Programming

My last raise was 10k. But that was after 7+ years of no raises (agency work, slow times). When COVID hit, our business picked up for 2 years straight and I finally convinced them it was stable enough to commit. We're a small company and they'd rather give out bonuses or assistance with personal expenses than commit to an annual salary increase (which I get), but COL has spiked in recent times, so the raise was well past due.

I got a 35% salary increase when I started a new job a few months ago. I was very excited.

Jumping jobs is a great way to increase your salary, but be aware that having a bunch of short stints is a major red flag in the hiring process. You may ace an interview, but who wants to hire somebody and train them with their products and db schemas, just to have them leave in a year.

When I went from being Head Chef in fine dining, at $34,000 a year, to being a General Manager at Taco Bell, for $36,000, but because of some law that was passed and went into effect in 2019, I got another $3000 per year raise, giving me a salary of $39,000 a year two months after I took the job.

I guess when I threw my back out a year later at 36, 20 years after I took my first Line Cook job, and started working for myself, growing flower, fostering dogs, and building computers would be my highest pay raise, since I either went from $39,000 a year, or really $0 a year, to making almost $100,000 my first year, and now I'm considering "retiring" at 43 years old because I have consistently made about $1,500,000 after taxes for the last couple years. I only need about $10,000,000 to retire and buy a house in the town I want to live in, that I currently live in.

I also self describe as "the luckiest bastard to ever live," so I'm well aware that most people couldn't do even half of what I have stumbled through. I'm being completely serious there. Any of the two plane crashes, or many of the 36 car wrecks I've been in should have killed me. That doesn't include the mountain climbing accident that had me falling a full 125 feet onto a dry creekbed made of limestone. It also doesn't include the many instances of me making, and testing, my own explosives. I shouldn't have lived past puberty. I was playing around with things that no one should play around with, and somehow I've made it to 43, while actively antagonizing the US cops every chance I get. I "literally" told a cop at the age of 5, "I know where my mother is, she knows where I am. You can fuck off, thanks." That didn't go over well.

~220% total comp for me last year, switching companies from a job with okay but below market pay, and becoming a senior software engineer in the move. I think I can feasibly double one more time if I try, but it'd be a bigger push and likely involve working for FAANG. Anything more that is outside my reasonably likely career path.

Last Spring all the Paramedics & EMTs got an hourly increase. I was expecting maybe $1.00-1.50... very shocked with a $6.30hr raise!

Biggest raise was about 12%, when I got bumped up to senior a few years back. Currently searching for a new gig so I'm hoping for a nice bump