Ask HN: Looking for advice on my situation at work? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Looking for advice on my situation at work?

89 pointsdalmang96 comments

I put an extraordinary amount of work effort in the company for 3 years. I worked under the same manager during this period. Last year when performance review meeting happened just like every other year, I was told that you are the best engineer in the whole organization.

For these years, I have not got a single dollar raise or promotion. My salary has been the same from the day I joined in 2019.

Last year, performance review meeting was different. When mass layoffs were happening, manager brought another engineer on the team. I came to know that this engineer had known him in the past, could be friends. Even though, there was no need for another engineer on the team. My manager told me to train this engineer with same skill-set like you. I am a nice person so I brought this engineer up to speed. From the time this engineer has learnt everything that I have known, my manager has stopped talking to me. My 1:1 meetings has not happened for last few months. I am getting cold shoulder treatment from everyone else on team. This engineer who I taught has been assigned lead role and giving me directions for last few months. The whole situation has become toxic for me.

How to handle this situation best?

This is top 5 tech companies in Canada. If this is the kind of culture promoted here, how are other companies doing?

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I’m blown away by some of the other comments here. There’s no value in having a victim mentality.

Have you openly spoken to your manager about your concerns? How it doesn’t feel fair? How you feel you’re being treated? There’s a chance they have no idea. Maybe they’re not that experienced and are just working things out themselves. Or if they seem like the wrong person, is there someone above them you can voice your concerns about?

Last time I had an employer I had feelings of being treated unfairly and voiced it and they gave me a big raise and a bonus, and they expressed how they respected me that much more for voicing it. (I did also come to them with a job offer from another company that had a larger dollar amount associated to it.). N=1 here and no guarantees of course, but it’s very worth attempting to communicate.

Being on the other end as a business owner myself now, I realize how easy it is to think everything that happens at the company and how it operates is deliberate and intentional. That is very often not the case. The invisible hand reaches over and forms companies just as it does the economy, eg one person makes a decision and introduced a structure or process 5 years ago and it just hasn’t been revisited despite the fact it should have.

If they don’t seem interested after some good attempts at being transparent and honest, you’re possibly a place that doesn’t value their employees, and it’s worth looking elsewhere to find a place that better aligns with your values.

This is good advice in general but the big give away with this issue is the “hired a friend” part. Unfortunately this person has been relegated to the “out” group and no logical business practices will change that.

Your boss/manager hired their friend and unless you go over their head and can call this behavior out and demonstrate that this is clearly nepotism then you’re out of luck.

Get your your resume together, start contacting your network, make note of any wins/progress/etc for future interviews and start looking for other jobs.

Bringing on a friend, telling them to learn everything the smartest and best engineer on the team knows, and them succeeding at it, honestly sounds like some dream situation. I wish I could just magically have people become a copy of the best engineer on my team

When people talk about nepotism its usually how the underperforming person with personal ties to a manager isn't getting fired, or getting promoted, despite having everyone else do the work for them

If this friend is actually just as good as OP, that's pretty impressive, without connection to OP that needs to ask for better compensation or start interviewing elsewhere

> I wish I could just magically have people become a copy of the best engineer on my team

Same observation here.

With every story, we're only getting the point of view of the author. Some things don't add up here, so I'd love to get some clarifications.

> This is top 5 tech companies in Canada.

That's vague. What do you mean by "top tech company"? Largest by earnings? Head-count? In my mind, a bank that hires programmers might do tech but isn't a tech company proper. Unlike an org like Google where engineering is at the core of the company.

> I was told that you are the best engineer in the whole organization. For these years, I have not got a single dollar raise or promotion. My salary has been the same from the day I joined in 2019.

What's the size of the whole organization? Your team? Division? Company? Being the best of an underperforming team is very different than being the best company-wide at a top firm.

Salary-wise, being told you are the "best of the best" three years in a row (in probably the hottest engineering market since the 90's, at least here in the Valley) and not getting any form of promotions or raise is a pretty big red-flag. All the top tech companies will refresh comp on a yearly basis because they know that their competitors will be ready to poach their best performers if they don't. To me that raises a red flag about your story. Either there's something you aren't telling us about the company or your performance...

Now, this is an anonymous post so there's literally no downside for anyone, but was the total comp. package like? Numbers will give us a clearer picture than vague descriptions to be honest.

> My manager told me to train this engineer with same skill-set like you. I am a nice person so I brought this engineer up to speed. From the time this engineer has learnt everything that I have known, my manager has stopped talking to me. My 1:1 meetings has not happened for last few months. I am getting cold shoulder treatment from everyone else on team. This engineer who I taught has been assigned lead role and giving me directions for last few months.

And it only took a little time to train him off, despite your assessment that you are the "top performer"? That's weird again. I don't think anyone could get hired and come up to speed with, say John Carmack or Linus Torvald. What’s the other engineer’s experience?

Without additional details it's difficult to make an accurate judgement. If the manager referred the friend and they went through the typical interview process and got the job on their own without any undue influence from the manager/friend - then the issue may be with the OP's performance or some other change on the team.

But if the manager short-circuited the typical hiring process and just stuck his friend on the team then it's clear-cut nepotism and OP can't escape it without sidelining their manager within the organization.

This sounds right. Management may believe that they are severely underpaying their top performer and as soon as he starts interviewing he will see a huge offer that they cannot compete with. The new hire friend on the other hand is expected to stick around.

