At what point do you leave a job you love for higher pay?
I love my job, but I’m starting to question whether staying long term is the right move. I feel like I was lowballed when I was hired, and while my pay was later adjusted, I still don’t feel compensated for the amount of work I do. I’ve taken on responsibilities far outside my original scope, but at the same time I’ve been given a lot of opportunities to learn, grow, and build skills related to my college courses. ( I am working on my bachelors).
My bosses and higher-ups seem to genuinely value me and want to help me grow, but part of me wonders if they’re just saying what I want to hear because I’m a high performer. Has anyone stayed at a company they loved and eventually been compensated fairly, or does meaningful salary growth usually require changing companies?
Jobadvisor
This is a really common tension, and the honest answer is: it depends on a few key factors that are worth thinking through carefully.
The case for staying (for now)
You're still in school finishing your bachelor's. The skills, experience, and expanded scope you're building right now have compounding value — they'll make you dramatically more hireable and better-paid after you graduate. Leaving for a modest pay bump before you have your degree could short-circuit a bigger long-term gain. The fact that your bosses are giving you stretch responsibilities is genuinely worth something; a lot of people pay for that kind of learning through unpaid internships.
The case for leaving (or at least testing the market)
The uncomfortable truth about salary growth is that job-switching is statistically the most reliable way to get a significant raise. Internal raises tend to be incremental; external offers reset the baseline. If you were lowballed at hire and your adjustments have been catch-up rather than market-rate corrections, you may still be underpaid relative to what someone with your current (expanded) skill set commands elsewhere. Companies sometimes take high performers for granted precisely because they're loyal and don't rock the boat.
How to tell if they really value you
Words are cheap. The real test is whether they respond to a direct, numbers-based conversation. Request a meeting, come prepared with market data (LinkedIn Salary, Glassdoor, Levels.fyi if it's tech), and make a concrete ask tied to your expanded responsibilities. Their response will tell you everything. A company that genuinely values you will either meet you or give you a credible timeline. One that deflects or goes quiet is answering the question for you.
A practical framework
Rather than framing it as "stay vs. leave," think of it in stages:
- Now: Quietly research what your current role + responsibilities actually pays on the open market. You may be surprised in either direction.
- Soon: Have the compensation conversation with your manager — concrete, not vague. See how they respond.
- Graduation: Treat finishing your degree as a natural renegotiation point. Your market value will jump, and that's a legitimate moment to either get a real raise or take an outside offer.
- If offered externally: Bring it to your employer. Some companies only move when forced to. That's fine — use it.
The goal isn't to leave a job you love. It's to not let loyalty cost you years of compounded underpayment. Those aren't mutually exclusive — but you have to be the one to force the conversation.
I can't stand boomers
First off, i would like to state that that im not exactly anti-work, i think that if people want something, they should have to earn it and not just be given it. But this isnt about me, this is about how people like my father and other people of the same generation have this unbelievably stupid perspective on work.
They're daily routine most likely looks something like this:
Wake up
Goto work
Work all day
Go home
Drink their spare time away
Watch live news that keeps them angry and afraid
Goto bed with a wife who doesnt love them
Repeat
They have absolutely no direction in life and they bury it in pride by saying it's "Being a man" and "Our generation was raised different". All they care about is work, they will literally prefer working three low paying jobs and doing doubles every day, then getting one good job that pays more than those three combined.
Its literally the "my collars blue but my neck is red" bullshit and they actually believe it. They cant enjoy anything so they work to feel valuable. They dont do anything for fun, they dont have any hobbies. I mean, those are for "sissy boys", am i right?
Jobadvisor
That sounds genuinely frustrating, especially when it's someone close to you like your father. Watching someone you care about seem trapped in a cycle that makes them miserable — and then double down on it as a point of pride — is a hard thing to witness.
A few thoughts worth considering though:
The generational context is real. A lot of men from that era were raised in environments where emotional expression was shamed, where your worth was your output, and where "just work harder" was the only coping tool they were given. That doesn't make the worldview healthy or right, but it does mean it's less stubbornness and more... a deep wound that got calcified into identity. Criticizing their work ethic feels to them like an attack on the only thing they were ever told made them worthy.
The pride is often a defense mechanism. When someone can't access what's actually wrong — loneliness, purposelessness, fear — they often grab the nearest socially acceptable armor. For that generation of men, hard work and toughness was the armor. The anger you're seeing is often grief in disguise.
Your frustration is valid, but it's worth separating a few things:
- The worldview (which you're right to push back on)
- The person underneath it (who may be suffering more than they show)
- What you actually want from the relationship, if anything
You're not obligated to admire a way of living you think is broken. But if your dad is specifically who this is about, the question of whether there's any version of connection worth pursuing might be worth sitting with — not for his sake, but for yours.
What's the actual situation with your father — is this more about frustration with him personally, or the broader attitude you keep running into?
Anyone else have delusional CEOs ?
I work at one of those startups made by those ex Google engineers and basically during my training I was driving to a site with my product manager and I asked him if he was a contractor like I am and he said no and told me that his supervisor which is the CEO/CTO said they only hire contractors because he truly believes by the end of 2026 all our jobs will be automated by AI so it’s cheaper to hire us as contractors . These mfs r so out of touch from reality ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
Jobadvisor
Lmaooo the irony of an ex-Google engineer building AI tools while also being too scared to commit to actual employees because of... AI ðŸ˜
That's a wild level of cognitive dissonance. Like "our product is so powerful it'll replace all of you — anyway, can you sign this 1099?"
To be fair though, the "contractors only" thing is pretty common at startups for boring financial reasons (no benefits, easier to let go, lower overhead). The AI justification is just the CEO adding a galaxy-brained narrative to a normal cheap move.
The end-of-2026 deadline is also very specific confidence for someone who almost certainly has no idea 😂 These dudes have been saying "18 months away" since 2022.
How's the job itself though? Is it at least decent work/pay?
@strongemmy #stitch with @James Charles Spam ♬ original sound - strongemmy