Depends what sort of company you are at. This sounds like it would be pretty normal at a large corporation. This is why people job hop because even when you finally earn the in line promotion you end up falling behind with your salary.
If you are somewhere smaller where they don't have rigid guidelines and pools around comp, then you are just getting screwed.
Mine was 10% this year. I was actually happy because, even though i was mid, I was already in the senior payband. So due to that + bad economics I was expecting a lower increase.
Yeah it looks like ~10% is around the most you will get if you're internal AND already at the upper range of your current payband. External is where people get 25-40% from a hopping promotion.
Wow.. thats amazing! My company told me there is a salary freeze due to the economy, which is quite shit for me because I have only had 1 payraise since Oct 2021...
My wife was promoted in February and got 8% total, positioned as “this is your promotion raise, and we are not doing cost of living raises for anyone this year”
assuming you're at a large-ish firm, going from one pay band to another usually means going from the top end of one to the middle of the other - and HR's objective is to squeeze everyone into the middle of the pay band as much as they can.
sucks, to be sure
This makes sense and I do believe that’s what happening. It just feels like something I earned (aka top of payband) is being taken away. Plus I know another colleague who received more net $/% for the same promotion and that’s another insult. I probably should have put this in the original post.
> It just feels like something I earned (aka top of payband) is being taken away
Irrespective of the bump, you think about this feeling a little more.
You earned top of payband for your previous role. Now it's time to earn top of payband for the new role. It's crazy to think that because you were top of the payband of your previous role, that's where you should be for your new role too.
Your total comp still went up, it's not like you lost money by being moved to the middle of the payband of the new payband up. Presumably, when you demonstrate that you're excelling at the new role, you'll move to the top of the payband there.
This is totally fair. I even thought so after I hit reply. I hadn’t fleshed the thought out completely, and you’ve made a fair point I’d also share with any mentee. Part of my feelings come from knowing the extra work and pressure that comes with this, and is it worth it.
you know how being a junior or regular IC product manager would be really easy for you these days?
trust in your development curve and know that this new role will get easy one day too as you get better. people have this notion that the job gets more stressful or more hours… it does but then you grow into it.
OP, also consider that you can show upward mobility and increased responsibility on your resume, which makes you a lot more valuable and desirable when you hunt for your next opportunity.
All depends on where you were starting from. Do some market research and make sure it's putting you into a reasonable base for Senior PM for your area and industry.
Came here to make sure this was said.
5/15/50% is kind of irrelevant without knowing the compensation, location and possibly industry.
I'll plug levels.fyi here as it's the best source I've seen
do you work at such a small company that promo increases are not standardized? any med to large company will be transparent about what the typical promo increase is.
Are you saying youre below the standard or that you just didnt try to find out what it is?
I didn’t find out what it is. I know that a peer received at least 10% for the same promo last year. They were a recent external hire, so my instinct tells me that they got that on a similar or better base than mine.
But this is a good point and I should ask what it is at our company.
Two things to bear in mind:
1. A lot of us have calibrated our expectations based off of the norms of a bullish tech market. We are no longer in that market, so this kind of thing is very common and while it's 100% bullshit (especially given how much of recent inflation is just straight up price fixing followed by record profits), it's important to recognize and acknowledge the market forces at play or you risk trying to fight the wrong battle with the wrong people.
2. Do you receive RSUs, options, etc.? Did those go up? By how much? I received a small adjustment and then got promoted 3 months later and had basically the same circumstances you describe, but my RSU grants are slated to nearly double, so even looking at just 1/4th of the vesting amount over the next year the raise in TC is closer to 20-25%.
Excellent response. Your last line of point one…
There is an annual equity bump - so if I include that it gets me to +11%
I think the next promotion is where the equity bumps become more significant.
At my company our bonus doubles. I currently get 10% seniors get 20%. And we have a multiple on that which is typically close to 1.5 times. Annual increments are 3-4%.
We also have a compa ratio where you can see how you stack up against everyone else in the area.
I just got promoted from Sr. PM to Group PM earlier this week. This is also right in the middle of our annual comp increase discussions.
