I don't understand why people want to be promoted. I've worked for the same company for nearly 2 decades. I'm basically doing the same job as when I started. I don't want more work or more responsibilities. I'm happy staying in my groove. In that time my pay has more than doubled. Recently my boss informed me that they were giving me a 15% raise. I didn't ask for a raise. I don't have to do any more work. Frankly I've felt for awhile that they are paying me way more than I deserve and I was astonished that they wanted to give me 15% more out of the blue. Maybe I lucked into an unusual situation, but I work for a huge Fortune 150 company and my situation seems fairly typical here.
From my experience that is indeed a somewhat unusual situation.
The companies I have worked for in the past and those where friends and family work tend give "raises" to match inflation and sometimes a bit on top.
There are also plenty of companies that dont raise your salary at all unless you get promoted.
I think that is part of why many people advise new graduates to change jobs every 2-3 years for some time as often the salary of the newly hired tends to reflect the current market rate.
I have had instances where newly hired people with less experience than colleagues received 20% more salary simply because they were new. This is for the same job and productivity level.
Your standpoint on promotions is perfectly fine and even healthy. Not all people want to get promoted and as long as your are comfortable in your job and like, or at least not mind, doing it, thats okay.
Your boss and the company you work for may very well genuinely care about you. They may have also raised your salary because your are extremely knowledgeable in your area and cant afford to have you leave the company. They could also very much underpay your current market rate and raised your salary to match what other people are earning in that position. No one except your boss can answer that.
Leaving a company that you like working at is a risk and can backfire. I did it once and regretted my decision. Other times it can be a great decision and expose you to new things that you may end up liking even more than your current job.
At the end of the day that decision is squarely on you.
I would be happy to be in the same role for the rest of my career if it meant that: a) I got to work on different projects across my career b) The company I work for was happy to invest in my development and learning (through paying for courses/certs/self-learning time and importantly c) I got regular pay rises.
Sadly, the order I listed those is in decreasing order of how likely each company is to offer them. So many companies are reluctant to give out pay rises (and I'm not talking 2% inflation rises that only ensure you stay above water). There's almost this unspoken principle where if you agreed to do a job 5 years ago for one price, why should you want more to do the same job 5 years later? There's no notion that maybe your institutional knowledge is worth something, or you're a better engineer now, or the company will be worse off if you leave vs. if they hire somebody else.
And so, people more often than not move companies to get a raise. Gone are the days where you can start at a company as a grad, and work there till you retire. I wish those days were still here, but they're not. Every time I got a raise it was because I moved jobs.
This is a good attitude. Promotion is not just "more of the same" but is really moving to a different job and it may not be a job you like better.
That said, people want to get promoted largely for some combination of increased status, power, and income. I don't think it's worth taking a job you dislike for these things, though. Life's too short.
That’s fine as long as you are able to keep that position but leaves you increasingly vulnerability to chance events as the years pass. Entire companies have imploded despite being made to appear healthy, like Enron. A personality conflict with one well-connected person could have them try to push you out. Any number of things. If two hypothetical people competed in the job market with similar skill sets but a twenty year age difference I know which one I’d expect to see hired first.
I’m sure that’s not actually true for you anyway since it would be really hard to not gain an immense breadth of knowledge from twenty years of constant industry exposure. Breadth might not pay as well as depth, but you probably aren’t giving yourself enough credit if it felt so gradual.
I feel the exact same way. When I have 1:1s with my manager the topic of career progression often comes up and I kinda feel bad saying I'm perfectly happy as a sr engineer who is dependable and does good work.
I think of it as there are 2 ways to grow your career. Vertical and Horizontal. Vertical growth is another name for promotions. It involves having more people reporting to you. Horizontal growth is gaining new skills/technologies/knowledge/etc. I prefer the second, and so far my company has rewarded me financially for doing so.
Hey, you do you! If you have reached equilibrium in that you are happy and fulfilled and also a productive member of the team, that seems great for all parties involved.
