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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.

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.

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

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.

> 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?

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.

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 .

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.

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