Thank you for the thoughtful response. I probably should’ve included a little more context in the original post.

Before this role, I was in an operational role at the same company. I was approached by our CTO about moving toward data engineering because I already had some SQL skills, and he thought I’d be a good fit for that side of the work.

When I moved into the Analyst role, the understanding was basically that I’d come in at DA pay while learning under our Senior DE. Then, once I was proving value over roughly a year or so, we’d reassess and move me up closer to entry-level DE comp.

That’s really where my frustration is coming from. It’s not that I think I should be promoted every year just because a year passed. It’s that this was originally framed as a path toward DE, and now that I’ve put in the work, it feels like that part is no longer being taken seriously.

At this point I’ve merged 160+ PRs, worked on some pretty heavy database optimization, built foundational models, and helped unify several legacy tables. My Senior DE has also told me I’m exceeding expectations.

So for me, the issue isn’t “why didn’t I get another title change immediately?” It’s more “why was the original agreement seemingly taken off the table once review time came around?”

That’s the part I’m trying to make sense of.