Unsolicited advice: have a real talk conversation with your manager explaining that while his HR help may not make it easy to see this across the team, your total comp is about to take a nose dive and for opportunity cost reasons you may have to start accepting recruiter conversations. Many of the companies I've worked for as a manager, including reputable tech companies, make it incredibly difficult to work out when people in your team are hitting these cliffs.

Of course this is predicated on you wanting to work there and them wanting to retain you. For the latter half of that equation this may be the exact litmus test you need to give you the signal on where you stand. Many of the places I've worked will refresh stock grants for at least the top 10% of their employee pool, even if that's not an explicitly stated policy.

“Start accepting”

Huh. Weird. I don’t really even hide that I’m always working towards my own goals. This includes keeping an eye out for opportunities that better align with them. And I’m a firm believer that having a discussion and seeing what options there are is healthy and good. There have been many times in my career I’ve spoken to recruiters and come away with a better appreciation for where I was.

Didn’t realize this was not a normal approach.

Are you seeing the same volume of requests from recruiters offering that base that you did a few years ago? I’ve seen our hiring team lowering the advertised salary range and an increase in the number of applications for the same roles.

I personally don't talk to recruiters unless I consider myself on the market. It's just a time sink and a distraction from what I'm trying to get done at work. Admittedly if I had a job where I was more fungible I might behave differently.

Meanwhile, mortgage rates his 7%

what do you do? and for how many years

Systems SWE w/ 20+ years experience. C/C++ mostly.