Share your salary progression

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230

Here is my salary progression during my 10 years in Switzerland, since arriving as a 25 year old with a fresh M.Sc graduate from abroad.
I have been working at large Pharma/Biotech companies and the number quoted is salary + bonus.

2012 88k
2013 112k promotion
2014 112k — 1st child born
2015 106k (80%) promotion
2016 104k (80%) — 2nd child born
2017 119k (80%)
2018 129k (ca 95%) new company
2019 155k (ca 95%)
2020 163k (ca 95%) promotion
2021 165k (ca 95%)
2022 195k (90%) promotion to group head (estimate)

My wife has had a very similar progression, even a bit steeper and earlier. I can only echo the feelings and comments of others in the thread working <100%. Both me and my wife 90% now and both considering to lower our pensum even more in the future.

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231

Well - with some luck i got a “small” rise for my 2022 numbers:

2011: 93k
2012: 110k
2013: 127k
2014: 138k
2015: 145k
2016: 153k
2017: 153k
2018: 175k
2019: 179k
2020: 252k
2021: 284k
2022: 327k

… but honestly… i dont think this will really increase much anymore in the next couple of years, i’m already way beyound what i thought would be possible :slight_smile:

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232

Maybe specify the components? Base vs bonus vs equity

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234

Also an update from my side. I got a raise as well, but in comparison to FI_yes_RE_maybe, it’s really peanuts :rofl:

2015: 90k (5k bonus)
2016: 97k (8k bonus)
2017: 99k (10k bonus)
2018: 129k (40k severance payment)
2019: 110k (5k bonus)
2020: 112k (7k bonus)
2021: 120k (13.5k bonus)
2022: 120k base

I’m happy with my progression, and the raise comes at the right time, as I’m soon going to be a daddy for the first time :blush:

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235

Congrats on both and good luck!

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236

Thanks for your comments.
To add some context: Masters in Banking and Finance from St. Gallen & CFA, working in the investment area in retail banking.

I changed position 2013 and got my first lower management position. Afterwards somehow managed to get a salary raise every year in the same position (i’m even more surprise with hindsight it worked out :stuck_out_tongue: ) and changed company for a somehow higher managemend position in 2020.

If you have any more questions, happy to share details via PM.

thats what @FI_yes_RE_maybe said earlier.

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238

I feel so poor in this thread hahahahaha

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239

Outside of Switzerland
2008-2012 - 5k-20k
2012-2017 - 30k-60k
2018 - 100k
2019 - 110k
2020 - 130k

In Switzerland
2021 - 230k + ?
2022 - 250k + ?

The numbers are in CHF and combine base salary and bonus, but not equity.
The question marks are there because I’m not sure how to estimate the annual equity value.

Edit: I’m a Software Engineer.

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241

Put the value at vest time. Though it’s kinda weird to compare given hiring grants are often front loaded and might not be comparable to steady state.

242

@nabalzbhf Neither grant, nor vest time make a lot of sense. Grant time the equity was just a number of shares with unknown value. Vest time is weird too as some equity vests each month and the market price has been going up and down (lately mostly down) a lot. Right now 1/4 of the equity is ~400k.

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243

That’s how the company chose to pay you, and how you’re compensated though. Some years it’s good, other years it’s not as good (which is why it’s better to list it separately so that people can still compare somewhat, but it’s not necessarily a good predictor for future comp).

Alternatively can list your salary+bonus, and value of yearly refresh grant at grant time (if you have one). But if you were to go to a competitor, value at vest is what would matter.

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245

So a theoretical total comp of 630k? Sound like an L6 SWE at the big G to me.

246

Not standard L6 though, unless it was a large hiring grant (but then refreshes will be quite smaller and will hit a cliff, unless they get promo quickly)

247

I’m somewhat certain that 450k is the lower end of the L6 total comp band, but who knows all hear-say from friends working there.

248

Regular code monkey career at one of those evil corps.

  1. 125k + 25k + 10k (+0%)
  2. 135k + 30k + 15k (+30%)
  3. 145k + 30k + 30k (+55%)
  4. 155k + 30k + 50k (+75%)
  5. 165k + 40k + 50k (+50%)
  6. 175k + 35k + 75k (+50%)
  7. 185k + 40k + 105k (+60%)
  8. 170k + 40k + 115k (+55%) part-time 90%
  9. 160k + 40k + 120k (+45%) part-time 80%
  10. 205k + 40k + 120k (+35%)
  11. 210k + 60k + 175k (+100%)
  12. 175k + TBD + TBD part-time 80%

Numbers are: base + bonus + stocks vested (+increase since stocks were granted), rounded for illusion of privacy

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249

Wow impressive data. Thank you for the link. Just to have a feeling about the difficulty to reach L6 at Google Switzerland. Is there an estimate of how many SWE are at this level in Switzerland compared to Google’s total number of employees in Switzerland?

250

L4 is expected for all SWE’s with 50%+ getting to L5 eventually. L6+ are usually tech leads and therefore maybe 10-15% of the total SWE population.

This sounds like a recent L6 promo at the lower L6 band.

251

I have a master in computer science and I doubt that these numbers are representative.

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252

Exactly, does anyone know other company in Switzerland, paying similarly in this domain, other than big G?

253

Not quite. Just insane stock market into 2021, and a couple of random extra bonuses.

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