<prompt> Human: Hi all,Im constantly re-evaluating my career and Im afraid I will end up frozenstagnent if I dont actively look for additional opportunities. Anyone have any experience in the area of career progressiondevelopment? By age would be great.Currently 25, turning 26 next month. Salary: 62kyear USDTitle: Software Engineer IIState: SC, USAI think my salary is fairly competative at my age, but my company has informed everyone there will be no merit increases raises this year, and most likely not next year either. I dont want to be making the exact same salary when Im 28 or so in such a high paying field. Ive been with my company for 2.5 years and I become fully vested beginning of next year. Anyone have any advice or experience?  <response>: If you stay purely in programming then your increases will be incremental if you stay with the same company in most cases.As with a lot of fields, the best option for increasing your salary is doing some upwardly mobile job hopping. If you are not anticipating any raises for the next two years and you arent comfortable with that then you need to start looking at moving laterally to another company or preferably to a higher level position. 