I'm still new at the company, but it seems like promotions are basically (at best) the accumulated COLA adjustments one ought to have been given, but they make it seem like some performance-based thing.

Indeed, I have a RSU vesting schedule 4 years from hire. It is financially unwise to stay beyond that on-hire grant vesting period, it seems.

The A in COLA is adjustments. COLA Adjustments is like SQL Language or ATM Machine.

This is why I like to say SQ Language and and AT Machine.

Examples of Redundant Acronym Syndrome (RAS) [1] or PIN Number Syndrome (PNS), which linguists don't fret over since it apparently serves a modest disambiguation and/or emphasis function in human language. It would be fascinating to find out the comparative prevalence in between different languages, but my Google-fu failed me.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome

What are new people hired in at? Inflation adjusted, are they being hired in at the a lower rate than the older employees were hired in at?

Everyone is hired in at a somewhat market rate, but it's the older employees who have become complacent and don't want to leave that are being underpaid. I know Blind is basically programmer 4chan, but if any TC postings on there are correct, I'm making more as a developer than some people who claimed to have worked their way up from junior dev and and are now manager :/

Are you sure this is typical and you're not just getting the shaft? It sounds way off to me. I've been out of MSFT for a while, but refreshes and cliff-fills are pretty standard for their competitors and I'd be very surprised if they weren't doing it for their above-average performers too.

Are you describing American compensation? If so, how do they retain engineers after the cliff?

Inertia, laziness, crappy equity to begin with so the cliff isn't that big, concerns RE resetting immigration process progress. Source: I was at Microsoft for ~6 years and those are some of the reasons why I stuck with them for longer than I had to.

That’s just plain not true. And I say that as someone who got some stock and is aware of just how much my US peers got comparatively.

Microsoft does pay bonuses and stock refreshers, but outside of one-time “Special stock awards” (which I’ve heard is mainly reserved for retention of people likely to jump ship), the refreshers aren’t very significant until you reach level 65 (principal). At least compared to refreshers at other major tech companies.

It depends on the exact level and how well the employee negotiated their sign-on RSUs, but most employees are going to face a compensation cliff of some sort at the 4 year mark.

Level 65 is not Principal across the orgs (I’m an IC6 and reached Principal below that). My experience is different (or else I got retention every year…)

Downvoters should realize their org isn’t special in any way.

My partner gets at least like 17% of comp as new RSU a year, and on top of that has gotten large special one time grants. The ratio of RSU is maybe lower than other companies (mine is 1/3 my comp.) but that’s kinda a good thing, especially with the large performance cash bonuses. I rather have cash than stock.