The point is that, all other factors being equal, switching jobs as an engineer is the easiest way to get a raise. People tend to take the path of least resistance.
Could you do that in tech to boost salary without changing jobs, by getting an offer and then asking your employer to match it? Or is the act of looking for outside offers going to get you a black mark? In academia it usually isn't, partly because it's often done with the tacit approval of your dean, if you do really want to stay and the dean agrees you're worth significantly more on the open market than your current salary. He/she might want to offer you a raise, but be constrained by policies and budget authorizations, while you presenting an outside offer opens up a separate retention-package process that frees up the ability to offer terms outside the formal advancement policy.
I've seen it done many times. When you set these goals that would be required to get a raise, you're going to want to set definite terms so you can know if you achieved it. Your manager is going to want something more fuzzy. They'll claim this is actually helping you because it gives you more ways to accomplish the goal. In reality, it means they'll always have a way of saying you didn't meet the requirement if they want to (they usually will).
Personally, I never ever work for someone else with the promise of compensation later.
And how is that the point anyway? danssig didn't say anything like that, he just said "If you want more money you need to change jobs.", and assumed the strategy in question would be blindly applied by an ignorant worker and result in exploitation. Do you have some insight that allows you to discern he meant something vastly different from what he said?
This is just because you don't do it enough. I used to hate it enough that I once sued a company to try and make them not lay me off. Now I change every 16mo-5 years and I love the interview part. I would never stay anywhere (besides my own company) for more than 5 years as IMO it makes you appear not very sought after.
>and my largest percentage salary increases have come without switching employers.
I find this very hard to believe. All companies have caps on how much of an increase you can get per year, per performance raise, etc. When you move it's mostly dependent on your negotiation skills (which get better the more they're used). The biggest raise I ever got in a company was during the dot com bubble (they were afraid we would leave). I got 28% (massive, massive exception to get this. Performance raises were the highest you could normally get and were capped at 15%). I moved to another company a few years later and more than doubled my salary. My latest move brought me another 40%.
>and assumed the strategy in question would be blindly applied by an ignorant worker and result in exploitation.
Everywhere I've ever worked was this way.