I work in product development as a designer. The company has had insane and and unsustainable growth (+20-30%)ever since I joined 3 years ago fresh out of school. (Of course employees haven’t seen this reflected in wages, 1 billion dollar increase in revenue, no bonuses or raises)
With all the growth the entire company is hiring like crazy, my department has doubled in size over 2021. We’ve been actively hiring for designers for the past 6 months. The most recent candidate had 3 years experience (same as me) designing flower pots. I specifically work in a front end group working on complex projects with lots of research, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering partners. So I wouldn’t say we were on equal levels.
I was on one of the panels, thought he was a good fit for the team and could grow into the same position as me. I told this to my manager. Needless to say they offered him the same position and ‘maxed out’ salary and offered a relocation bonus in an attempt to get him in the door. He still said no, saying that he wasn’t willing to move to frigid Wisconsin from Florida.
Happy for this guy, he knows what he wants, but I’ve left this whole thing feeling very undervalued. I’m assuming his offer was more than what I currently make, probably up to 10k or 15k more with the moving bonus.
What should I do?