This year’s raise is less than previous year, but my raise is still about the double of the average engineers in my group. It’s fairly good by any measure.
One of the best ways to make more money is to invest yourself in your job and career. Whether it’s spending more time, volunteering, attending seminar and conferences, or picking up some broader knowledge. In the long run, it will pay off.
I was blessed to be recognized for my contribution, after pulling off a mission impossible, delivering a complex design in less than 4 months, which would have been normally completed for 8 to 10 months. I was working about 100 hours a week for about the last two months during that crazy schedule. It was a mis-management on the product map, but engineering came in and saved the day.
My working group has all the best people, so I probably won’t rise up to become a manager for another 10 years, even though I’m very experienced already. It’s very weird to have a (or multiple) former regional manager from a big company to work at the same (lowest) level as you are. But that’s just how good the quality of my working group is.
Unfortunately, by the time when I could possibly rise up to the next level, I think my industry would have been either outsourced to Asia, or being taken over by Asian companies. High-tech industry in the US is getting less competitive as China rises up. Therefore, before my retiring age is reached, I will probably need to find another career.
But I don’t think it would be such a big deal. I respect every profession as the necessary component of the entire society, and I’m sure I won’t have a problem doing something else.
