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Reading your post and some of the answers I feel like sharing a bit of personal history.
I spent the the last 20+ years in a small software company in a vertical market. It was kind of a "total commitment" relationship between us and the company where you were expected to do everything and the company would do everything in return. These are not empty words: we had the case of an employee having a nervous breakdown in a far away land and the owner of the company jumped on a plane on a Saturday morning, took the employee from the far away land to his even further away home, went back and Monday morning replaced the guy for another week until someone else could take the relieve.
In this company bonuses were routinely around 30% depending on how the company performed during the year and salary increases were at least matching the inflation. As I said, with great rewards come great expectations: nobody would bat an eyelid if I had to answer a call at 3 in the morning and no one would understand what is the difference between a front end and a back end developer. Stuff had to be done and whoever was closer would do it.
The only purpose in sharing this story was to point out that these type of jobs still exist and it's up to you to go hunting for them. The fun in holding them is enormous 
Mircea
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Thanks for sharing that. I worked for a small startup for about 5 years and it was much like that, except that there was very little money to go around, LOL.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote: Is this a current trend in IT or general business, or am I just unlucky?
Whether it's a trend or not, I cannot say, but I too am experiencing the same.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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No, it's not a trend. At least for me.
Advertise here β minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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It all depends. 
Wage adjustments should, at a minimum, keep up with inflation.
That base adjustment would be if your skill level remained flat and the companyβs sales revenue for the product was flat or had minimal increases.
Some companies or managers may not have the desire to retain their talent, and so their negligence may be planned, or it may be by design.
You decide whether you want to work for them for the compensation they offer. If itβs not good for you, tell them - give them a chance to correct it. Then make your decision based on that.
Good luck!
Time is the differentiation of eternity devised by man to measure the passage of human events.
- Manly P. Hall
Mark
Just another cog in the wheel
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I worked for a small company for 15 years (annual revenue < $5 million & approximately 30 employees). We only got raises if we asked for them. You didn't have to threaten leaving or anything - just lay out your case for why you felt you deserved more. Make it about your work performance, not the economy.
At my current company, which is in the Fortune 500 crowd, we were getting annual reviews and performance-based raises. What I know to be typical for some large companies, is each manager got 3% per employee under them to give out as they see fit. If they had 2 employees, that's 6% to give out. Sally could get 5% and Bob 1%. All was fine. If everyone was a good employee, we all got 3%. So it kind of sucked if you have whole team of A+ employees getting 3%. Another team with one ok employee and lots of bad ones would have the ok employee getting 6% or more. HR would review and make sure things weren't too much out of whack though, like everyone getting 0% except one employee getting all of it.
However, this inflationary market has hit this company hard with net profits down 20% year over year. This use this number for 401(k) match amounts and decisions like layoffs and raises. They suspended raises for last year because of it, but this year we are back to the 3%.
Hope that helps give some perspective.
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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My experience was similar to your first paragraph. Small company (10 employees, < $10M revenue), raises only if you asked and could justify it. No COLA. No pension plan. Limited health care.
There were annual bonuses that helped at Christmas time but were totally unpredictable (generally between 1% and 3% of your salary). If you discussed your bonus with other employees you could be terminated.
Executive bonuses were much higher, of course. A manager might get 10% to 15%. Executives 25% to 40%.
Overtime was uncompensated.
Requirements and specifications for software projects were defined by sales people. They were the only ones allowed to talk to the customers until the software went into support. Project estimates were reduced by non-technical executives to meet the company's cash flow requirements. Better to apologize for not delivering that lose the contract.
I was well beyond the age where I could expect to find employment elsewhere. When I was much younger I appreciated that companies in technical fields preferred youth over experience. Now I can't understand why. With today's high turnover rates, experience should count for more.
I eventually retired. I miss the work and most of my former co-workers but I am much happier now. Turns out there is more to life than programming. Although, this Arduino and Pi stuff is kind of interesting...
