Thread regarding Charles Schwab Corp. layoffs

Some EC Shmuck is eating the raise you deserve. Let that sink in.

@13f congrats “e” and “w” are next to each other on the keyboard.

@13f yeah ok you get what I am saying

@12w *toe

As a PL I had almost no say in the ratings and pay planning. We are told to “tow the company line” and support the narrative that “met” is a good rating, when 85% of the company get that rating. So even if you are at the top of that percentage you are lumped in with the bottom percentage. Even if you are willing to bust your a$$ and give up your own time you still may not get that exceeds rating.

Loyalty to a company never pays. Unless you are on a steep upward trajectory.

The longer you stay, the more they take you for granted, and you will become a su---r.

Never stay more than 2-3 years, unless you get promoted! Never! Or su-k it up, and do not complain! Your choice!

Worked for 2 Teams in STS as a full stack dev was the only guy in team of 10 who went into the office 3 days a week. Worked in 3 different time zones and also did work the work of PO Architect Testers and scrum master and got 2.23 % increase. This place really su-ks. F*ck the Fugazi Leadership from my manager to all the way up to the CE0. I am GTF0.

@t8 Great! You got a 1.5% pay cut!!

best news of the day I received a 2.25% merit increase!!!

Had my best year ever in my career this past year. My reward was a 2% merit increase. Manager blamed it on health care costs and smaller pool to distribute this year. All while Robotic Ricky is raking. This place is pathetic.

Yeah I went through the full range - sh!tty boss gave me “intermittently meets” and that 30% cut to my bonus hurt. I also got 0% raise that year, as presumably she was trying to get rid of me… I stopped trying so hard and that was the best decision EVER. I never work more than 40 hours, and I do what is asked of me.
Two years later, my first exceeds. Stock and the whole thing. Raise was still not 4%, and I maintained my work-life balance. Lesson has been learned.

Yeah I stopped giving my all when everything went down hill. I got one great bonus and raise and then it’s been cr-p. Always cr-p. I don’t expect much anymore, I’m counting myself lucky that I’m still employed and checks clear the bank.

Real inflation is at least 3% plus tariffs and the devaluation of the US dollar. Any pay increase below 5% is a cut.

Just do the least amount possible to get by. You’re a slave anyway most people don’t realize it because they’re asleep. The world is burning down around us. Everything is corrupt and people are still playing this game like it’s 1980. We can let the stupid people keep working hard because the smart people realize that it’s a marathon that has to be run for 40 years so pace yourself and be honest with yourself and be honest about what this work actually is.

Trust me, it su-ks as a people manager too. As a director, I had to spend hours in normalization meetings with my direct reports who were PLs, then with my peers, where we hashed out our meager 3% merit budget (and whatever the bonus funding was that particular year). The result was always everyone walking away not feeling good about the whole thing, “wow I was able to give my higher performer .25% more!”.

The key is to try to obtain a higher than a “meets” rating, but the challenge is those are intentionally limited to a small percent of recipients, in the name of “pay for performance”. So while we may have been able to give one or two of our orgs’ highest performers a noticeably better increase, the majority, who were also solid performers, got hardly anything. Also, we as PLs were handled the exact same way by our managers, so other than the occasional key contributor stock award (which I’ll admit could be valuable), our pay was treated exactly the same.

I would have preferred them giving me a budget, and letting me be responsible for doling it out to my employees. HR was always afraid of inconsistencies with that process, so we now have this terrible process.

I’m glad to not be at Schwab anymore.

Teams only get a fixed pool to hand out. Unless management is willing to give underperformers 0%—and we all know they won’t—the same 2–4% raises will continue. The bottom line is simple: doing the bare minimum gets you almost the same merit increase as going above and beyond.

Merits increased as my work effort decreased. True for others also. The longer you stay the less you make.

@cz Yeah, it really seems like more of a “who you know vs what you know” situation. Hoping for the best with your review, keep us posted.

I just need to learn to “play the game” better, even tho I think it’s BS

@OP I agree. Two years ago, I received an “Exceeds” and a significantly higher bonus. Last year, I still ended up with a "Meets" even though I doubled my output, took on additional projects, volunteered for committees, mentored others, led initiatives, and received multiple peer recognitions the prior year. When I asked what I could have done differently to earn a higher rating, my manager couldn’t articulate a single concrete gap. That told me everything. The issue wasn’t performance. It was advocacy, and who leadership chose to champion when bonus dollars were being allocated.

This past year, I shifted strategy and focused on visibility, objectives, and measurable impact. For my own reality check, I ran my self-assessment in AI against the rating criteria and goals and asked for a conservative, manager-lens evaluation. The result was far above “Meets.” So I will know this week if my strategy shift improved my rating in real life, but I don't have high expectations.

At some point, if the outcome doesn’t correlate with the documented standards, you stop overextending. You realign your effort to the rating you’re inevitably going to receive and redirect that extra energy back into your actual life.

This isn’t about effort or performance. In most large public companies, merit increases are centrally budgeted and treated as a fixed labor cost, even in record profit years. Executives benefit disproportionately because their compensation is tied to stock and performance metrics, so upside flows through equity while base salaries stay capped.

Loyalty is rarely rewarded because replacement cost sets market pay, not tenure. That’s why new hires often come in higher. It’s a structural feature of shareholder-first companies, not a reflection of individual worth.

Once you understand that, the 2–4% makes more sense — and burning yourself out stops making more sense.