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What you did wrong is exactly what so many do wrong: Your market worth is defined by your market worth, not by how much effort you put in. Go out on the market

What you did wrong is exactly what so many do wrong: Your market worth is defined by your market worth, not by how much effort you put in. Go out on the market. Update your resume, try to get an offer. Be ready to accept it. Negotiate with your manager and show them empirical evidence you're worth more. The reason you have to be willing to accept the other offer is that the moment you approach your manager with it, they might decide to replace you rather than promote you. But counterintuitively, your willingness to accept the other offer will work in your favor and is more likely to get you promoted than replaced. Do not under any circumstances assume that loyalty to your job will be rewarded in any way. The fact that your manager was willing to let you work 70 hour weeks for a year is evidence you were being taken advantage of. That's life, though. The way to win is to play the game. (There are situations where letting an employee work 50+ hour weeks is justifiable, e.g. if the employee goes into it with eyes wide open and without any implicit promises of future promotion or future compensation increases. Quarterly reviews with salary increases would also take it out of the "being taken advantage of" category.) As a final note, it's very common for employees to force themselves to work crazy hours without any encouragement from management. It's not necessarily management's job to stop you from doing that, though a good manager will. I did this to myself my first couple of jobs, and had only myself to blame. I'm not saying you necessarily were doing that, but it's such a common story for someone to come into the industry with something to prove and convince themselves to dedicate their life to their job to the exclusion of all else. Go home each day after putting in 8 hours. The door's right there. If you work harder than that, you should feel like you're getting an excellent deal out of it. And no, promoting you doesn't automatically count as an excellent deal. You should still probably work 8 hours outside of very special situations. EDIT: If you're feeling upset that you got taken advantage of, don't sweat it. A year isn't such a big deal in the scheme of things. You're far more equipped now for your upcoming years than one year ago, for example.

patrickmn 9y ago
This is really excellent advice. Too many people work too hard for too long before learning this the hard way. By all means do a good job, but don't kill yourself. Your employer will not do the same for you.
Clubber 9y ago
When I was a young chicken, I thought all I had to do was work hard and I would be appreciated and promoted. This was 20+ years ago and it was no truer then than it is today. Know your worth. You need to calculate in your head how much you save the company through automation and take it back to the pen / paper and filing cabinet days. It's probably in the hundreds of thousands a year. If a company is expecting you to kill yourself, it's because of their screw up. The guy asking you will take the credit for the miracle you provided because of his excellent management skills. The OP should take that as the slap in the face that it is and move on to a company that is more appreciative of his skills. Also, don't work for cheap, it dilutes the craft.
fizixer 9y ago
There is also a possibility that the manager would convince the employee to stay, and even give promotion, while behind the scenes start a replacement process, so that in a few weeks when the employee has rejected the other offer, he/she is fired from this company too. I wonder if there's a way to protect against that.
- kamaal 9y ago
  There is. You should try to see through what the manager has in plan. If its a case of negotiation it might work. But if you are nothing more than a work donkey to him, and he likely has other pets at office who will receive his favors regardless, just take the new offer and leave.
- shubhamjain 9y ago
  That's absolutely insane. I would be expecting that only from the most depraved workplaces. How often does something like that happen?
  - eropple 9y ago
    Regularly. Never to me, but I've watched it be done to others.
    - skrebbel 9y ago
      Just out of spite? Is there any business advantage?
      - zem 9y ago
        yes; it's expensive and disruptive to find a replacement for someone on short notice. this way, they get to take their time finding and/or training the replacement, while the original employee works for them. it's a few months of extra salary for a tangible benefit.
        9y ago
x0x0 9y ago
I was with you until you said negotiate with the current manager. Unless OP came up with this 70 hour a week thing all on his or her own, his or her manager had some hand in leading OP to believe that delivering this platform (or whatever) would get the promotion OP wants. One of the most basic responsibilities a manager has to a report is managing the report's career, ie what work merits a promotion. So either OP made some stuff up entirely in OP's head with no input from OP's manager (bad, a manager should be proactively discussing this) or OP's manager led OP astray (really bad). Either way, I'd suggest rolling the dice and starting over elsewhere. And this time, OP needs to be really clear with the new manager on what OP wants and what work or deliverables gets OP there.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Unfortunately it's possible that they did indeed decide to work 70 hour weeks. I made that mistake early in my career. You're right that if they were pushing him to work these insane hours for months then it's time to politely part ways. Such abuse was common in the gamedev industry: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/ http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/
- kamaal 9y ago
  >>And this time, be really clear with your new manager on what you want and what work or deliverables get you there. In many cases even this doesn't work. That is unfortunately how toxic politics really is. Politics is an art of manipulating people and deceiving them into doing things. In the case you mentioned, its possible that the manager will agree for the deliverables on hand. When the time for reward comes, they will simply say there were other contenders and delivered more than you did. You can't argue much from there, because they will start throwing in the 'confidentiality' card saying "You don't know how much more the other guy delivered". Its always easy to say this because you don't have any way of verifying it. And calling their BS on their face means permanently damaging your relationship. Then you have no option but to leave. In short: If you have this kind of a manager, stop fighting the system, just leave.
- nunez 9y ago
  but it is entirely possible that OP worked on this after hours without their manager ever knowing or masking their real work with this work. i've met MANY engineers that gladly volunteered several hours after work on things they felt were important for their team or company. That's fine and all, but if there wasn't a conversation beforehand that expressed a need for that work, then the risk of those hours being for naught is high.
peteforde 9y ago
Recommend that you don't attempt to stay; you should clearly move. Never take a promotion offered to convince you to stay.
- fizixer 9y ago
  Yeah that's more my line of thinking. Have a job ready but ask for a promotion without revealing that you have an offer. If they promote, great. If they don't, just leave. If they delay or waffle over the decision, leave. The delay tactics are to pressure the employee psychologically to reveal that he/she has an offer and needs to know about a promotion decision by such and such date. Also it's a good idea to do this around the time of the company's annual review/promotion period (it's not easy to have perfect timing but good to try).
  - peteforde 9y ago
    The only thing I can say to that is that you can likely get a job at a company that doesn't have an annual moment where reviews and promotions are carried out. That is actually bonkers and once you've broken free you'll look back and wonder why "the time where you either get a promotion or not" ever seemed sane. :) I'm really excited for you.
nunez 9y ago
While I think there is more that OP could have done to demonstrate value, I agree that interviewing and assessing your worth against the market is critical. If salary is a factor for you, it can be the difference between a $5,000 increase in pay vs a $25,000 increase.