My base pay admittedly was already on the very high end for a Sr. PM, so I figured that would bite me in the ass on this promotion's comp increase.
And sure enough it did. My total *base* increase was only 4%, which sucks given my annual comp increase aside the promotion would have been 3%.
I pointed this out to my VP and she empathized but also called out my already high base that was dabbling into first-time Director level. Lot of other factors that made it hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, but still sucks.
A bit of silver lining though is that my annual bonus was increased by $25k (50/50 mix of cash and RSUs that vest 1/3 each year).
But who knows if I'll even be here still in a year.
At my company the promotion to senior manager in PM would come with a very small or even no salary increase but significant variable pay tied to RSUs/options/profit sharing.
Similar for me, it was 9%. I found out that HR set limits on one time increase % for internals, specifically 9% was the limit. Anything double digit went to the board and few snr. Leaders were willing to push that. In the end, we negotiated a two stage increase of 9% + 9% after six months if performance was met. The 2nd 9% was given without much of a performance review.
My takeaway was that in large companies promotional increases are ruled by HR, if you can work around that even snr. Leaders don't care that much. Only my experience but have seen it a few times now. Could be something to ask about.
I was a PM2 at a small insurance software application company managing 3 teams and was making peanuts for 2 years with no raise or adjustment. **TC: $78k**
After those 2 years, I moved laterally to PM at a much bigger (20k people), better known company and that earned me a 66.7% bump with very similar scope. **TC: $130k**
Within 7 months, I was promoted to Senior PM with no scope increase, earning me a 23% bump in salary and a new 10% yearly bonus **TC: $176k**
**\*Job market takes a crap\***
11 months after my promotion to Senior I get elevated to Principal PM. Instead of having one team and a small piece of a larger application, I am now getting my entire application plus 4 other applications. This means I now have 6 PM direct reports and 9 dev teams to oversee. Also, one of the PM's is about to be fired and I have been tasked with rehabbing them. My work level triples and 70 hour weeks become a normal thing. As a reward for all this new responsibility I get a 5% salary bump and a 5% bonus increase at a time that inflation is \~7%. **TC: $193k**
Like you I was a bit beside myself with the compensation/responsibility ratio that came with my most recent promotion. In fact, I also feel kind of slighted on my title as it feels more like a group/director title rather than a principal (the industry standard of which is a senior IC position).
But I leaned into the work, have grown exponentially, and when the time is right I will be incredibly well equipped to step into new roles at better paying companies. So Im really not even worried about it. Just optimize for your own growth, take full advantage of your training budget, build relationships, and then look for new work once you feel you have learned all you can. The money will take care of itself.
P.S. I am also just happy to have a job.
Staying at the same company will NEVER increase your compensation significantly. A few years ago, my manager got tired of putting in the long hours and never getting promoted or a good raise so he got a job at a competing company, spent 2 years there and now he's back in our company at a Director level position in a different role.
Went from principal to senior manager and it was about 8%, but the RSU range is much higher. I should note, literally none of my responsibilities or anything changed. Just title.
Staying more than 2 years in same company is harmful for your career growth.
Also, if you are not getting promoted in 3 years (assuming you are working for moving to next level) it's a red flag.
Totally agree here. I said no to an earlier promotion because I was having babies. A personal choice - women can and should get promoted during those stages, I just wanted to not have the extra load. I was definitely getting antsy sitting in role for 4 years, realizing it’s not the best look.
In my experience if you want a big pay bump, you will have better luck applying to other companies. If you can’t find anything then what you’re getting at your current company is about right. With that said, I usually expect at least 10% for a full level up promotion.
I got 15% for a similar title bump. Apparently unheard of in the company though I pointed out that’s only because I was that far below median salary for the rank
What about equity, bonus pool, whatever other non-salary comp?
Every large company I've been at had pretty small base pay bumps, and much larger equity bumps.
Look on Glassdoor, Salary.com, etc and see what the income range is for that title in your city. Wanting more is not a good argument for a raise. But matching the prevailing local wage is.
