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If you aren't careful though, the tracks can also continue. At BigCorp they have lots of titles to create a sense of urgency and box-ticking to progress from A to B to C to..



This is obnoxiously commonplace. At my first job they upgraded me from a level N engineer (1 or 2, probably) to a level N+1 engineer with a 10% pay rise or something.

The year after that I stumbled upon a new job which paid more than their highest value of N. They definitely don't want this to happen. They want you striving for (N+1)+1 only, so they can give it out whenever they think you feel like you're not progressing, and keep you in their system.


My wife was stressed out the other year because what was formerly a title system at her BigCo of A -> B -> C ->D got fragmented even further.

They added some system of "well to get from C to D, there is now C1->C2->C3->C4, and we've classified you as a C3, congrats".

Of course this week out of the blue her boss calls her with the "great news" that she's been "put up for promotion process for C4, but no guarantees"..

Anyway few understand this but even in these types of roles, the compensation bands are very very wide, with overlaps, and differ across departments. So just ask for money over title until your title limits their ability to give you money. You can't eat title.




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