I work in Defense as a software engineer. Ive been at my current company for almost two years, and I have had absolutely stellar feedback on my performance for months now. My boss has actively told me that I am the highest performer of any engineer at my level.
In December, they gave me a 5% pay bump to $78,500, which for where I live is pretty great.
In February they hired a girl for my same position straight out of college. No internships. No work experience. She calls on me throughout the day to sit down and help her solve problems and navigate our code base. It's not just her — I have level II and III engineers calling me from throughout the company asking for my help and input. I've become our company's expert on a specific standard that our sector of the industry is using. My project lead agrees that I am performing well beyond the expectations for a level II (I'm a level I) and we brought that to my boss for a promotion. They have dragged their feet on it for months now.
We were on a work trip this week discussing pay in the car, and it came out that she makes almost $90k. More than some of the level IIs on our team. I feel furious and betrayed. She gets paid more than me right off the bat, but I get stellar performance reviews and the backing of several seniors for a promotion and the company keeps brushing me off.
I feel like I'm getting actively taken advantage of and it has completely soured me on my position and the corporate experience. They even raised the budget for employee compensation this year, so they could have totally made me whole but conciously made the decision not to do so. I am so angry. I'm drowning under my student loans right now. I both need and deserve the next level of compensation, but instead I'm getting actively underpaid.
Fuck this corporate bullshit, and remember to ALWAYS discuss pay.