2025 update:
305k base + bonus, 225k stock
CHF.USD is not great right now as the stock is denominated in USD and all our expenses are denominated in CHF. I guess I need to ramp up the cash saving rate to compensate. The ceiling I alluded to last year has been reached more or less.
Are you able to sell stock straight away? Because if not, the current FX doesn’t really matter much. Also, at that base, do you even need to sell stock to cover expenses in CHF?
I tried to delete and re-post properly replying this time, but the forum doesn’t seem to like it.
My original post below:
“Yep, I’m able to sell stock straight away and I need to convert it to CHF. That’s because I’m on B-Bewilligung so I have to pay Quellensteuer. My company follows the typical approach of accounting for stock vests as income and withholding from your salary which leaves you stock-rich and cash-poor.”
I see, yes, that is unfortunate. But still, that high base salary should still cover taxes and expenses, no?
First time I read cash poor with someone over 300k base salary 
My progression so far. Currently 27 y/o. Started as a software engineer. Now i’m in cybersecurity. Getting promoted to team lead for 01.26. No salary negotiations happened yet.
2015–2017
Jahreslohn: 6’500 CHF (13x 500 CHF)
2017–2018
Jahreslohn: 65’000 CHF (13x 5’000 CHF)
2018–2021
Jahreslohn: 71’500 CHF (13x 5’500 CHF)
2021–2022
Jahreslohn: 91’000 CHF (13x 7’000 CHF)
2022–2024
Jahreslohn: 98’800 CHF (13x 7’600 CHF)
2024–now
Jahreslohn: 144’950 CHF (130k base and 15k bonus)
Update for 2025, i’ve got a late 2024 may meeting with my bosses
2019 : 71.5k CHF + 1k (bonus)
2020 : 78k CHF (no bonus)
2021 : 84.5k CHF + 1k (bonus)
2022 : 87.75k CHF + 10k (bonus)
2023 : 97.5k CHF + 5k
2024 : 104k CHF + 5k
2025 : 110.5k CHF + … (For next year, I have talked about changing/get an updated 2nd pillar contribution, it will the talk for next december!)
Still working in civil engineering in a small (VD) company, I’m now the most senior engineer in the company under the two boss. I don’t really wanna change company now because I’m well integrated in the city (6min commute by bike) and in the company.
2018 73’450 CHF as a clinical study coordinator
2020 76’700 CHF as a clinical study coordinator
2022 90’545 CHF as a clinical study coordinator (Teamlead)
2025 105’000 CHF + ca. 5k (bonus) as a junior clinical research associate “CRA 1”
After 1.5 year I should get promoted to CRA 2 with a salary around 112’000 and after 3-4 year to senior CRA with a salary around 120-125’000. We will see 
2023: 55k + 4k (3 months Postdoc, 6 months break, 3 months new job)
2024: 127k + 18k (100%, management consulting –> more like 160% 
)
2025: 126k + 14k (100%, new job in corporate strategy from April)
Thinking about reducing to 80% next year, to have more time for life and stuff, but ideally without a big paycut 
Data role, financial industry, Zurich
| Year | Base | Event | Relative | Total ∆ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 74’400 | Postgrad | ||
| 2016 | 95’000 | Permanent | 27.69% | 27.69% |
| 2019 | 107’000 | Promotion | 12.63% | 43.82% |
| 2021 | 135’000 | Company change | 26.17% | 81.45% |
| 2023 | 142’500 | Promotion | 5.56% | 91.53% |
| 2024 | 146’775 | Raise | 3.00% | 97.28% |
| 2025 | 165’000 | Raise | 12.42% | 121.77% |
Plus ~15k bonus til now,
32k target from 2025.
Probably less interesting to most of you clicking into this topic, marveling at saliva producing salary progression trajectories described here (and I want to congratulate everyone who manages to do so).
If that’s all you want to see (salary progression), just scroll on. If you’re interested in hiccups or – probably – just accidental and/or lucky turns, read on.
