Salary Hike $$$ In VLSI

During one of our YOUTUBE live sessions  a viewer asked us a question that what is the right amount of salary hike that he can expect as his first salary hike after starting his career as a vlsi engineer !

                    Fig. 1                          

So lets start our discussion on this topic. 

We had posted two poles one in Linkedin (Fig. 2) and another in Our Youtube Community (Fig. 3)with same question ,

“What was your first hike in VLSI?” 

We defined 5 different bands :  5-7%, 10-15%,15-20%,20-25%, 25-30%

                                       Fig. 2

                                      Fig. 3

Along with first hike we will give a general overview of hike percentage buckets and probable reasons of them. This analysis is based on our experiences, discussion we had with our colleagues on different occasions and real time examples. As usual we are not mentioning any name.

                                           Fig. 4

                              

1.  5-7% hike : Bucket I

There might be few scenarios where your hike is less than 10%.

• First, you are a product Company Fresher  and  your  Company has earned  Less Annual Profit in  Current Financial Year compared to The Last Financial year.

• Second, you are a product company employee  and working in a stable project for long time and there is very little growth in the project. Many times projects cross their development phase and enter maintenance phase with little to no development cycle , in such scenario hike could be less than 10%.

• Third, you have joined a service based company as a trainee and after completing training received your employee status just  4-6 months back.  Since during major part of the financial year you were under training don’t expect more than 10% hike.

• Fourth, you are an experienced employee and joined a service company with very good hike, unless your project has exceptional growth your hike is less than 10%.

• First,  you are a Product company employee and your company had a moderate to low profit in last Financial Year. 

•  Second, you are in a service based company, probably you are a senior engineer and have made significant contribution in the project. Since your base salary is quite high 10-15% of that is a good amount.  

• Third, you can get 10-15% hike irrespective of service/product company when there is a similar opening in competitive companies. You are a senior member of the team and a key contributor in the project. Overall in this scenario your company doesn't want to loose you. 

  2.  10-15% hike : Bucket II​ 

  Some possible scenarios could be :

• The realistic scenarios could be you are a Product company employee and your company had a moderate to low profit in last Financial Year.
• If you are in a service based company, probably you are a senior engineer and have made significant contribution in the project. Since your base salary is quite high 10-15% of  that is a good amount.
• The third scenario could be irrespective of service/product company you can get 10-15 hike when there is a similar opening in competitive companies. You are a senior member of the team and a key contributor in the project. Overall in this scenario your company does not want to loose you.

3.  15-20% hike : Bucket III

15 to 20% hike is basically mid band hike. For freshers         there is not much to complain. Your manager might give you a review saying “there is much to improve”.

So keep learning. 

For experienced engineers  since base level is higher 15-20% of that is not at all bad.

4. 20-25% hike : Bucket IV

This is the great hike bucket. If you have received that, first throw a party! You are doing good, your contribution is getting noted, your manager and skip level managers are satisfied with your performance. Keep up doing the good work, continue to learn more and enjoy the journey. Your project has long road-map with excellent growth. You are a key member and your company  doesn't want to loose you to competitor company. 

The above scenario is same for service and product based company.

5. 25- 30% hike : Bucket V

This is the highest bucket. You can call it Jackpot Bucket. During every appraisal cycle you will hear rumors like, that company has given more than 50% hike, that team member has received 60% hike. Mostly these are rumors as grass is always greener on the other side. There are exceptions, yet 25-30% hike is jackpot. Keep doing the good work. How much dissatisfied your manager appears in 1:1 , the salary revised letter doesn't lie. Again we will say keep up doing the good work. All the analysis of 20-25% hike bucket is much more appropriate for this bucket also.

Wait .... You Can Expect More than 30% Hike also , lets discuss the scenarios:

Fig. 5

We did not posted this option in our poll , although this kind of hike can occur in reality.These Kind of hike you can expect when you are making a switch from service to product company, smaller service company to bigger service company , smaller product company to bigger product company, from one country to another country as job location, any job switch packed with promotion in job grade.

Whatever post you are in, keep learning. How to assess your progress? Check every 6 month to 1 year whether you could add at least quarter to 1/2 page to your resume. If the answer is yes obviously your learning curve is great! Learn as much as possible. That learning will help you to get good project , be it in your present company or some other company. So keep learning  and keep enjoying the process. 

Video Lecture on this topic is here :

Courtesy : www.pngegg.com; Karolina Grabowska in pexels.com