Now that PSC for the first half at Meta is nearing an end, do you think it makes sense to ask my manager for a raise in our next 1:1? Or, given that Meta is a big tech company, are raises purely based on rating?

Raises are only based on: If you got promoted Your rating at the winter perf cycle If your comp is below the average for your level (evaluate yearly at winter perf cycle) If you have a competing offer for more money

Asking for a Raise in Big Tech

Meta is purely cut-and-dry when it comes to level and compensation:

You can't negotiate out-of-cycle raises (even with a competing offer)
Your compensation adjustments are purely mathematical based on your rating (you can't negotiate them)
You can't downlevel yourself

Meta's philosophy to make up for this inflexibility is to pay top-of-market wages (it's the highest paying of FAANG usually) and raises. For example, even other top-tier Big Tech companies don't give an RSU refresher every year to every engineer (e.g. LinkedIn). The amount Meta gives for raises is also very high by industry standards.

The big shift recently is that Meta is top-loading the compensation increases to high-performers while lower performers get little to nothing. Meta has always been ruthless with low performers, and it's even more so the case now.

In short, if you want more money, follow the Taro advice and be a high-performing engineer. It was one of the things I really loved about Meta: If you genuinely did really well, you got rewarded for it. As an E3, this will be the highest leverage advice for you to follow: [Course] Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer

After that, follow the advice here to grow quickly to E4: [Course] Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer

Asking for a Raise in Big Tech

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