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

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?

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 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!

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

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.

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.