Annual Raise, Exceeds Expectations, Engineer

Thanks.

Also, what do others (particularly engineers) use as far as knowing market value? Best I have is salary.com, Glassdoor, a salary survey from a recruiter, and another salary survey from professional engineering organization.

They all show salary for different percentiles (median, 75%, etc), but hard to tell how to compare based on years experience, performance grades, etc.

Just wondering if there are other resources out there I’m missing.

Tell us what you make and we'll tell you how badly you're getting screwed.

OP maybe I’m reading it wrong but you seem frustrated and like you are expecting to be disappointed by a raise that’s not going to meet your expectations.

A raise is going to vary greatly by your company. For most people, a big raise yearly is not normal. Most get a couple big raises in their entire life, a bunch of small raises, and then promotions that generally will include a raise and could be a huge increase in pay.

Just because you get a small raise doesn’t mean much. It could simply mean you are nearing the top of the pay range for your position but also likely to get a huge promotion soon that will also have a huge raise.

As said you should be extremely happy with what you get and if it’s not what you think you deserve then definitely apply for other jobs. The only way to prove to everyone what you are worth is going out there and getting it, sometimes that means at another company.

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3% instead of 2.5

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This, I’m in the Industry as well. I’ve exceeded expectations almost every year. Doesn’t make a difference.

You want a big raise, switch companies. Stay for experience.

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$132k base, 8% bonus potential, 7% match...10.5 yrs. experience

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Granted, I am only 3 years into my structural engineer career on large-scale hydraulic structures, but yeah just wanted to let you know I am real jealous

If making more is very important, go work for someone else.. very hard to make significantly more at one company; they generally even low ball promotions.

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I’m around your level 9 yes exp EE with PE. I’m around the same pay. Hard to be upset with 130k lol. Can you get more? Probably, but do you like your company? If the culture sucks then go look

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I certainly live a comfortable lifestyle with my salary, but I also don’t want to work less than I could easily be making.

I did receive a promotion in May ‘21 with a 5% raise. I will qualify for a promotion to the next level on our engineering matrix in a year or two.

Assuming I get a 5% raise this month, that’ll put me at ~$139k base which seems ok for 11 years experience and not working in TX/LA. I feel that as a top performer, I could probably justify a 0-5% bump on top of this before my next promotion

Every company handles compensation differently. In my experience achieving an exceeds expectations rating may not directly correlate to a significant difference in the annual raise. It will generally be higher but may not be a huge difference. Your raises are also impacted by other factors than simply your performance as most large companies have pay bands/ranges. If you are high in the pay range, you aren't likely to get as high a raise as you could have if you were lower in the range. This does not mean it doesn't significantly impact your overall compensation.

Your upward mobility should have a higher ceiling and happen more quickly. Those quicker promotions and higher overall potential will lead to higher compensation.

Another method of increasing compensation is higher bonus payouts for high performers. RSUs distributed to high performers is a common practice that increases your compensation while incentivizing you to stay at the company. This varies greatly by company and job level typically. Another method is an "in job level promotion". These are raises without an actual promotion to a new job level. These are raises (outside the normal annual cycle) that happen more often for high performers and does not replace the annual raise (so 2 raises in 1 year).

This is my experience and your specific company may handle it differently. For the record, I work at a large chemical company in LA. One more thing to keep in mind is the overall health of the company. Some chemical companies are struggling right now whereas some of their competitors (for talent more so than product market share) are still doing well.