You have valid points. But look at the messaging. Great reviews, no raises, then "here, train your replacement" followed piping him to /dev/null. This isn't a recoverable situation. He's been had.

The harsh reality could be that they are not happy with the op and their performance, and in a cowardly fashion not expressing it honestly to them. That could be the case and it could be worth introspecting on that.

In this case it has nothing to do with the OPs performance and everything to do with their own poor leadership being reflected back to them.

Note the verbiage: he was told he was "the best engineer". That might well be true even though nobody could stand him as a person.

Considering how nobody is lifting a finger to help him, I reckon nobody else particularly enjoyed having him around, but couldn't get rid of him because of their reliance on his technical prowess.

Yeah I think this is probably true. Rightly or wrongly they don't see him as a team player, but were required to keep him on because of his technical prowess.

It sounds like they're managing him out and he'll soon be on a PIP.

> I did also come to them with a job offer from another company that had a larger dollar amount associated to it.

As far as I know, this negotation strategy is orders of magnitude more effective than voicing feelings about being treated unfairly. Unless OP comes with better competing offer, there is likely nothing that can be changed in his situation.

Its even more effective — usually — to just take the better offer and leave. OP - you owe these people nothing.

In my case I preferred my current employer despite some more money from the other.

A major school of thought is that as soon as someone goes to the effort of getting another job offer, they've psychologically checked out, so you might as well let them go.

That's definitely what I've seen happen most.

It is a silly school of thought though. The same school of thought can also be found recommending to not give raises to their most loyal employees.

I did this once got the raise etc. The director at the time voiced the opinion that in general people leave anyway in a year or 2 time. I did leave in 1.5 years .

Taken at face value, this is bad advice. You've buried the lede which is that you used leverage in the form of threatening to quit and a competing job offer to renegotiate your position at the company.

Talking with your manager can be a fine avenue, and can even be successful if your manager is an advocate to the upper administration for you, but most of the time it will be useless without using some sort of leverage to make management listen. Management's charter is to extract as much value from employees while minimizing expenditures. The ideal employee is one that does not ask for any more resources to do the job they were hired to do and then can be let go without fuss when not needed.

Employers have much of the power and when they don't actively try to keep their employees happy, through raises or other benefits, this is tantamount to them giving a clear message that they expect you to move on if you're able. There's a reason why most raises in a technology setting come from moving jobs.

For the OP, when management is bringing in someone for you to train, that's usually a signal that a re-org is coming and they want to make you redundant.

Upper management and administration in corporations may be made out of people but privilege blinds people in power to the repercussions of their decisions and actions to their employees that don't have that power. I have a little sympathy for people who haven't recognized the dynamic but I have less sympathy for those that understand the dynamic but don't do anything about it. The relationship is, by it's nature, antagonistic and should be treated as such.

Not sure we have enough info to say for sure.

> "Management's charter is to extract as much value from employees while minimizing expenditures."

Burning out a valued employee that can probably do work 10x better and faster than a brand new employee is not extracting value.

Raising concerns with your manager is table stakes. Always try to work with the company before assuming that they are acting out of malice.

That said, given the circumstances I believe it would be very wise to also proactively pursue different jobs in this case. If nothing else, it will open the OP’s eyes to the fact that jobs are a market and you have far more options than just staying with one company and hoping for the best.

The concerning part is the personal friendship the manager has with the new coworker. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the way the OP has described the situation suggests that there is an in-group and an out-group, and the OP is very clearly not part of the in-group. A different team or company where people are viewed on more equal relationship footings would be a better fit for someone like the OP who is unsure about navigating company dynamics.

Terrible advise. They obviously don't value him anymore.

Just find another job and give notice ASAP.

Why do you think they don't value him? Sounds like they're sending conflicting messages to him. Which is the case? Are you saying to just assume the worst? Instead of trying to get clarity first?

> I realize how easy it is to think everything that happens at the company and how it operates is deliberate and intentional.

There's a culture that ascribes intent --sometimes characterized as evil--, greed and other negative qualities to businesses. This often comes from people who have never done anything non-trivial in business and sometimes those who have been subjected to ideological indoctrination in school.

It's unfortunate because in the vast majority of cases, as you describe, this isn't the case at all. It is also unfortunate because repeating this falsehood can lead to employees not understanding that there is no negative intent and that, again, more often than not, bringing up issues is welcome in most organizations.

Yes, it is possible for something to become, to use the term introduced by the OP, toxic. That does not mean it has intent. Have a conversation, voice concerns. No employer would get rid of a valued contributor unless forced to do so (economic reality is one example of a forcing function).

Also, be sure your conversation is constructive. People used to online interactions --which can be incredible dysfunctional and unrealistic-- sometimes come to in-person conversations with a feeling that the conversation will actually be a confrontation. It takes two complete jerks to have the kinds of conversations in real life that otherwise-normal people are often seen having online. Do not be afraid to talk to a real person in real life, particularly in a business setting and one where you know the players.

That said, if you are truly unhappy and you can, maybe it's time to look first look around and see what else might be available. I remember making the mistake of staying at my first job too long. I didn't understand it at the time. I did understand it when I was offered double my salary by a company in the same domain. Same work, new challenges, double the income. Do not wear blinders. Sometimes problems push you to improve your standing in life, whatever that might mean.

> It's unfortunate because in the vast majority of cases, as you describe, this isn't the case at all.

