Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

Best to understand, however, there may be undesirable consequences. You might get them fired, or you might get yourself put in the doghouse b/c this person is the manager's sister in law.

But if there is unfairness in compensation, and it bothers you, address it. You may have quite a bit of leverage if you're holding the productivity line up, but you may shoot yourself (or your colleague) in the foot. My rec would be to focus on the impact of your work compared to your expectations.

Comp should be fair. I would not accept a situation where I feel I'm being treated unfairly.

(Now, if this colleague is not giving you more work, is not in the way of a raise or promo, and is not a bad person... you definitely don't owe the company any "efficiency gains" conversations. Let that person milk the situation, if it doesn't impact you!)

In my decade of experience I have witnessed people, technical people, who magically manage to just not do anything at all, ever. They jump from initiative to initiative without producing anything, and somehow still manage to get some credit with management.

Paradoxically, I find these people more among “tech lead” and managers roles, where their leverage is much higher and they could be having massive positive impact in the organization. I am acutely aware of how incredibly effective a tech lead or manager can be by providing the right context to a team in need even without directly contributing. Here I am not talking about this profile, I am talking about people who have no freaking clue, they are literally leeches who go from meeting to meeting pretending to make some insightful observation, then leave and repeat. The organization is too messy and they can move “faster than they can shoot them”.

The solution in my experience tends to be to go in small startups that are not run by mentally unstable founders: you’ll get paid less but typically people with zero/negative productivity won’t be found there, there’s not enough bureaucracy to support their façade. They’ll start coming once the headcount surpasses 200 or so.

Having said that, I think the safest advice is to make sure your work is correctly being attributed to yourself (i.e., they aren't taking credit for your work) and advocate for a raise for yourself as you normally would, just with more confidence. Clearly advocate for yourself and the work you are clearly doing and let management put the puzzle pieces together on their own.