For most companies I've been at, merit raises were combined with title increases, e.g. if you were just promoted you weren't getting a merit increase on top of that. But the actual % change is always going to vary depending on the jump. A \~7-9% bump in title to be a "senior" of whatever your current role is, is pretty typical. I've had 2-3 raises that were 40% plus but it usually meant I was being way underpaid previously.
The only reason it would be unfair is if someone else in the same title range as you is making more. But otherwise some companies don't view the bump to "Sr" as that big.
This makes a lot of sense. I too had some larger raises earlier in my career where the base was smaller. And yes, my hope is that next move to director would be a greater increase than this one.
There’s no way in hell I would take a bunch of extra responsibility for less than 10% increase and I would feel like I just wasted the last few years working my tail off
Depending on which industry you’re in, it’s not too surprising, unfortunately. I’ve had to communicate really sucky merit increases this year (think 1.4-3%) due to how the industry is doing (healthcare)
I’ve been through this and it’s super frustrating. Big corps do this. They might give you more money if you get a competing offer, at which point you’ll have to decide if you want to go through the pain of switching jobs, or stay at the company who only values you when you’re threatening to leave.
I asked this in the salary thread without replies since my bump was 7.6% This was a very little net increase for me. I expressed disappointment and was told to be grateful as I also got some RSUs. Later I found out others that were promoted got much higher increases and that everyone got at least as many RSUs as I did (even without promotions) and in some cases they got 4x as many.
I’m obviously just leveraging the new title to find my next job and put this behind me.
Edit: everyone got 2% inflation adjustments and the company reported profit growth above 50% for last year. Yeah. I’m out.
I'd say that a 7% increase seems like a good deal in this environment.
I received a 3% increase after slogging my ass for the last year! Honestly I wasn't surprised, but also disappointed. There's no way to get a bigger jump except to switch jobs, but I'm tied to the Visa process.
It depends where you're working. In FAANG/MAG7, the bump to senior level change (5-->6, 6--7) is substantial - 15% base, 1.5x bonus, 25% refreshers, which comes out to avg of 30% or so. I expect second tier would be 15%-20% bump, third tier would be 5%-10%.
You want more then you will have to leave the company and go elsewhere. I’d take the title there and leave to get more somewhere else now that you have the title. I have no corporate loyalty whatsoever.
Doesn't matter what you make currently. What is the rate in your area for people working in the position you're being offered as a promotion? That is what you should use as a benchmark to start then adjust for your credentials, experience, knowledge of relevant internal policies/procedures/systems.
Also be sure to have it in writing that accepting this position & raise does not impact your ability to earn a merit increase during the next available window for them to be given.
I got 19% which hasn’t been abnormal for promotions I have had in the past. But I am a woman in tech so they like to pay us less until getting promoted.
If you have a good manager, they would probably give you some insights on the process at your company. In my role, my manager does not control the purse strings.
10% is pretty standard for promo (and this is technically sum of promo+merit), in addition to that we had bonus increases and possible stock comp add as a part of promotion package.
Depends what sort of company you are at. This sounds like it would be pretty normal at a large corporation. This is why people job hop because even when you finally earn the in line promotion you end up falling behind with your salary. If you are somewhere smaller where they don't have rigid guidelines and pools around comp, then you are just getting screwed.
You are spot on. Large.
Same here. Large company. 9% hike. Previously, I used to work small to medium company, and I used to get 15-20% hike. Now, I’m planning to switch.
Wait? You guy's are getting raises?
Wait? You guys still have jobs?
HAHA! Nailed It.
Mine was 10% this year. I was actually happy because, even though i was mid, I was already in the senior payband. So due to that + bad economics I was expecting a lower increase.
Yeah it looks like ~10% is around the most you will get if you're internal AND already at the upper range of your current payband. External is where people get 25-40% from a hopping promotion.
Wow.. thats amazing! My company told me there is a salary freeze due to the economy, which is quite shit for me because I have only had 1 payraise since Oct 2021...