I don't have a good barometer on what is typical. I do think it's probably the wrong approach in most cases to assume malintent and not even try to have a conversation, and just leave. That's my main point. That sounds like a cowardly approach, sounds like victim mentality that will just continue into future roles unless addressed, and it sounds like it assumes the employee holds no power at all in the relationship, which is very possibly invalid in many cases including this one. The employer has likely invested a lot in the employee, the employee probably has ownership and responsibilities, and it's a pain as a manager to have to deal with someone leaving and figuring out how to cover for the loss.

I haven't worked for a FAANG or similar silicon valley giant and so maybe things are different at those places and devs are treated as a faceless commodity, but I haven't had that impression (curious to hear someone's input on this).

> Last time I had an employer I had feelings of being treated unfairly and voiced it

Did you raise it with your manager or his/her manager?

Just trying to understand at what forum did you raise it and how?

Raised it with my manager, and he pulled in his manager/executive whom I had the real conversation with. I think my manager may have felt inexperienced dealing with this situation, plus did not have direct power to make a change himself, but wisely did realize the importance of the situation and the importance of listening and acting.

May I ask What sort of business do you have? Your posts are very insightful

> Last time I had an employer I had feelings of being treated unfairly and voiced it

For OP: don't voice it. Write down what your manager is failing to do, send it in a nice little email. Create a paper trail

My comments (from this little information):

1. Empowering others frees yourselves and build teams. Never stop empowering others. You will be more successful in the long run. If the environment is competing you against your peers, leave the environment. A good environment allows fostering good people and working conflict free with multiple good people. Empowering others is part of that.

2. When you are developed by your manager, you go through stages. First it is hands-on (1:1, training, help, guidance, ...) but later it becomes completely loose (more responsibility, punishment if you do something wrong). As a manager you end-goal is independent people which do not need hands-on 1:1 meetings. Are you in that situation maybe?

3. "Cold Shoulder from the rest of the team": Something happened what you have not figured out. Figure it out.

4. Regards the lead engineer position: Ask yourself: Does he deserve the job independent from your own pride? Do you belief that the only differencing factor is your manager's preference ... that sucks but is not necessary toxic. Friendship often translates in trust. Maybe your boss also relies on his friend on leading the team now while he does other things.

I agree with all of this except 1:1s; they are a natural part of healthy management.

If you don't have regular 1:1 with your direct manager, and if managers don't have regular 1:1s with all their direct reports, your company doesn't know how to manage. It's table stakes for competent management, at all levels except perhaps C-level to C-level.

I disagree here. If you have a functional environment you can have a team meeting, clarify everything there openly and have 1:1 once you need them due to privacy.

Regular 1:1 create the risk of micromanaging people and foster secrecy. It is good for developing people, but once they are developed what purpose do they have.

Maybe this is a culture thing (German here ... we fight in public ;)). My experience is: the layer where regular 1:1 starts, office politics is not far away ;)

Sounds cultural maybe? In the US, 1 to 1's aren't about fighting, they are about developing, and there is an attitude here of never stopping developing, so there is no "once they are developed" phase.

It's definitely cultural but I think you are overstating things a bit. That is commonly how 1:1s are approached in the US but still many places will be different.

Mentoring and helping colleagues is a great way to build a network for the job search after the one where you leave the current company.

Most people’s careers will probably span many employers, so relationships with coworkers are more important than relationships with employers.

Leave. For whatever reason, you've worn out your welcome. You probably didn't even do anything wrong. But, unless a new manager comes in who loves you, you're hosed. It won't get better. Time to move on. You'll probably get a nice pay raise out of it, too.

Definitely time to go.

As to whether it's the standard Canadian culture, I'd say from personal experience and what I've seen with friends/family it is more common in the crown corps and tech oligopolies (i.e., Bell, Telus). So when you say Top 5, I'm not surprised the manager did this and got away with it.

That, and I know I'll be accused of Québec bashing, but when a company in Montreal is franco-dominated, there is a tendency to be, let's call it nepotistic, so that a member of the "family" calls the shots for the "outsiders", regardless of ability, understanding or basic competence. It's not always been my experience and the top companies don't do it but, it definitely happens more than it should. Especially those doing work for the provincial government or directly with schools/healthcare facilities.

Source: the child of Mediterranean immigrants born and bred in Montreal, with experience in startups, SMEs and one of the Big Telcos

This isn't a uniquely Francophone issue in Canada. I'm in Metro Vancouver and every immigrant ethnic group does this same thing. My manager had to pull someone off of our hiring panel because he literally said "I need to support people from my village in India to help them get a better life. I'm only going to support hiring them."

People hire from their own network. If you were educated outside of Canada or have religious groups or other common cultural groups, then you'll tap into that network to hire. I've worked at companies with less than 100 people to companies with more than 10,000 people and team composition tends towards the manager's background.

> when a company in Montreal is franco-dominated, there is a tendency to be, let's call it nepotistic

There's a lot of cronyism in tech. You know the saying - your network is your net worth. I've heard what you're saying about Montreal, but I've also seen it all over the world.

> As to whether it's the standard Canadian culture, I'd say from personal experience and what I've seen with friends/family it is more common in the crown corps and tech oligopolies (i.e., Bell, Telus). So when you say Top 5, I'm not surprised the manager did this and got away with it.

I'm not sure I would label a state company or a telecom operator a "top" tech company. At least, here in the Valley it wouldn't get that label.

