Your Best Engineer Doesn’t Care About a Raise. Give Them One Anyway.
A few months ago, I sat down with one of my highest performers. Driven, creative, always delivering. Never late, never loud, never bragging. When review time came, I noticed something. No ask for a raise. No bargaining, no negotiation. Just the same grateful nod and then back to work.
It’s easy to assume everyone’s waiting for more money. I used to think that too—until I looked closer. For this engineer, what really matters is freedom to build, space to innovate, room to breathe. Flexible hours beat a fatter paycheck. Working on hard problems matters more than a title. They thrive on trust and impact, not status or bonuses.
But here’s the problem. If you only reward those who ask, you send the wrong message. You teach your quiet top talent that you only value those who ask. You chip away at trust. Eventually, you risk losing the people who make your team tick.
So I changed my approach:
I started giving raises and promotions before they ever came up. Not because they asked, but because they earned it.
The response? Real surprise. More ownership. Loyalty, not just in words but in work. They felt seen.
Money isn’t the main driver for everyone. But when you show you notice and value what they do, you build a team that doesn’t just stay—they go further. That’s how you keep your best people.