This is the truth, loyalty can't even guarantee an annual increase to fight inflation.

Yep, it's the fastest way to increase your salary until certain limit. After that, you have to be loyal.

I’ve been loyal to the shop I’m at, but I constantly apply. Then I use the offer letter to get a raise. So if you want to stay, and you aren’t getting more then the standard bump, land a new job and give the letter to your current employer before you accept.

This is exactly what happened to me. I thought loyalty would help me progress but leaving for the same role somewhere else was sooooo much better

True.

I often wonder how companies are willing to spend so much on new hires, but can't give reasonable raises for current employees.

My guess is that it's a pretty naive budget thing: A few new hires are simply a smaller expense than raising the salary 10% for all current employees. The finance guy probably asks: "if we do 4% instead of 10% ...we save a ton. and how many people would we really lose?" they are willing to gamble because it's hard to gauge how much that 6% extra raise really would benefit the company, but it's VERY clear that it's a huge extra cost.

@jiraTicket it's likely due to culture of "don't talk about salary". When I was hired by my last company, they created a junior role for me specifically. When I was promoted to the most junior role that they had previously it was just a percentage pay rise, unbeknownst to me that the percentage would have had to be tripled to bring me in line with the people currently doing that role.

I stayed loyal because I knew that I didn't have much experience. I pushed myself to learn new things and become the best in the team. I achieved my goal but I wasn't recognised for that financially.

What made me finally see the light was when my manager said "you've been doing an amazing job so we want to reward you for that by bringing your salary up to market value". Even after that 15% pay rise, I was still the least compensated in my role and still under what the company saw as market value. I was the most asked for and over-utilised engineer though.

7 companies in 6 years, salary 32 times higher than the first job, no regrets

Ah the days when people pretended to have time to interview without taking personal days

Hiring manager: “I see from your job history that you tend to leave companies quickly.”

Dev: “Yes, I got progressively better offers.”

Hiring manager: “Why should we hire you if there’s a risk you’ll leave for more money elsewhere?”

Dev: “Pay more than the going market rate for my skills and we won’t have a problem.”