> That, and I know I'll be accused of Québec bashing, but when a company in Montreal is franco-dominated, there is a tendency to be, let's call it nepotistic, so that a member of the "family" calls the shots for the "outsiders", regardless of ability, understanding or basic competence. It's not always been my experience and the top companies don't do it but, it definitely happens more than it should.

We acquired a small company in Montreal a few years ago, and it's something the founders touched-on: they placed much a larger emphasis on French language skills when hiring than we initially assumed they would. In retrospect, the decision made sense; the founders and early employees were all native French speakers, so all the internal communications were in French. Ultimately it didn't matter in the long run: most of the key employees relocated to the Bay Area.

Post-acquisition we had to let go an employee for a weird attitude problem regarding language. One of the frequent arguments he had with everyone was that he insisted he didn't need to learn French to live in Montreal and was somehow hostile to the language. I honestly questioned why he immigrated there in the first place when there's 50 states and 9 other provinces he could go to and live exclusively in English? I get he probably couldn't pass the higher bar for US immigration but that still leaves 2/3rd of Canada to go to.

> Especially those doing work for the provincial government or directly with schools/healthcare facilities.

My understanding is that these contracts often have a clause that deliverables must be shipped in French. Especially for stuff that's customer-facing (like education or healthcare!).

Someone told me that, when dealing with the federal government for contracts, speaking French helps a lot. Since it's so much harder to offshore positions where French is required, you almost always get to speak with a real government employee and not a contractor. On a project he worked on only the manager 2 levels up was an actual government employee, because it was legally required for the contact point with contractors to be bilingual. Needless to say, he used his high school French to bypass two levels of IST time zoned "Project Solution Architect" and "Senior Project Analysts"...

Stay there, do nothing, take the paycheck and work on yourself: - brush up on your skills - start / contribute to a few projects, create a portfolio (I don't know what's your work experience) - start applying for jobs <- maybe I should have started with this.

You owe nothing to that company, at the end of the day you're just one name in someone's Excel file, the whole "family at work" trend is something awful that should not have been born, so you better get out of that.

Good luck!

Yes, this. Learn a few new things, then start looking for a remote job on the first company's dime. When you get the new job, prioritize the new job until the old job decides to fire you. But, not before soaking up some sick and vacation time while increasing your savings.

It sounds like your manager is non-verbally messaging you to look for another job. In his defence, that is somewhat better than laying you off or putting you on a PIP, so as others have said, it's probably a good idea to look for another job.

In any case, for your personal growth, it is helpful to understand why things have gone wrong between you and the manager (or the whole team).

One of your theories seems to be that the manager brought in a friend to boot you out. That would explain his behavior, but not that everyone else on the team is giving you the cold shoulder.

I am purely guessing at this point, and I don't want to offend you - but it is possible that you have upset the whole team. Either slowly through your behavior, or there was a meeting, or something else. This may have been fully unintentional by you, and you do not seem to be aware of it. For your next job, it'd be helpful for you to understand what has gone wrong!

Your text reads like you're not a native speaker? I'm not either ;) If you move between cultures, there may be things that are acceptable in your own culture, but not in the culture you moved to. E.g. the way to disagree or discuss things. Maybe that's the area where this misunderstanding has come from?

You could try to approach a team mate, or the manager, and ask openly about the situation. Tell them you sense something is wrong, you don't understand what you have done wrong, but you'd like to fix it.

I was in a similar situation late last year - top performer, no raise for years, lots of talk about how valuable I am, but little tangible reward. I was earning a decent salary, but not commensurate with my skills, experience and individual contribution.

What did I do? I continued to be the same top performer. I killed every task assigned to me and developed valuable IP in my spare time. I helped recruit and train new hires. I also wrote a very detailed email to my manager and exec team detailing my contribution, my vision for the next two years and my request for a significant raise. At the same time, I updated my resume and LinkedIn profile. I low-key began posting about my side projects and researching other positions in my career progression path.

After some time, my management team came back with a minimal raise - a token amount - and a promise to review it again in the new year. Concurrently, I was crushing my interviews at another firm and quickly received an offer for a position well-suited to my skills and interests at approximately 75% more than my previous salary. The new equity package is also a significant improvement. I accepted the offer, and now I'm crushing it for someone else.

I harbor no hard feelings against my previous employer - how they were operating wasn't personal, just business. Likewise, I'm sure they appreciate that my leaving wasn't personal, just business.

Others have commented on your situation, I have advice for managers:

   - Never stop 1:1s without explanation.
   - Never stop 1:1s without transition. Every employee needs continual 1:1 meeting time. This is for them, not for you.
   - Directly communicate about changes like the ones mentioned here. The information vacuum will be filled: any info you leave out will be created with gossip / assumptions.

There's more factors involved in your decision to stay or leave, but your manager definitely broke some pretty basic ground rules. Here's how I see it: You don't work for your manager, your manager should work for you.

>I was told that you are the best engineer in the whole organization.

>This is top 5 tech companies in Canada.

Choose one. No top 5 tech company would ignore a golden hen, and if they do, they will certainly feel it when you are gone. If your replacement is "up to speed" doing everything you were doing after a short training period - then this also waters down your claims of the above. I would honestly get an interview with a recruiter and see where you land on the engineer spectrum.

Top engineers in any organization that size will be known to management.

