Ask HN: Question about salary expectations, raises, and bonuses
What can one expect as a raise/bonus if you are happy with your employer and prefer not to hop between companies?
I work at a largish (200+ programmers) Canadian company as a software developer and it's nearly that time of the year for performance review and the accompanying raises.
Where do you turn to for accurate salary information? The rumor mill says that in recent years we can expect a 0-5% raise in salary depending on job performance and how well the company did that year. Does being a new graduate with less than a year of experience change anything? I haven't been working here for very long (~10 months) but become significantly more productive each week. For tasks which do not require intimate knowledge of the legacy codebase I feel I am at least as productive as most of the more senior developers on the team but my salary is below the industry average.
According to the 2009 Alberta Wage and Salary Survey, (best resource I've found but still fairly vague) Albertans in the Computer Programmers and Interactive Media Developers occupational group earned from $16.83 to $113.22 an hour. The average wage was $38.17 an hour. Say I start at ~$25/hour. How much experience will I need before I can start to expect making the 'average salary'?
Another question: Word on the web is that companies like Google and Apple don't compensate well, but all evidence I've seen points otherwise. How to explain this discrepancy? It was only last week that a very large number of people on Reddit and HN were discussing how challenging it is to break 6 figures as a developer. Based on what I've seen the tech giants (Google, Microsoft, Apple et al) actually seem to offer the highest compensation in the industry. A handful of companies like Netflix do pay better, but they're not based in Canada and the work environment seems to be much less relaxed.
I have no plans to leave but more information is better than less.