Thanks for sharing your story!! Recently, I start thinking a bit more about it and I also thought about the greed and fear. I am happy to hear that, in the end, you will probably not be impacted and the fear might be only in our mind (I don’t want to make a generality).
I also think that with high salaries you have the luxury to easily decrease to 80%, so it’s a low risk to try it out 
.
I really liked the idea of someone posting (here or in another topic, sorry can’t remember) about when being at the promotion/raise time - to not ask for a nominal raise, but for keeping the same (or only slightly lower) salary for the 80% instead of 100% of work.
(Translated into pay/hr that’s quite a large relative salary increase though 
but I like the concept a lot, even with meeting in the middle)
I might want to transfer to Portfolio management.
Can iask you hw old you are?
Might be that the fact of asking for 80% could be a negative point towards the promotion? Might be safer to first get promoted and THEN ask for the reduction.
I like the branch and the job (most of the times) a lot, go for it
I’m 34 years old
Haha thanks 
! I don’t think that has anything to do with it, it’s within the range they pay for a Senior Backend Engineer (doing Go/Ruby on Rails development). The time difference is not a problem at all, most of the time I’m working independently, and in any case we all work asynchronously.
same here with reduction to 80%.
That ~20-30k extra isn’t worth it to be away from your child, especially in the early years.
I don’t even want to work 5 days a week again, but I could see my allocation go up to 90% eventually (working 4x9 hours instead => basically same hours as now, but with an 11% salary bump).
Engineering Master Degree work in a business role (numbers are years post graduation)
1: 90k (1st job)
2: 100k (promotion)
3: 115k (switched company + role change)
4: 135k (promotion)
5: 150k (promotion)
stress level can be huge from time to time but work can be extremely rewarding from time to time. workhours on avg. 45-50 with sometimes huges swings to the moon ;).
Might be a bit more informational with years instead of a list (unless the 1-5 are the sequence of years)
Figures do not include bonus and other company benefits.
2003 - 2006: ca.6k € (40%) (Spain Internship)
2006 - 2010: 24k € → First real job out of university
2010 - 2012: 36k € → Change work
2012: 93k CHF → Move to CH
2013: 96K CHF
2014: 120K CHF → role change
2015: 140k CHF → Promotion
2016: 140k CHF
2017: 140k CHF–> role change, secured 1 year old salary
2018: 127k CHF
2019: 127k CHF
2020: 133k CHF → promotion
2021: 133k CHF
2022: 133k CHF
My stable no-progression, only small changes every few years
quoting equivalents for 100% employment, including overtime payout
2012: 13k <= Transition from Master ETH Mech.Eng. to PhD ETH Mech Eng
2013: 55k <= there are no work-hours in a Ph.D. 
2014: 64k
2015: 72k
2016: 72k
2017: 72k
2018: 75k <= transition to first job after Academia: Management Consulting in a ZH KMU 42.5h/week
2019: 92k (90+2)
2020: 120k (110 + 10) <= new job: IT Consulting in international Enterprise 40h/week
2021: 136k (115 + 20) <= promotion
needs to grow… bigger!
nice progression !
Maybe we could highlight the working hours by day, week, the number of business travel by month, wfh day by week or the stress level at the position to better appreciate the numbers ?
Some people will prefer more flexibility and freedom to manage their investments or family time.
for the sake of comparision, i would find it good if we add our age.
Its compleatly different earning 70k at 20 or at 35, no?
That can be interesting.
in my case between 2014 to 2016, → travel around europe every week officially 4 days, reality traveling Sunday coming back late Friday 60% of the times.
Stress levels to the moon.
In the other side I love that job.
from 2017 - till now. Salary and Bonus decreased, But travel and stress reduced big time
Overall, not really willing to climb the ladder again. May if the right opportunity raised I will take it.
I am software engineer, graduated in beginning of 2017 (BSc).
Gross salary per year (for sake of simplicity based on last month of the year ):
2017 : 72’000 → first job after graduation
2018 : 78’000
2019 : 86’500 → change of company
2020 : 90’000
2021 : 86’900 → reduction to 80% + pick up side job as a teacher (~15/20% but more holiday)
2022 : 90’900
My plan is to work 80% and drop my side job once my base salary reach ~110-120k.
Yes, I work in Lausanne area but as a Software Engineer.
Were you able to get the 5% raise ?
Checkout website like Glassdoor and the official federal statistics regarding salary: https://www.gate.bfs.admin.ch/salarium/public/index.html#/start
Total (base+bonus) in the last years
All within one financial services company, internal role switch from y2 to y3. Masters, business.
its years. did an update of my original post
All net salary in CHF. Always worked between 70 - 90% FTE.
2001 : 3k → Apprenticeship
2002 : 10k → Apprenticeship
2003 : 13k → Apprenticeship
2004 : 17k → Apprenticeship
2005 : 36k → Apprenticeship + first normal employment 4m
2006 : 51k → Traveling 3m
2007 : - → Traveling 12m
2008 : 6k → Traveling 11m
2009 : 80k
2010 : 99k
2011 : 49k → Traveling 8m
2012 : 33k → Traveling 7m
2013 : 88k
2014 : 97k
2015 : 101k
2016 : 88k
2017 : 22k → Traveling 8m
2018 : 84k → Traveling 1m
2019 : 113k
2020 : 122k
2021 : 124k
I can only fully support the statement from @Balaclava.
I reduced to 80% ~ 7 years ago, with the main reason that I just wanted more free time. I have to say that it has been a significantly better life, and it’s hard to imagine ever going back (comparable to starting to work on Saturdays for somebody working 100%).
Actually, at 80%, one doesn’t earn 20% less, since it’s 20% less pre-tax (and deductions). So it’s more like 10-15% less post-tax.