Some thoughts: Maybe your salary was very high when you came on originally? Did you negotiate it up a lot? Is your compensation equity-based and that part has picked up a lot vs your salary? In all big companies, there is an annual raise that corresponds to inflation - this is almost mandated at all companies so unless you had a sub-par performance review OR your comp package included something other than salary - it would be almost unheard of to have a salary frozen for 3 years, given even benchmark inflation was very high last year.

There are definitely some things not lining up here but giving you the benefit of the doubt:

Interview at the 4 bigger tech companies and see what you can get for an offer. If you get an offer, you use that as leverage to get a raise at your current job - or you take it. If you don't get an offer, then you stay put and have a meeting with your manager first, and if nothing comes of it or if you get blown off, then have a meeting with HR without your manager present. If neither of those things work, you can always adjust your output accordingly (9-5 mindset) since there seems to be no difference between high output and average for your role.

Quit. Been there myself, and it became obvious what my manager was upto, i helped the new team members get upto speed just like you, and taught them everything i knew about the product, but along with that, i also quit the organization. I knew this wasn't the kinda workplace i wanted to be in. I didn't receive a single hike or promotion for 3+ years, even though i was considered critical to the team before the arrival of the new team members (whom i eventually trained).

I raised concerns about my stagnation and brought up issues with the team and also confronted about the new team members getting personally trained on the product by me without showing me a roadmap for myself to get to the next level. He was acting smart i felt, and then eventually decided to move on.

Once i quit, i was offered ridiculous sums of money to withdraw my resignation however, i didn't accept the counter offer and left the place. Post my resignation, a lot of people resigned from that team, and subsequently that manager was fired (i came to know after i had left the org).

It's important to get some facts first and not work off of your assumptions. No matter how strongly you sense that you're "getting the cold shoulder from everyone else", it could just be intesified by your emotions.

Schedule a 1:1 with you manager. Don't reveal the agenda, but be polite and just say you want to discuss some things.

During the meeting get the answers to your questions. This time you can be direct (but still polite). If your manager is beating around the bush / sugar coating, your initial senses were probably right.

New job time.

>My salary has been the same from the day I joined in 2019.

Have you not pushed for one at all? If you don't even get an inflationary raise, you shouldn't stay for one year, let alone three.

Right ... a zero percent raise, especially in an inflationary environment, means you have been getting a pay cut for each of the past 3 years.

Yeah, just as valid to think of it as "I've taken a real pay cut three or four years in a row".

A similar situation happened to me this last year at a small startup. In the end I determined, after exhausting what felt like all my options, that the only thing I could change was myself and I left the company. It's wasn't an easy choice, and it's still hard to figure out where to put the anger and the betrayal when it pops up.

It's easy to sacrifice one's happiness in an effort to validate one's effort. I saw myself becoming a cancer and also recognized that I had done all I could to to course correct and the organization has moved on, so it was time for me to move on too.

Don't be somewhere that doesn't want you. Breaking up is hard, but if the relationship isn't working it's best for all parties.

Bonne chance, mon gar.

Ty for sharing this <3 was very meaningful

No offense but at a top 5 tech company in Canada the top engineer isn't going to be an IC. They're a principal and definitely leading a team. Also the biggest tech cos have regular cost of living salary increases, especially during the pandemic when retention was poor.

Something doesn't add up here, it seems like hot-shit-new-grad-itis. Where you throw yourself in a role as a relatively junior person and wildly overperform, but then over time you slow down the unsustainable pace, and people have higher expectations, and you just begin to meet expectations instead of wildly exceeding them. It seems really common in people for whom programming comes naturally.

I'm closing on 25 years of being a programmer, some of them being a manager, and, on top of that, worked in other industries... through all these years I've met very few good programmers. Probably less than 10, maybe significantly less than 10. I've never met good managers. The spectrum in management seems to be from "passable" to "what a train-wreck!".

So... it sucks to be in your position, but... it will happen again. It sucks to miss the benefits of working in the same place for a long time, but it also sucks to have a toxic environment to work in.

One thing I never tried in my career is to start my own business. I'm too afraid and repulsed by the need to do accounting, beg for sponsorship and deal with people in general. But, that's me. Many people seem to like that, or at least not to mind it as much. I'm mentioning this as just one more option on the menu, not the solution to your situation. One thing I'm sure of: the more I was my own boss (i.e. progressing towards the management), the less I had to worry about the kind of interactions you are facing. It never goes away, of course, but the most petty and vengeful people are somehow always the lowest level of management in any organization. It gets better if you are just a grunt or the more you progress up the hierarchy, especially in big corporations where nobody really cares about much the higher up in the hierarchy they are.

This sort of behaviour isn't a one off. It also isn't universal. You'll be able to find the same at other companies but you'll also be able to avoid it. Researching the place before you sign up is prudent.

The feedback you won't like is that it's partially self inflicted. If you change company and combine working very hard with looking like you're happy with a pay cut each year (inflation is a thing) again, you'll be exploited again.

The lesson here is that you have to look out for yourself. After you didn't get a raise (despite being told you're the best) in your first performance review, you should have done two things.

1. Immediately expressed disappointment and asked for an explanation of why you didn't receive a raise despite the feedback. They're probably not going to give you a raise at that point, but it makes clear that you're unhappy and comp adjustments are important to you. That way when they're making comp decisions at the next cycle, they can intuit that there will be consequences if they don't give you a raise.

