I'm stuck at T3 for 5 years doing the same job as T4s on the team. Issue goes back to legacy roles where 3 roles got rolled into 1 and some got stuck at T3 and others got to keep T4. 5 years later I'm still getting paid $50k less than them. Is this just the way it is at SAP?
18 replies (most recent on top)
@OP If your manager didn't give you more money, it means that he/she thinks that you don't deserve more money. If the situation lasted a couple of years then you have to look somewhere else where your value is appreciated more.
It's not just because that your manager don't think that you deserve more that he's right...he's probably wrong and you can't depend on hi for your future...make you profile/skills more desirable and move on !
Been a T3 since I joined 9 years ago.... decided its not worth the hassle to pursue a change in level given the sh-t that is going on at SAP.
Chuck was hired a T4 and is now the only T6 in the company
If you only care about money rather than the level, your best bet are the three options shared in the first message here. Managers have a lot of control over who they can give more money. And if you have shared your aspirations with your managers but they haven't given you more money then Occam's razor. The simplest solution is likely the true one. THEY DO NOT WANT TO GIVE YOU MORE MONEY. Most SAP employees do not realize that managers are incentivized against helping their reports grow. They get a budget and have to stay within the budget. If they show that their reports are great and give them more money or a higher level, they go over budget. If they show that their reports su-k or "need improvement" and they still achieved their own goals, then their own performance becomes "exceeded expectations". And they get more money themselves. It's almost like a long tradition at SAP that executives and management take for themselves the budget allocated for employees. And they do this without impunity and with full blessings from HR who give more and more power to managers every year. So if you want more money, leave your manager and find a better one. If they have promised you more money and not delivered, they are most likely lying to you.
@bq I just want more money and I see the T4 salary range is much higher than where I can be in T3 no matter how I perform.
@a5 What board areas should I consider for advancement in pay? I don't really care about level, just want better pay.
If I could go back I would have stopped at T2. T1 was okay for what it was but nothing topped T2. I enjoyed T3 as well but I didn't find Kristanna Loken's terminator nearly as intimidating as Robert Patrick's T-1000. T4 and beyond are awful. Especially T6. It's basically T2 but for women.
@ap This is partially true.
HRBP are not sharing guidance on how many employees should be in a blue or green zone. But they limit the budget that is available to an area. So management in that area are forced to define how many employees will be in each zone and they tell managers to fit everything within the budget accordingly. If managers do that, they themselves get a good rating or they get a bad rating themselves and get less money and that money is kept by their manager of managers. So even though on the outset it seems like a fair system, it is an unfair system which gives more power to managers to give less salary and benefits to employees and keep more of the money for themselves by giving each other "exceeded expectations" ratings. It makes for a very compelling story that a majority of employees only achieve expectations or need improvement. And on the other hand, the managers are the heroes. So the narrative becomes that we need to keep the managers and reward them but to lay off these employees because they are not good enough. But in reality, the managers are often the underachievers who just happen to be in a position of power. HR has made it infinitely worse for employees and the Works Council rubber stamped this without putting up a fight despite what they say.
@OP you need to articulate why you want T4. Is it money? Is it prestige? Is it more interesting work and new challenges? Is it a better variable pay ratio?
SAP is a place where a higher T level may or may not get you what you are looking for. If you don't want to discuss this with your line manager, you can talk to a coach or mentor. Or even a colleague.
And what others have said about the boys club is sadly true.
@as re: “leaving SAP and returning, are your only options” - has the brilliant HR team created a new category for this called “desperate re-treads”?
@a8 There is another reason why Signavio is important.
Signavio forced SAP HR to create a new category. It's titled "Employees with other gender options" and you can see it here
https://www.sap.com/integrated-reports/2024/en/datahub/social-data/equality-metrics.html
This option did not exist before 2024. In 2024, SAP had 38,297 females, 70,823 males and exactly 1 other gender.
Signavio is the area that is forcing SAP to be pro DEI. It is also the only area that has a twice as many immigrants as other areas at SAP.
The only way to fix this is to lay off immigrants and pro DEI employees at SAP. And every manager at Signavio should be someone from the St. Leon-Rot office as they are the people who understand SAP culture best. We also need to change the Signavio HRBP as she is trying to hire more "other gender" employees within Signavio.
DEI needs to die. If you want diversity, then appoint women in high positions. Especially German women.
I had a manager who wasn’t interested in working. All he did was schedule 1:1s and travel. He went to every conference or SAP event that he could go to even when his presence was unnecessary. And he made a deal with all his reports. Employees who did his work in addition to theirs did well in salary appraisals. Employees that only did their own job even it was a good job only got average or below average appraisals. They never grew. Most of them got angry and left. A few of my colleagues and I got to grow a lot. It’s not fair but this is how it’s always been at SAP. A few things that really matter
1) If you’re based at the Walldorf and St. Leon Rot offices and come to the office every day
2) If you attend the office parties and make your manager look good
3) Gossip and help share important information you learnt with your manager
But honestly, OP, if you’re looking for a better work culture, leave SAP. The boys club is impossible to get into.
@a5 is spot on. Doing favors for your manager, or leaving SAP and returning, are your only options. You can be a T2 and targeted for layoffs, too, if you do not flatter and manage your boss. SAP is ALL about whom you know and not what you do. I have had managers outright lie to me, so I generally would not trust them. Just get inside the club however you can - even if you loathe your boss, su-k up, flatter, give great reviews - that is your best hope since they are likely not going anywhere.
@aj this was possible before performance management was enabled. But it isn’t possible anymore. Our HRBP has told us that we managers can only give a performance rating and the salary appraisal and RSU allocation will be calculated automatically by the system.
There’s a lot of pressure from HRBP and our management to give bad performance ratings to employees as this area budgets are smaller each year. To promote someone or to give more money, we need to mark them as “succeeded expectations” multiple times in a year and that’s not easy to do with this pressure.
There are also rumors within all manager circles that they plan to replace most managers with AI after performance management is correctly implemented. Good luck talking to AI about a promotion.
Your best bet is to look for a job in another area. Or to move out of SAP. Not all managers are bad. Our hands are tied because of smaller budgets. And management tends to use a majority of the budget for themselves and there’s barely any left for L5 employees and below.
Currently it's smarter to ask for the money instead of promotion.
It's possible to have more money at T3 than at T4.
Once the situation stabilizes, you can ask for promotion.
It also depends on your plans for the future.
If you plan to leave in the near future then definitely ask for the money: other companies don't care what was your level
BUT if your plan is to have a long career at SAP then it would make more sense to ask for a promotion as it gives you access to some positions
@ac longterm Signavio employee here. This is true.
Also, the new performance management system that SAP HR implemented was proposed by one of our colleagues. She brought Dual Leadership and Performance Management to Signavio almost a decade back. SAP has implemented the latter and is in discussions to implement the former. If that happens, we will see a lot of layoffs in other SAP areas. So this is definitely relevant to the discussion.
@a8 I agree that the rest of SAP is different from Signavio. But it is equally true that Mohd. Alam is using Signavio as a testbed to see what executives can get away with.
HPOM changes at Signavio were implemented in the rest of the organization. After people leads were promoted to development managers at Signavio, other areas under Alam started allowing HRBP and non-engineers to become development managers.
The rest of SAP will not be different from Signavio for too long.
@a5 Not that Signavio stuff again.
The rest of SAP is completely different from Signavio.