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I think it just depends on who you work for.
I've been self employed since 1990, and my primary business is a code contractor, but I call myself a software engineer, and small companies that are looking to upgrade their software systems come to me for help, and contract to me.
I have one programmer friend that works for Blizzard/Activision, and gets paid pretty well, remote works in CO, and gets his annual pay raises which are pretty generous, plus stocks. He use to work for Northrop Grumman designing software for the F35 jet, but got tired of that and moved on.
The point I'm making, is that some companies are cash generating machines, while other companies are just sort of stagnate. Some companies are on a mission to solve future problems, or are looking to cash in on future hype such as AI. Then you have other companies such as Government, that play the normal game, and use the normal rules of the employer/employee accord.
It really becomes an issue of value, where you might be worth more to a company that has a solid plan, is well received in the stock market, and has a long vision for the future, versus working for a company that is stagnant, and just trying to make it to 20 years so pensions can be collected and the people leave.
Personally, you have helped me many times over the last decade, and I think you have excellent value. So I will help you now. When we look at the current state of our economy, and examine the same data that the Federal Reserve is using to analyze the impacts of a tighter monetary policy, or raising interest rates, in order to slow job growth and reduce inflation down to the 2% level, the data suggest that job growth is not really slowing, but accelerating. This means right now, you still have the advantage in changing who you work for, to get a better deal in return for your knowledge and skill levels. But it's up to you to find that employer, one that is hot right now, and needs more great talent.
Go find a better company to work for right now, because I don't think where going into a recession, I think were looking at our economy expanding and growing over the next 10 years, and this is just sort of the eye of the storm, or a pause. Or you can do research on the company you work for now, and check their business model and system, see if the goods or services they sell can justify raising the price to the consumer, and if not, bail out.
One warning however that contradicts what I just wrote, don't work for money, let money work for you. Most people just lost 8% of their income to inflation, and that 8% was huge for those with high levels of life style inflation. I went broke trying to sell myself and my coding skills, plus trying to create a software app that I can sell, while at the same time wanting to be debt free. So I started the Dave Ramsey program, took me 7 years to get debt free by living on a shoe string, but my life style inflation is near zero. So I didn't really take much of a hit with inflation, because I was able to raise my prices and fees fast enough to keep pace. I'm just saying that tighter money management may be of interest as well right now.
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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Props for busting out the Dave Ramsey reference. 
Jeremy Falcon
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It's very rare. Most companies don't do that automatically. Some do. Most don't. Just make sure that if you ask for an annual raise you have a value add to your ask. If you do the work of two people it'll be an easy sell. Well, I mean don't sell it saying those exact words. If you're a dead weight employee, good luck. You're not that valuable. Your boss won't say it because we live in a PC world. But, it's true.
There are those companies that just ain't gonna do that. Especially in this economy. A job change or a field change (move to finance, etc.) would be required. If you're a contractor then take a new contract at a higher rate.
Just don't dedicate your entire life to a company that's not willing to at least entertain the idea of a raise. The days of being a lifer at one company, getting a pension, etc. are gone.
Jeremy Falcon
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Intended for everyone who's interested ...
I've been studying money since I got on board with Dave Ramsey to get debt free, and then moved on to economics, or the study of how economies work, and then how money works, and finally investing in stocks and bonds for over a 10 year period now. And I've been reading many books on related subjects, the last being Rich Dad Poor Dad, and currently reading Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki. I believe in "Pay myself first", which is too study subjects outside of my career, for at least 1 hour a day, more later.
The books sort of say; off the top of my head, and this may end up being sort of a mashup of thoughts not clearly expressed by me, because I don't want to offend anyone, but here goes...