2. ~6 months before the next comp adjustment cycle, remind your manager that you were disappointed not to have a raise last time, you've continued to outperform your peers, and it's extremely important to you to receive a significant raise in the upcoming cycle to feel valued by the company. Repeat this speech once review time starts.

After not getting a raise for two cycles (whether you took the above two steps or not), you get a new job. Why are you sticking around at a place that doesn't treat you well when you're a high-performing employee with an in-demand skillset? They're treating you poorly because you allow them to treat you poorly while still getting the work they need from you. You have to advocate for yourself in your career (and the rest of your life). You're asking how to handle this situation best, but it's honestly obvious - you know what you want, so go ask for it, and if you don't get it, go somewhere else where you can get it. You don't need advice on what to do, you just need to go stick up for yourself.

I've been dealing with the "you're the best....sorry no raise" for a while, you just have to decide if it's worth staying? What I don't deal with is management trying to replace me, like they are trying to replace you. I suggest looking for something new, yo seemed to have hit a brick wall at your company and it really doesn't matter who's at fault or the reason, it's just time to go.

Remember: it's CHEAP to tell someone they are the best but not pay them more. If it keeps you around....

Listen, there’s an unfortunate lesson to be learned here.

Job hoppers earn a lot more, over time. It sounds like it’s time to go. Perhaps there’s another department you could move to, as well? Otherwise, time to spend a weekend or two on Leetcode and then wrangle up some interviews.

I suspect something else is going on here, and without further details, I have to assume that leaving to a higher-paying job would be best for you.

1000% this. You should never stay at one job longer than 5 years, and I think 3 years per job is probably optimal. There are people that will tell you that "job hopping" will catch up with you, but those people are dead wrong.

Maybe I'm in a bubble, but it'd never occur to me that 3-year stints is a strike against you. That's just normal—company wants you longer than 3 years, they can pay for it, if not, well, they know what happens. Having one or two 5ish-year ones in your history, once you've got enough for that to be possible, does probably help some though.

To validate your gut feeling here, it is very strange for a manager to stop having 1:1s with their reports just because the team has a new lead.

As others have said, your best option is to do two things at once: look around, and voice your concerns. You clearly don't like the environment; even in this market, there are lots of other options; why not explore those options? Reach out to friends, ex-colleagues, whatever.

In the meantime, make it clear that you feel unsupported and unrecognised, and that these are dealbreakers for you if not fixed quickly and decisively. If your manager doesn't listen, set up a skip-level meeting. If your skip-level doesn't listen, well, that's an even better sign that you should be planning your exit. If either of them do listen, you have a strong chance of either a) getting a raise and renewed support or b) understanding the situation better (which, though it doesn't always solve the situation, can remove some stress / toxicity from it.)

If you feel you deserve the lead role, say that directly! Provide evidence to support your position - not just technical things you've built / shipped, but also (especially?) anything where you've helped organise work for others, or communicated changes outwards, or worked with Product / Design effectively, etc.

As a small counterpoint: if you feel that you've been doing an extraordinary amount of effort, and they just cut a bunch of people, it may be that the team does need an extra person! No one should be in the position of needing to put in extraordinary effort for 3 years. For the vast majority of people, that leads to burnout; this is especially true in the stressful environment of mass layoffs, where people are often asked to do extra work to cover for their coworkers who were fired.

You're about to be let go. It's not fair, but I bet it's going to happen anyway. Start looking.

> Last year when performance review meeting happened just like every other year, I was told that you are the best engineer in the whole organization. For these years, I have not got a single dollar raise or promotion.

Don't stay at a place that isn't interested in keeping your pay in line with inflation. Unless you can reduce your work output to match. Effectively, this was a reduction in salary.

> I am a nice person

Was this happening: Did you make an "invisible deal" where you do X and magically expect Y to happen without an explicit agreement? It can work sometimes, but it depends on people other than you to be nice, and if you haven't empirically confirmed that, then you'll probably just be taken advantage of.

It sounds like you did confirm that, but then things changed. That's not your fault, but it does happen.

> I put an extraordinary amount of work effort in the company for 3 years. I

Don't work for free anymore.

I’d prioritize finding someone else in the company that can give you another viewpoint on the situation. These types of situations make us feel isolated, so see if you can find a way to be “seen”, even if it’s by someone who has no way to help you professionally.

The get the heck out of there and find somewhere that is willing to treat you with more respect.

This happened to me. I was eventually laid-off in favor of the guy with less experience (my 20 years vs his 4). I have a tonne of experience vs his just starting to use linux when he was onboarded. I had been with the company for 6 years. We both made the same $.

It was fucking horrible. Tell them how you feel about the situation. Start looking elsewhere.

I'd advice against 'tell then how you feel about the situation', I'd rather not voice what I feel (as it may be that I'm biased or that it would let too much of information out). The advice to start looking and interviewing is good thing to do, don't tell anyone that you are doing this as there is good chance this information will spread.

Just find a new gig. I also worked from 2019-2022 for a company without a raise for 3 years. Arguably, I stayed six months too long, but we were doing some greenfield stuff that was actually fun.

There's no need to over-analyze or justify it either. Get a 20% minimum bump by switching employers, like every other person here would do.

Have a discussion. Present your case and listen to your manager's response. I can't speak for all managers, but I've never met a reasonable manager who wanted to drive our a good engineer even in this economy. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding along the way? Don't listen to the people who presume all managers are bad, have bad motive, want to screw you for stochastic reasons, or are 100% willing to execute their manager's bad plan. A lot of managers are ex engineers just like you that want to build great products, enjoy work and their engineering brains still exist and don't want to be a*h*les.

