I'm an 8 year data center network engineer who recently broke 100k for the first time. When I got asked my salary requirements I actually only asked for 90k as my highest previous salary was 80k with lots of travel, then I found out they gave me 100k because it was the minimum they could pay someone in my position. I've read before about people making crazy salary increases (150%-300%) and am wondering if I played it incorrectly and how I could play it in the future. I plan to stay with my company for the next few years and upskilling heavily and am eyeing a promotion in my first year as I've already delivered big projects by contributing very early. I've progressed from call center/help desk/engineer etc (no degree, just certs) so my progression has been pretty linear, are people who are seeing massive jumps in pay just overselling their competency and failing forward? Or are there other fields in IT like programming/etc that are more likely to have higher progression scales?
Yeah, in my case, the decision to hire me had been made, but HR would of course onboard me. I got kind of blindsided as the person who asked me wasn't the person who would be making the decision, she was basically a proxy. I asked what the range was and I got some generic "it depends"… I checked most of the boxes for skills but I don't have a degree and for some reason that's off-putting to large companies. Anyways yeah it didn't feel right to be pushy so early