I don&#x27;t think you can go into a company as large as Google and expect your salary to double in five years. HR will have set limits to how much of a raise you can get in any given year and even with promotions you would be very unlikely to see that kind of bump. I also don&#x27;t think the middling programmers he mentions would hit the 250k year mark.<p>Orthogonal to the point of the article, but the only time you can really get a salary bump is <i>before</i> you start, so make sure to negotiate like hell before you get in. Once you&#x27;re in, you&#x27;re going to be grinding to get a 3% raise (contrary to what the OP states).