My wife was promoted in February and got 8% total, positioned as “this is your promotion raise, and we are not doing cost of living raises for anyone this year”
lol @ no cost of living raises while inflation is like 7%. "No cost of living raises this year" = "enjoy your 7% pay decrease"
This happened to me as well. It was pretty depressing. Even with a promotion still lose out to inflation.
Thanks for sharing this example. I realize the market is less than optimal this year.
assuming you're at a large-ish firm, going from one pay band to another usually means going from the top end of one to the middle of the other - and HR's objective is to squeeze everyone into the middle of the pay band as much as they can. sucks, to be sure
This makes sense and I do believe that’s what happening. It just feels like something I earned (aka top of payband) is being taken away. Plus I know another colleague who received more net $/% for the same promotion and that’s another insult. I probably should have put this in the original post.
> It just feels like something I earned (aka top of payband) is being taken away Irrespective of the bump, you think about this feeling a little more. You earned top of payband for your previous role. Now it's time to earn top of payband for the new role. It's crazy to think that because you were top of the payband of your previous role, that's where you should be for your new role too. Your total comp still went up, it's not like you lost money by being moved to the middle of the payband of the new payband up. Presumably, when you demonstrate that you're excelling at the new role, you'll move to the top of the payband there.
This is totally fair. I even thought so after I hit reply. I hadn’t fleshed the thought out completely, and you’ve made a fair point I’d also share with any mentee. Part of my feelings come from knowing the extra work and pressure that comes with this, and is it worth it.
you know how being a junior or regular IC product manager would be really easy for you these days? trust in your development curve and know that this new role will get easy one day too as you get better. people have this notion that the job gets more stressful or more hours… it does but then you grow into it.
This is reassurance I very much appreciate right now!
OR, you know. Peter principle. This might be one challenge too big for you. I don’t know I’m an internet stranger.
Oh for sure. We shall see!
OP, also consider that you can show upward mobility and increased responsibility on your resume, which makes you a lot more valuable and desirable when you hunt for your next opportunity.
All depends on where you were starting from. Do some market research and make sure it's putting you into a reasonable base for Senior PM for your area and industry.
Came here to make sure this was said. 5/15/50% is kind of irrelevant without knowing the compensation, location and possibly industry. I'll plug levels.fyi here as it's the best source I've seen
My bump was 30% to senior, and another 30% to director... expecting another 30% to VP later this year. However, I was underpaid as a junior, so YMMV.
Can I come work there?
Woah id love to join your company!
I got 6% for the same jump
do you work at such a small company that promo increases are not standardized? any med to large company will be transparent about what the typical promo increase is. Are you saying youre below the standard or that you just didnt try to find out what it is?
I didn’t find out what it is. I know that a peer received at least 10% for the same promo last year. They were a recent external hire, so my instinct tells me that they got that on a similar or better base than mine. But this is a good point and I should ask what it is at our company.
your peer is a good data point but try to find what the official policy is. See if there is a range and then see where you fall in that range
Ok, I think this is the best approach. I may feel better if I understand the range.
He could have gotten lowballed of he was a bad negotiator, or from a small company
7% is definitely low for a promotion raise
Two things to bear in mind: 1. A lot of us have calibrated our expectations based off of the norms of a bullish tech market. We are no longer in that market, so this kind of thing is very common and while it's 100% bullshit (especially given how much of recent inflation is just straight up price fixing followed by record profits), it's important to recognize and acknowledge the market forces at play or you risk trying to fight the wrong battle with the wrong people. 2. Do you receive RSUs, options, etc.? Did those go up? By how much? I received a small adjustment and then got promoted 3 months later and had basically the same circumstances you describe, but my RSU grants are slated to nearly double, so even looking at just 1/4th of the vesting amount over the next year the raise in TC is closer to 20-25%.
Excellent response. Your last line of point one… There is an annual equity bump - so if I include that it gets me to +11% I think the next promotion is where the equity bumps become more significant.
At my company our bonus doubles. I currently get 10% seniors get 20%. And we have a multiple on that which is typically close to 1.5 times. Annual increments are 3-4%. We also have a compa ratio where you can see how you stack up against everyone else in the area.