W2 earners are told to learn a skill and be the best at it with high grades, they graduate and get that nice job with great pay and annual pay raises, and that W2 earner starts a family, buys a house, furniture, and appliances, next the car, and finances all of the purchases. You can do that on the cheap, so you have lots of money left over to invest for retirement or to make investments, or you can do that on the expensive, and leave little money left over to save and invest. The difference between the two ends up being refereed to as life style inflation. Often when one gets a raise, their Federal and State Tax liabilities go up as well, so they talk to a "money specialist", which often says buy a bigger house for the tax deduction, and once again the Life Style inflation goes up even higher, since your property tax will increase as well. When the W2 earner realizes that they don't make enough money to support that level of life style anymore, they seek a raise, or call it an "increase in wages earned", and the process starts all over again.
This is mine, not from the book...
Software people sometimes get too involved in honing their skills, taking it to a higher level to stay competitive in the market. At some point in time, software people need to study other subjects, such as financial literacy, where they learn the accounting side of life, and then take that knowledge to re balance their priorities, such as life style, retirement, and learn how to invest in themselves, or how to use excess cash to invest in assets, so that "You don't work for money, money works for you". Dave Ramsey, whether you like him or not, taught me to sit down and map out my expenses or liabilities, reduce spending, and pay my debt faster with the savings I created over years. After paying off my debt, I had all this free or excess cash, and was able to start investing in assets that make me money 24/7. Your financial security is not only your employer, but really starts with us as an individual, by paying ourselves first and learning how to create it.
Sure you can find a better employer right now, while the markets are hot, but you have to do the math first. The math being if I take this job that pays $250K in San Francisco, I'll be rich, But it cost so much to live there, that $250K there is like $80K somewhere else. Or how much it cost to commute to work in time, auto and energy, versus working closer for less pay. Often taking a pay cut to work closer to home is like getting a raise, and when the math is done, and you pay less in taxes as well. Dave Ramsey forces one who embraces to do the math, and you get to the point where you know all the math, and can execute very fast, constantly making the correct decisions towards some sort of financial freedom.
I wrote this, because it's the other half of my other post on this subject. I'm not an expert, and don't claim to be, but IMO, if you want to compete and get ahead, then one needs to pay themselves first. This is one of the reasons why I haven't been here much lately, because I need to pay myself first and learn how to be finally literate. So I study the stock market now, and work my investments.
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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I just got UIX and GFX compiling and running on a SAMD51 based Wio Terminal.
The beautiful thing is it only has 192kB of SRAM (and 4MB of undocumented and therefore unusable PSRAM) instead of the 512kB I'm used to working with, and it's displaying truetype and SVG assets in native form on a 192kB system with ease.
The platform is entirely different than what I am used to working with and required a slight bit of massaging to my user interface library (to squash compiler warnings) and one major change to my graphics library due to abs() being a macro. A MACRO. To be honest, I should have accounted for that when I made gfx_math.hpp - I've been burned by this very thing before - class members the same as macros, which breaks the class code. Just another C/C++ polarity mismatch. Fixed though with some ease. I just had to break an interface that only I use.
Despite the stumbles I am thrilled.
There's smoke in my iris
But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids
So I'm ready now (What you ready for?)
I'm ready for life in this city
And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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do you have some screenshots for your GFX results?
I am a little curious about it...
diligent hands rule....
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What do you mean, like this?
this[^]
There's smoke in my iris
But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids
So I'm ready now (What you ready for?)
I'm ready for life in this city
And my wings have grown almost enough to lift me
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Wordle 728 3/6
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Wordle 728 4/6*
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"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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π¨π¨π¨π¨β¬
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In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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 Nice!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I used my usual starter which almost made it an anagram
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Wordle 728 2/6
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"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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Wordle 728 4/6
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Wordle 728 4/6
β¬β¬π¨β¬β¬
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Wordle 728 4/6
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Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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I installed GitHub on my desktop and use TortoiseGit as client. each time I committed my new version to the local folder for this project.
then I commit the same version to GitHub website.
My question is: does GitHub only have my most recent version only? does GitHub still keep all previous versions of my projects?
I used SVN server for long time and heading to GitHub...
diligent hands rule....
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Isn't that the whole point?
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