I’ll also say that I would have liked to tag this post with slogans like “sometime pay cuts make sense if you take into account long term returns”, but in reality I feel it’s just a statement of “some skill, but mostly luck” (but you can re-write the story in any way you want given hindsight).
With that pre-amble out of the way here’s a slightly different take of the topic title: did anyone here ever take a pay cut to go work for a different company (or even in the same company), for whatever reason?
I’ll go first.
| Year | Base | Event | Narrator |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | ~135k | Raise | Great salary (for a basically – outside of research or teaching – unemployable dipl. phys. ETH) |
| 2004 | ~140k | Raise | Great salary |
| Jan 2005 | 130k | Company Change | Yeah, fine, but why TF did you switch to CS?!? |
| Sep 2005 | 120k | Company Change | Google was a cool enough reason at the time |
| 2006 | ~122k | Raise | But look at those stock grants (actually options at the time)! |
Footnotes for those who are interested in the story and course of events:
I worked for a large (Swiss) private bank in the early 2000s, young, energetic, really successful with technical IT projects (although I would tone it down to “single eyed among the blind”), kind of ignorant of any corporate politics (which I am sure existed at the time, I just was probably agnostic of them at the time in my non-management role).
In 2004 I had to work with with a corporate bullshiter mastermind who excelled at riding the waves of corporate seas, management rewarded that con-man, and I knee-jerk reacted to kind of almost quitting on the spot, but not without first securing a job at the lean start-up called Credit Suisse, starting in Jan 2005.
Even stupid as ever Goofy noticed within a week two or so at CS that he had sailed from the lovely Lake Zurich (with maybe a temporary annoying corporate cloud floating above) to less lovely (career wise) Dead Sea. He thus re-applied to Google and got accepted, starting there in Sep 2005.[G]
G I believe I might have told this story before on this form, but if you like exciting turns in movie plots, read on:
Money wise the decisions mostly random turns of events worked out great.
Were the bank annual bonus high?
(I wonder what the total comp figure would look like, even looking at value at grant rather than vest, I guess total comp might beat CS almost from the start right? ok there might have been a 1y cliff to wait for, but maybe even with just bonus it would match?)
And if we’re talking about total comp, that was my plan to not focus on number go up esp. as it would severely restrict my options as I wanted to move out of US bigtech. (And probably like you at that time, at the moment I’m optimizing for other things, like team culture, fun, etc. and you don’t really have a choice in Zurich if you don’t want to work in bigtech anymore except getting a total comp cut).
(it’s funny how your reasons for going to google might be matching a lot of reasons for people moving out those days 
)
Changed companies in 2023 that took taxable income down two thirds at first.
Huge non-taxable benefits and it’s starting to pay off now.
What was the main motivation of changing company at the time ?
Better working hours, positive working environment or more appealing career progression ?
Maybe 15-20k at the private bank?
Maybe in the 2nd year at Google after the first tranche of stock grants vested I would have been at total comp of 140k, so still only at the base of the private bank comp.
Keep in mind also that the stock grant was a gamble … I negotiated said yes to my offer just about half a year after their IPO and and had no idea where the business and the stock price would go. Google back then wasn’t the juggernaut it is now …
In hindsight it worked out great, but at the time I didn’t count on it being worth anything for the budget calculation my wife and I made at the time.
Edit:
I remember one guy (a Swede, IIRC, with a two digit employee number) in my first two years at Google in Zurich who left as the place had become too big for him. Surely there were others, too.
I did. I had a role that imply travel 4 out of 5 days a week and an incredible workload (where long journeys and Sundays afternoons where the usual). I change just one first kid born. More relax position, almost no travel (only once a month for a 3 days) but 20% less
I know of cases:
I was in category “lower pay and higher stress” … 
Curious - “in practice”, how much approximately does (net, maybe even after taxes) income change for folks?
I assume not “by -20%” because of tax brackets etc.,
but wondering closer to which actual number?
Making more money long term