got promoted from senior SRE to staff six months ago. my raise was 6%. which sounds fine until you calculate that the staff band at my company goes up to about 40% above where i was set.
so i had a title and a salary that didn't match. the worst of both worlds, as it turned out: staff expectations, senior pay, and a manager who'd already "given" me something and felt the conversation was over.
spent two months being vaguely annoyed before i actually did something about it.
what i did:
step 1: anchored on the band, not on what I deserved. told my manager i'd done some research and found that staff-level engineers at comparable companies in our market were being compensated in the $210-240k range. my current comp was $192k. i wasn't asking for $240k, but i was hoping to get into the right zone for my title.
note: i did not say "i deserve more" or reference the promotion. that framing makes it about the past. the band framing makes it about current market reality.
step 2: made it easy for them. i wrote a short document (1 page). what i'd shipped in the last 6 months, 2-3 concrete impact points, market data footnoted. gave it to my manager before our 1:1 so she could take it to her skip-level.
step 3: asked for a specific number. $215k. not "more." not "a meaningful adjustment." $215k.
what happened: got $208k plus a confirmation they'd reassess again at the 12-month mark. not everything i asked for, but $16k more than i'd gotten at promotion.
if i'd just hoped the next cycle would fix it, it wouldn't have.
if you got a title change with a small raise: the gap between your current pay and the top of your new band is your negotiating case. use it.