Salary help

11L is too much to be justified or defended. Don’t trust them or expect any honesty or sincerity about this from them. In this situation, you need to get some leverage first - this is usually other offers but can also mean being immensely critical to the business. Once that is done, you should bring this issue up and negotiate. Unless you already have a very good rapport with your manager, it is very hard to maintain a cordial relationship with your manager after negotiating aggressively to resolve this situation. You will be marked as a flight risk even if you stay after the negotiations. The best thing to do is get other offers first, examine them with respect to your current opportunity and take a call on what is best for you. Good luck!

11L is a too huge gap to leave out. Since you've done 4 months here, I suggest to start preparing again, but at the same time try to appear to your manager like you're working super hard. After two more months, ask for a one on one call and try to discuss future plans, but only related to career. Tell that you're looking to get promoted, and ask what are the expectations for the next level, so you can work on them. That should get you good rapport with your manager. Then, start noting things down and have ChatGPT reword that to show more impact. Every single thing you did. Even if you helped a peer, record that. After three more months, you got around 9 months of experience, so ask for another one on one and take feedback. Raise all those reworded points to show impact. Also discuss about future expectations. Next, just before expected cycle, tell your manager informally that you're sensing that the market is growing back up, and ask about the plans for revenue growth of company. Then informally bring up that you did notice the 11L gap that was left out, but tell that you're looking for help from your manager. Let them know that you have noticed. Again bring up all your reworded work till then with your manager. You'll definitely get a promotion, and most probably a cover up for package too. Then, simply take a switch. You should've been preparing for almost an year by that time. Remember, it is a long term game. Not an immediate one.

Can you share a hint 😉? Usually a manager will be given a specific budget to hire for his/her team. 11L gap is too much! Please speak with your manager and try to get it closer to the top bracket for the level. It will only happen in the next review cycle. That too if your personal and company performance is good. It’ll be difficult and the manager will have to really fight it out with HR and Finance.

What profile? If it's like their core business you can ask HR to equalise pay with your coworkers next month/quarter/increment cycle.

Score another job offer. Resign. Curse HR. Keep quiet and slog. choose your poison.