CTC check
I am a software engineer with 1 year of professional experience and about 2 years of experience counting all my freelance gigs as well as internships.
I’ve identified that I’m good at picking up new technologies easily. I’m also very detail oriented and tend to find the moat optimal solutions even though my current position only expects me to follow the PRD provided by my tech lead.
I find that most of the times, I have had to raise my concerns to my seniors for a change of an approach with me being correct almost all the time by the end of the discussion.
Now I feel confused, that maybe I was being underestimated and therefore underpaid by my employer.
Context: I switched to this company about 6 months ago with a package of 12 LPA and got a mere 5% hike to 12.65 LPA during last month with a promotion from being a technical associate -> software development engineer. During my meeting with the manager, i was told that my performance was ‘very good’ but since its been only 6 months, they are giving me a promotion to match my skills but not give me a good hike.
Any thoughts?
5% within 6 months is actually pretty good in this market. For a sde 1 role, your compensation is not bad at all, way above average if you will.
Hopefully you’ll be promoted next cycle, which will come with a bigger pay hike.
Also don’t go switching companies every six months!
Yes I do agree with the reasoning and I understand that 12.65 is not at all a bad package. However, I am concerned about my financial growth because of being underpaid (based on the amount and quality of output I am currently generating)
I do understand that I am not the best person to judge my own work performance since it depends upon the impact my work brings for the company as well.
That’s why I feel that maybe I am not a perfect fit for my current employer and maybe that’s why I didn’t get the hike that I was expecting
Here is another reason for me to be confused: I believe that a promotion should come with a significant salary hike.
Since I was already earning 12LPA as a technical associate, I would have like to have a minimum of 15% hike with a promotion to SDE.
I don’t want to fall into that corporate trap of staying loyal and getting underpaid.