I have seen nepotism first hand so I know it is a real thing.

But in the same time I also have been in situation where I hated a manager from another division who was clear he wanted to take over my team. I did not manage those emotions well enough, and they were easy to exploit. Also the fact that the guy was having regular evening phone calls with people from my team, led to creation of very toxic situation. People can be very methodic when they really want to achieve something, in such situation you are either more methodic or you submit to the situation. In such situation a lot depends on who you can talk to in your workplace and what is their position in hierarchy.

I'd advice you calm down and make a mental work of decoupling your life at work from emotions you experience. Make yourself a list of priorities that you want to achieve and work towards achieving them in a well planned way. If making more money is one of them then you need to have plan B which you can fall back if/when you don't get that in your current place. If having nice environment at work is another item on your list then you want to work around your emotions/ambitions or jump to another company.

I personally would start making moves to leave as soon as I was asked to train my replacement. But again the situation is probably a bit more complicated than you think it is - or maybe it is not? :)

Good luck.

> How to handle this situation best?

You haven't explained what you'd like to see change. What are you after exactly? A raise? Higher social standing within the company?

When you know what you want to change, you'll be in a position to consider how feasible that change will be based on your 3 years of experience at the company.

If your desired changes are not feasible, I'd say find another position immediately.

Actually, I'd suggest doing that regardless of how feasible the changes will be. It's a lot easier to negotiate with another job offer on the table. If you can't find another offer, then you may have to re-evaluate your asks.

Your manager is obviously hoping you will just leave and save him the hassle of managing you out if the business.

IMO: talking to him about the situation is a mistake and may force his hand. You’ll be out on a PIP and setup to fail.

Line up another job - then talk to your manager.

Don’t burn any bridges with the current company. No point trying to get petty revenge on your current manager. You’ve just found a better opportunity and can’t turn it down.

First, I'd talk to your manager directly. From what I can tell, this can either improve your situation, or just confirm to you more that you should leave.

I hate (have experience this myself) when instead of compensation for hard work, you receive fairly empty praise like "you're the best engineer we have". If I am, please pay me accordingly. This doesn't mean jumping you to principal engineer or anything, but it does mean to at least give you a raise. No raise or promotion in those three high performing years as their described best engineer seems absurd. In a lot of places, you need to vouch for yourself and maybe this is one of those places. You're the only person that's going to prioritize yourself.

I'd definitely sit down with you boss and tell him how you feel (write notes before hand) and be honest with them. Honestly, I'd start passively looking for jobs now. If things work out with your current employer, you can always still stay, but this will give you a jump start and an idea of your market worth.

I really wish you the best of luck. Worst case, I'm sure you'll be able to find another position that will compensate you appropriately.

I asked ChatGPT to read your question and write an email.

Prompt: Read the following diary entry from a worker. Write an email he could send to his manager outlining his concerns. The goal of the email is to create a productive path forward for the employee to continue in their job while feeling like they are appropriately compensated and fully engaged.

Results:

Subject: Request for a meeting to discuss my concerns about my current situation

Dear [Manager's Name],

I hope this email finds you well. I would like to request a meeting with you to discuss my current situation and concerns at the company.

As you are aware, I have been with the company for the past three years and have consistently given my best effort in my work. In our performance review meeting last year, I was told that I am the best engineer in the organization. Despite this recognition, I have not received any raises or promotions in the past three years and my salary has remained the same since my joining in 2019.

Recently, there was an addition of another engineer to our team, who was brought on during the mass layoffs. I understand that this person has a prior relationship with you, which may be that of a friend. Despite there being no requirement for another engineer, I took it upon myself to train this person to bring them up to speed. However, since this person has learned all that I know, I have noticed a change in the behavior of my manager towards me and a lack of communication in our 1:1 meetings. Additionally, this person who I trained has now been assigned a lead role and is giving me directions. This whole situation has become toxic for me and is affecting my work satisfaction.

I believe that it is important for me to feel appropriately compensated and engaged in my work. I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this matter with you and find a productive path forward.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Best regards, [Your Name]

Sounds like you have two legit gripes. Not enough pay and not getting assigned lead roles. You have to complain to your manager about both. Maybe you will get one or the other. If you get none, well, then ask why not. Get an honest assessment about why. And do an honest assessment about why this guy might be better than you. Maybe you just have a bad manager or a manager that values other things.

I had a similar experience. New guy came in. Was not as good of a developer, got less done, but manager liked him better. I complained, and got more pay while other guy got promotion. I was better at getting shit done, new guy was better at communicating, plain and simple, and manager liked that better. Story of my life.

> I was told that you are the best engineer in the whole organization.

> For these years, I have not got a single dollar raise or promotion.

Actions speak louder than words and it is your own fault for accepting this. Find a new job and get a big raise.

If you end up leaving (whether of your own volition or because they terminate your employment) and they ever call you back to ask a few questions or do any work, you should definitely quote them an absurdly high hourly rate.

Your first mistake was not leaving 2 years ago after getting a glowing performance review and they gave you nothing.

You should be preparing to find another job asap. There’s no reason to be staying in a situation like this.

> This is top 5 tech companies in Canada. If this is the kind of culture promoted here, how are other companies doing?