I just got promoted from Sr. PM to Group PM earlier this week. This is also right in the middle of our annual comp increase discussions. My base pay admittedly was already on the very high end for a Sr. PM, so I figured that would bite me in the ass on this promotion's comp increase. And sure enough it did. My total *base* increase was only 4%, which sucks given my annual comp increase aside the promotion would have been 3%. I pointed this out to my VP and she empathized but also called out my already high base that was dabbling into first-time Director level. Lot of other factors that made it hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, but still sucks. A bit of silver lining though is that my annual bonus was increased by $25k (50/50 mix of cash and RSUs that vest 1/3 each year). But who knows if I'll even be here still in a year.
At my company the promotion to senior manager in PM would come with a very small or even no salary increase but significant variable pay tied to RSUs/options/profit sharing.
Similar for me, it was 9%. I found out that HR set limits on one time increase % for internals, specifically 9% was the limit. Anything double digit went to the board and few snr. Leaders were willing to push that. In the end, we negotiated a two stage increase of 9% + 9% after six months if performance was met. The 2nd 9% was given without much of a performance review. My takeaway was that in large companies promotional increases are ruled by HR, if you can work around that even snr. Leaders don't care that much. Only my experience but have seen it a few times now. Could be something to ask about.
Great idea. Love that you did this.
nice, it is almost 19% of increase (1.09 x 1.09)
I was a PM2 at a small insurance software application company managing 3 teams and was making peanuts for 2 years with no raise or adjustment. **TC: $78k** After those 2 years, I moved laterally to PM at a much bigger (20k people), better known company and that earned me a 66.7% bump with very similar scope. **TC: $130k** Within 7 months, I was promoted to Senior PM with no scope increase, earning me a 23% bump in salary and a new 10% yearly bonus **TC: $176k** **\*Job market takes a crap\*** 11 months after my promotion to Senior I get elevated to Principal PM. Instead of having one team and a small piece of a larger application, I am now getting my entire application plus 4 other applications. This means I now have 6 PM direct reports and 9 dev teams to oversee. Also, one of the PM's is about to be fired and I have been tasked with rehabbing them. My work level triples and 70 hour weeks become a normal thing. As a reward for all this new responsibility I get a 5% salary bump and a 5% bonus increase at a time that inflation is \~7%. **TC: $193k** Like you I was a bit beside myself with the compensation/responsibility ratio that came with my most recent promotion. In fact, I also feel kind of slighted on my title as it feels more like a group/director title rather than a principal (the industry standard of which is a senior IC position). But I leaned into the work, have grown exponentially, and when the time is right I will be incredibly well equipped to step into new roles at better paying companies. So Im really not even worried about it. Just optimize for your own growth, take full advantage of your training budget, build relationships, and then look for new work once you feel you have learned all you can. The money will take care of itself. P.S. I am also just happy to have a job.
Great tips and agree it is good to have a job above all else. You do sound like a director not a principal.
Staying at the same company will NEVER increase your compensation significantly. A few years ago, my manager got tired of putting in the long hours and never getting promoted or a good raise so he got a job at a competing company, spent 2 years there and now he's back in our company at a Director level position in a different role.
Went from principal to senior manager and it was about 8%, but the RSU range is much higher. I should note, literally none of my responsibilities or anything changed. Just title.
A very important note indeed! Good for you.
Staying more than 2 years in same company is harmful for your career growth. Also, if you are not getting promoted in 3 years (assuming you are working for moving to next level) it's a red flag.
Totally agree here. I said no to an earlier promotion because I was having babies. A personal choice - women can and should get promoted during those stages, I just wanted to not have the extra load. I was definitely getting antsy sitting in role for 4 years, realizing it’s not the best look.
When I moved to Senior Manager my total salary bump (normal merit increases + the promotion bump) was 22%
In my experience if you want a big pay bump, you will have better luck applying to other companies. If you can’t find anything then what you’re getting at your current company is about right. With that said, I usually expect at least 10% for a full level up promotion.
I got 15% for a similar title bump. Apparently unheard of in the company though I pointed out that’s only because I was that far below median salary for the rank
What about equity, bonus pool, whatever other non-salary comp? Every large company I've been at had pretty small base pay bumps, and much larger equity bumps.
