is the Chicago market though, which isn't that great for compensation outside of a handful of companies (I'm still getting recruiters contacting me offering ranges barely above $100k and acting like it's a respectable offer).

So there's a good chance you're still making more than me TC. I'm still making way less than most US-based salaries I see posted on HN.

giantg2
Philly market sounds similar.
0x0nyandesu
Just moved from Philly to Cali. I regret not doing it 10 years ago. Already have an offer 50% above what I made in Philly. The funny part is my W2 withholding went down!

Philly taxes you so much and you get nothing for it.

milkytron
Yup. I worked in the Philly market for a few years (and another year if you count Wilmington).

90% of places I interviewed with while living there gave me insulting low offers, it made me question if I was actually being overpaid (I wasn't).

Left for another city across the country about 4 years ago and have been getting much better offers (even accounting for the COL difference) at better companies.

giantg2
I've been looking at remote. My wife doesn't want to move.
stank345
I just talked to a recruiter today from a company I'm beginning the hiring process with. When they asked about compensation I asked about their range for the position, which ended up being about $15k higher than what I would have asked for. Now I'm looking at a 50% raise if they end up making me an offer :D
Fordec
Leave & get yourself a 20%+ raise. You're not "given" a pay cut, you accept one by your own choice and actions.
giantg2
True, but not as open as it sounds. Choices are constrained based on experience and family requirements.
jgb1984
Over here in Belgium we're one of the few countries that have an automatic salary indexation process. So my salary goes up about 3,5% on the first of January to match inflation. Previous indexation adjustment was about 1% a year ago. It's a double edged sword however: the pay rise is welcome, but because of this mechanism labour is more expensive here than in neighboring countries, resulting in a competitive handicap.
jrockway
Maybe we all came out ahead. I used to commute 20 minutes in each direction, every single day. (OK, often longer when there were subway problems.) That made my 2000 hour work-year into 2166 hours of non-personal time a year. If you take your pay and you prorate your salary for 2166 hours of work to 2000 hours of work, that's a 7.7% hit. But, we only took a 6.2% hit. So maybe the whole "pandemic caused inflation, and pandemic caused remote work to be a real thing" evens out. You could look at it like a 0.9% raise. And, I think my 20 minute commute was atypical... if you were commuting 2 hours a day, you just won the lottery.

As likely many other replies have mentioned, if you want more money, you should ask for it. Or find a higher bidder. That's the market; your goal is to receive the maximum amount of money for your work, and people buying your work are incentivized to take the lowest price you'll offer them. The economy did a sneaky sneak and changed the value of the dollar, but it wasn't so sneaky that you didn't notice. So, do something about it!

giantg2
They are forcing us back into the office raise year.
KentGeek
You haven’t left yet?
giantg2
Looking, but not many options.
milkytron
If you have some experience, and sign up for Dice, I bet you'll have recruiters reaching out to you in no time.
giantg2
I have recruiters reaching out, but most of them are 3rd party and suck. Most of the jobs aren't particularly great either. I get tons of messages on LinkedIn, but few of any value.
ohCh6zos
I took a 100K pay cut to move to a company that does work that doesn't frustrate me.
giantg2
I'd be in negative dollars if I did that
markoman
What technology are you in, if I may ask? (I'm curious for whatever technology or field would allow you to take such a pay cut yet still make enough to make life interesting.)
radley
We all have high points and low points in our career. Sounds like you're in a low point.

I found a book many years ago called "How High Can You Bounce?" TLDR: take advantage of a low point to set up your next high point.

giantg2
Even my high points were low points. 10 years in now.
silisili
No. As everyone else is telling you, and me worthlessly adding onto the pile because it bears repeating... look around you!

I spent all of an hour updating my resume and LinkedIn, was bombarded with recruiters, and had 2 offers about 50k higher than I make now within two weeks.

Don't feel bad for leaving when times are good...they sure won't feel bad for firing you when times aren't.

aunty_helen
Good advice, a lot of people forget when they're in companies that try to push a family / friendly culture, it's a labour / money exchange you're in. When your labour isn't worth the money you're gone.
tenpoundhammer
Fun story I've shared here before, at my first job I got a 1%-2% raise every year for the first 3 years. On the third one I said, "if I don't get a better raise this year I will find another job". I got another tiny raise, found another job that was a 20% increase. My boss comes to me and said "how much more do we have to pay you to stay?".