I wanna address this point. Even amazing companies will have shitty teams and managers. Conversely, companies with generally toxic reputations (like Amazon) will have amazing teams. Also: many startups kinda have to have a good culture since they lack the means to compensate you as well as bigger firms.

All of this to say: humans are very loss averse. There will be better/worse teams everywhere. Try to invest some effort into finding one that works for you.

Get out. The same thing happened to me and my mental health has yet to recover. There is nothing you can do about it. This is the oligarchy of capitalism, the HR team, sorry the "Human Capital Management" team is only there to execute the bidding of the management hierarchy. The sooner you leave, the sooner you heal.

> This is top 5 tech companies in Canada. If this is the kind of culture promoted here, how are other companies doing?

just because its a top company, doesnt mean it treats ALL its employees better than other companies... Each team is usually a microcosm which runs itself as youve witnessed. The same applies elsewhere, a non-fortune500 company can have great teams and culture. It doesnt need an office slide or a professional chef to be a strong culture.

Can the guy actually do your job or is he just expressing supreme confidence? I would not feel threatened by a cocky newb, its normal for a newb to be cocky especially when he knows hes walking onto a bloated lead title. Now he's your lead, make him do the work you don't want to do, what else is a lead for? You are the most senior engineer, relax take the work you want.

Having this conversation with your “boss” or whoever you’ve temporality assigned authority over you and your life would be a great start.

What do you want? Communicate that, clearly and without making them wrong.

Better if you can understand what your boss and company are wanting to accomplish and avoid, and then showing them that the most direct way to get that is by giving you what you want.

Just go for a different team. Your manager doesn't care about you, other managers only know about you from your manager.

I've had managers who strong me along before, it often happens because they perceive you as unable to move to the next level for valid or invalid reasons. It makes their job easier to tell you what you want to hear.

> My 1:1 meetings has not happened for last few months.

What do you mean is "hasn't happened"? You didn't ask for it? Or your manager ignored your requests for several months?

If it's the former you should grow some balls and ask for one, if it's the latter you should GTFO right now

Something I read on HN:

  People don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers.

Good luck.

Why would you get a cold shoulder from the rest of the team?

Aside from that, this doesn't sound surprising to me. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I've seen similar stuff over my 10 years working for a company that markets itself as a place that cares.

I think every except this part paints one picture:

> I am getting cold shoulder treatment from everyone else on team

But the above paints another.

Is there some reason the whole team would change in unison towards you that is related to your manager?

They all know OP is being "managed out" i.e. constructive dismissal?

Managing out isn't necessarily the same as constructive dismissal. It often just means (intentionally) sidelining someone so they get the hint. If you're self-sufficient and don't mind finding other things to do with your time, that game doesn't work very well. That's when you might get invited to a chat to negotiate a payout to leave (not sure if this is legal in Canada). Might be worth hanging in there for this, or just bail now.

make sure you're vested, then leave soon as the check clears

Look for a new job, you deserve a raise

Go make more money somewhere else

There's a lot to unpack here. There are three lessons here:

1. No one is going to advocate for your interests other than you;

2. How hard you work doesn't matter. It may even be detrimental. What matters is how your work is perceived. Hopefully that correlates with adding value to the business (and you should be able to quantify that) but that's not necessarily true; and

3. Listen to the money. Words cost nothing.

Big companies are political. You will often find you get the best results merely ingratiating yourself with various key people and talking a lot about how hard your job is and how amazing the things you've done are.

Even bringing up problems to your manager can hurt you. Often you won't be rewarded for foreseeing a problem. You'll be punished for being negative. Your manager may simply not be talking to you because you (in their mind) "create" problems.

Let me put another way: if you anticipate a problem and fixes it before it becomes a problem there's a good chance you'll get absolutely zero credit for it. But if things blow up spectacularly and you come in and save the day? Well, you're hte hero.

As for your manager bringing in a friend. It might be a friend. More likely (IME) is it's someone your manager has simply decided they like. They may like them because the new engineer doesn't "create" problems. It could be as simple as some common background (eg same college) or it could just be vibes.

As for being told you are the "best engineer", words cost nothing. If that praise doesn't translate into some kind of reward (eg promotion or direct compensation) it means exactly nothing. You will find a lot of managers wil learn who can be assuaged with words.

Listen to the money.

As for getting the "cold shoulder" treatment, it could be that the rest of your team can see which way the wind is blowing and don't want to get on your manager's bad side. A lot of work life is simply currying favor. But you need to take a good, hard look at how you conduct yourself at work. Why? Because it could be that they just don't like you.

The reasons for this can be (and often are) completely superficial. Maybe they view you as negative. Maybe you don't know how to carry a conversation. Maybe you don't ask them about themselves. Maybe you one-up them. Who knows?

Engineers tend to be more introverted and less socially skilled on the whole than the general population (IME). Learning social skills and learning how to be liked will take you so far in life. I cannot overstate this. Being liked can be the difference between "failing to deliver" and "trying hard against impossible odds with learnings that we take to future projects" for the exact same set of facts.

Move on

I don't want to assume it's you at all. Vitamin B is a real thing and there are shitty managers out there but was there anything else going on?

Are you overly sexist? Bitchy? Difficult?

If not use your time to find something better! You probably can't win this game.

One thing you could try: ask everyone on your team in private what you could do to be better.

Perhaps this might shine up something.

Vitamin B is used in Germany as a euphemism for favoritism or nepotism. B is the first letter of Beziehung which means relationship.

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