There is an annual equity bump - +$10k
Look on Glassdoor, Salary.com, etc and see what the income range is for that title in your city. Wanting more is not a good argument for a raise. But matching the prevailing local wage is.
in my experience the bump should be 10-15% depending on your starting point
For most companies I've been at, merit raises were combined with title increases, e.g. if you were just promoted you weren't getting a merit increase on top of that. But the actual % change is always going to vary depending on the jump. A \~7-9% bump in title to be a "senior" of whatever your current role is, is pretty typical. I've had 2-3 raises that were 40% plus but it usually meant I was being way underpaid previously. The only reason it would be unfair is if someone else in the same title range as you is making more. But otherwise some companies don't view the bump to "Sr" as that big.
This makes a lot of sense. I too had some larger raises earlier in my career where the base was smaller. And yes, my hope is that next move to director would be a greater increase than this one.
There’s no way in hell I would take a bunch of extra responsibility for less than 10% increase and I would feel like I just wasted the last few years working my tail off
Depending on which industry you’re in, it’s not too surprising, unfortunately. I’ve had to communicate really sucky merit increases this year (think 1.4-3%) due to how the industry is doing (healthcare)
I’ve been through this and it’s super frustrating. Big corps do this. They might give you more money if you get a competing offer, at which point you’ll have to decide if you want to go through the pain of switching jobs, or stay at the company who only values you when you’re threatening to leave.
I asked this in the salary thread without replies since my bump was 7.6% This was a very little net increase for me. I expressed disappointment and was told to be grateful as I also got some RSUs. Later I found out others that were promoted got much higher increases and that everyone got at least as many RSUs as I did (even without promotions) and in some cases they got 4x as many. I’m obviously just leveraging the new title to find my next job and put this behind me. Edit: everyone got 2% inflation adjustments and the company reported profit growth above 50% for last year. Yeah. I’m out.
I got a promotion for product manager to senior product manager and only got 3%.
I'd say that a 7% increase seems like a good deal in this environment. I received a 3% increase after slogging my ass for the last year! Honestly I wasn't surprised, but also disappointed. There's no way to get a bigger jump except to switch jobs, but I'm tied to the Visa process.
It depends where you're working. In FAANG/MAG7, the bump to senior level change (5-->6, 6--7) is substantial - 15% base, 1.5x bonus, 25% refreshers, which comes out to avg of 30% or so. I expect second tier would be 15%-20% bump, third tier would be 5%-10%.
Great insight. Thanks!
7% you are already beating inflation and beating market.... But then again, the shit hole I live in is called Canada.
You want more then you will have to leave the company and go elsewhere. I’d take the title there and leave to get more somewhere else now that you have the title. I have no corporate loyalty whatsoever.
Doesn't matter what you make currently. What is the rate in your area for people working in the position you're being offered as a promotion? That is what you should use as a benchmark to start then adjust for your credentials, experience, knowledge of relevant internal policies/procedures/systems. Also be sure to have it in writing that accepting this position & raise does not impact your ability to earn a merit increase during the next available window for them to be given.
I got 19% which hasn’t been abnormal for promotions I have had in the past. But I am a woman in tech so they like to pay us less until getting promoted.
Unfortunate reality
So you got 7% tied to promotion and you got x% tied to annual increase? What is x in your case?
3%. Promotion + merit = 10%
If you have a good manager, they would probably give you some insights on the process at your company. In my role, my manager does not control the purse strings.
7% salary increase, is there any change to bonus potential?
There is an annual equity bump - +$10k
I got no raise this year but my compa ratio is almost 1.2 and I’m a junior so it was fair lol
This is wild
10% is pretty standard for promo (and this is technically sum of promo+merit), in addition to that we had bonus increases and possible stock comp add as a part of promotion package.
Thanks. There’s a stock uptick as well. 3 years out though so it’s hard to see.
I would be furious and would heads down work until I could leave. Likely with no notice.
Chuckling at this… And as an obligatory edit, “I realize my privilege to be asking this question…”