They could have easily paid more that entire time but thought I was a sucker. I felt deeply insulted at that point and just told him it's too late. Best move I ever made.

toomuchtodo
Always Be Interviewing. You’ll rarely get an increase staying put you’d get by moving.
mathattack
Terrible talent management on their part!
astrange
Average inflation is 6.8% but you are not an average person and aren't buying the average amount of new cars, etc. So have you actually lost anything?

And I guess you aren't in an RSU-compensating industry.

giantg2
Yes, because my compensated value has decreased for the time when I do need a new car... or simply need to house and feed my family.
astrange
Transitory inflation (due to everyone buying used cars all at once) doesn't mean any of those will actually go up for you in the future even if they're higher right now.
giantg2
That's nice, but the Fed is saying this is not transitional. Not to mention, if the items come down then that would be reflected in future inflation/deflation metrics and wages those years would be adjusted accordingly.
astrange
Yes, that’s because you defeat transitory inflation by saying negative things like “it’s no longer transitory”, or saying you’ll raise interest rates but not actually doing it. It’s an anti-fulfilling prophecy.

Why do you care about salary anyway? Gotta get more stock compensation.

giantg2
Company doesn't offer stock and is private.
andrew_
I got a 28% raise by switching jobs this year. Also added supplemental income via my own LLC and taking on occasional short contract work (time management skills are key). Overall I'll increase my income by 40% when accounting for inflation.
01100011
Half of my salary is in RSUs which are pumped up in value thanks to J.Powell and Co. Sure my base salary raise sucked but I can't complain too much. I don't know why blue collar folks aren't rioting in the streets though. The Fed is absolutely screwing them in favor of the asset owning 1%(who, arguably, have a gun pointed at the economy's head and have to be placated somewhat).

My only complaint is that I have a large cash pile because I was, prior to massive asset inflation, looking to buy a house. The fed is taking money out of one account and putting it into another as far as I'm concerned.

giantg2
I think there's a long history there since at least the 70s - "normal" people not getting cost of living adjustments.
01100011
Sure, look at the wealth gap. "Normal" people have been getting screwed since the late 60s. But they apparently don't complain much, so business as usual will continue unabated.
ghubdub
Ah, I've gotten very lucky with this. I (in EU) have been able to find a US company paying California wages in Europe so I've gotten a +50℅ pay rise which has been pretty life changing.
legitster
I got a new job and they gave me an unasked $15k raise over what I asked for. I was also given RSUs that have nearly doubled in value.

I also recently bought a new house and inflation essentially knocked nearly $30k off of my lifetime payments.

I can't complain.

giantg2
Maybe one day I'll have some luck.
mathattack
My last employer averages 3% annual Raises including promotions. So I took a pay cut to get equity instead. The equity should grow with inflation.
ALLTaken
I do. 3y now and no salary increase. I quit. Giving up.
giantg2
I dream of quitting. Nice to meet you.
phreack
This has been the reality in countries like Argentina for literal decades. It's created a ridiculous disparity since wages are shrinking so fast, and many people don't realize it, that there's desperate attempts to freeze the price of essential goods just so people can afford them. Conversely, tourists have never had better exchange rates. You can have an extremely fine meal for two at a very fine restaurant for $10-$20 bucks. Subway/bus trips cost about $0.10. It leaves visitors dumbfounded.

It's a good case study to find out what things are going to be like if left unchecked.

muzani
I live in a developing country, where 5% is the norm, and yet salaries have been mostly static except recently.

This is one of those years where I get a substantial increase in salary, but it seems like racing against time is the norm for this generation.

It used to be that everyone made it, everyone got a living wage. But in the 21st century, it looks like only 1/6 will make it, and the rest will treadmill into poverty. If you're American, it's probably not so bad, closer to 1/3.

sys_64738
It depends how comfortable you are at your current position. The grass isn't always greener so make sure jumping is worth it.
bradlys
Side note - I wish people didn’t use percentages in these stories. It really means almost nothing to me. If you went from X to 2X but 5X is actually market rate then are you really doing any good? I don’t think so…
giantg2
When talking about inflation, percentages are the thing that matter. I am making under the US median dev salary of $110k, but pretty close to market rate for my area/position... or was before the talent war of the past year.