TLDR: Left job after 6 years got 35k per year raise. Today on year review I was given 42k in bonuses.
Okay so I have been at my job for just over a year. I have been a network engineer for the last 6 years before this for a company on the Nasdaq stock market. It is a large company but not huge name brand or anything like that.
I was actually in Site IT before getting a chance as a Network engineer. They took a big risk on me back then because I was very, very green. So I was paid far under market value for most of my time there. My last year there my boss at the time who was an awesome woman got me a huge bump to get me to just below average pay for my position. She made the case that she was going to lose me if they didn't.
Oddly enough she left the company like a month after she got me my bump. Well as part of her leaving (after she didn't have an obligation not to tell me about it) she told me that she had interviewed and actually got offered a position at my current company. This is a vendor that I have been dealing with for the last 6 years.
This led me to apply after having to turn them down. She was a much better fit for another company with what she wanted to do. I however, was much more in line what they wanted for this position. The nice part about this was she told me exactly what I needed to ask for which is a number that I would of thought would be absurd. I never would of valued myself so high.
So I ended up getting like a 35k raise last year to get to this new company. Full remote, less work, hardly any night changes. I get to take my daughter to dance on Wednesday's. I almost feel bad because I'm not working as hard as I was for such a jump in pay. I know that I shouldn't but 20 years of brainwashing by employers of my worth doesn't break overnight.
So cut to today. I had my year review and everyone has seen all the news to the tech layoffs this past year so I was expecting no raises across the company. They had informed us of this on meetings in recent months. My current company is notorious for not laying off a bunch of people in the lean times so I'm okay with making a sound financial decision keeping payroll flat for a year. But what I did come to find out is that due to this fact our bonus pool was nearly doubled.
Today I was given 21k bonus and on top of that was given 21k in company stock (25% vested over the next 4 years). On top of the 30k I was given last year after a month on the job ( I now officially own 25% of that options). This type of culture of the CEO (who I have met by the way but I was a customer at that point) makes me want to work harder for him, makes me want to go above and beyond because he values his employees.
I just wanted to say sometimes it's scary to leave something that is so familiar, hell I was so scared to leave that which I have known for so many years. You go get what your worth, because you are worth a wage that fits your experience.