A senior female technical lead in the data and AI sector recently shared her experience of receiving a meager 3% salary hike despite years of loyalty and high performance. The professional, who earns over ₹50 lakh, highlighted a growing “loyalty tax” where long-term employees are overlooked for market-standard corrections. Her Reddit post has sparked a conversation about how “we’ll take care of you” promises by corporates often fail to materialise into actual compensation.
“I stayed loyal for years. A 3 percent hike made me realize what was really going on,” the employee wrote.
Explaining the situation, she added, “I’m a senior technical lead working in the data/AI space at a product company. Over the past couple of years, I had multiple opportunities to switch to better roles, better compensation but I chose to stay. I believed in the product, was comfortable with the team, and was repeatedly told that my growth here would be ‘taken care of’.”
She continued, “For context, I’m already in a relatively high compensation bracket (50L+), and I wasn’t expecting anything unreasonable—just a fair correction in line with market standards,” adding, “This year, I got a ~3% hike. Yes read that again 3%. Now I tried discussing it but it went nowhere. Just vague responses and delays. As an alternative I was offered some ESOPs because I am a valuable employee. It didn’t feel like meaningful compensation.”
The professional highlighted an “invisible ceiling” in which challenging technical decisions and advocating for realistic planning were seen as difficult rather than impactful. “And I’ll be honest, there’s another layer to this that’s difficult to ignore. Being a woman in a deeply technical leadership role, I’m used to having to prove my depth more than once,” she explained.
Despite informal praise, her contributions were not reflected in her compensation, prompting her to accept an external offer with nearly double the pay.
The techie claimed that after her resignation, the company’s sudden attempt to retain her, while simultaneously searching for a replacement, confirmed that loyalty without consistent recognition is a failed career strategy.
Social media reacts:
An individual shared, “This is a common practice in all orgs now. They pay a good bonus, but hikes are under 5%, even for the top performers. If you stay, you are assured of a good bonus; if you leave, you can bag a good hike.” Another expressed, “Congrats on the new role! You’ve tolerated quite a bit, hope your new place has good people.”
A third commented, “First of all, yes, leaving was the right decision because if they can’t respect hard questions about the product and technical decisions, they are not going anywhere substantial. Also, a 2X hike is just extremely helpful and something which they wouldn’t offer even in the next 3 years. And one out-of-context thing I wanted to say is that I am also switching careers and will be in the AI and ML domain, and will be looking for internships soon after completing some certifications, so I would like to stay connected for any such internship opportunities if possible.”
A fourth wrote, “The harder you are to be dealt with, you frequently become a moving target easy to be struck! Good choice moving out! Happy for you!”