patrickmn 9y ago

This is really excellent advice. Too many people work too hard for too long before learning this the hard way. By all means do a good job, but don't kill yourself. Your employer will not do the same for you.

Clubber 9y ago

When I was a young chicken, I thought all I had to do was work hard and I would be appreciated and promoted. This was 20+ years ago and it was no truer then than it is today. Know your worth. You need to calculate in your head how much you save the company through automation and take it back to the pen / paper and filing cabinet days. It's probably in the hundreds of thousands a year. If a company is expecting you to kill yourself, it's because of their screw up. The guy asking you will take the credit for the miracle you provided because of his excellent management skills. The OP should take that as the slap in the face that it is and move on to a company that is more appreciative of his skills. Also, don't work for cheap, it dilutes the craft.

fizixer 9y ago

There is also a possibility that the manager would convince the employee to stay, and even give promotion, while behind the scenes start a replacement process, so that in a few weeks when the employee has rejected the other offer, he/she is fired from this company too. I wonder if there's a way to protect against that.

kamaal 9y ago
There is. You should try to see through what the manager has in plan. If its a case of negotiation it might work. But if you are nothing more than a work donkey to him, and he likely has other pets at office who will receive his favors regardless, just take the new offer and leave.
shubhamjain 9y ago
That's absolutely insane. I would be expecting that only from the most depraved workplaces. How often does something like that happen?
- eropple 9y ago
  Regularly. Never to me, but I've watched it be done to others.
  - skrebbel 9y ago
    Just out of spite? Is there any business advantage?
    - zem 9y ago
      yes; it's expensive and disruptive to find a replacement for someone on short notice. this way, they get to take their time finding and/or training the replacement, while the original employee works for them. it's a few months of extra salary for a tangible benefit.
      - 9y ago

x0x0 9y ago

I was with you until you said negotiate with the current manager. Unless OP came up with this 70 hour a week thing all on his or her own, his or her manager had some hand in leading OP to believe that delivering this platform (or whatever) would get the promotion OP wants. One of the most basic responsibilities a manager has to a report is managing the report's career, ie what work merits a promotion. So either OP made some stuff up entirely in OP's head with no input from OP's manager (bad, a manager should be proactively discussing this) or OP's manager led OP astray (really bad). Either way, I'd suggest rolling the dice and starting over elsewhere. And this time, OP needs to be really clear with the new manager on what OP wants and what work or deliverables gets OP there.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Unfortunately it's possible that they did indeed decide to work 70 hour weeks. I made that mistake early in my career. You're right that if they were pushing him to work these insane hours for months then it's time to politely part ways. Such abuse was common in the gamedev industry: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/ http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/
kamaal 9y ago
>>And this time, be really clear with your new manager on what you want and what work or deliverables get you there. In many cases even this doesn't work. That is unfortunately how toxic politics really is. Politics is an art of manipulating people and deceiving them into doing things. In the case you mentioned, its possible that the manager will agree for the deliverables on hand. When the time for reward comes, they will simply say there were other contenders and delivered more than you did. You can't argue much from there, because they will start throwing in the 'confidentiality' card saying "You don't know how much more the other guy delivered". Its always easy to say this because you don't have any way of verifying it. And calling their BS on their face means permanently damaging your relationship. Then you have no option but to leave. In short: If you have this kind of a manager, stop fighting the system, just leave.
nunez 9y ago
but it is entirely possible that OP worked on this after hours without their manager ever knowing or masking their real work with this work. i've met MANY engineers that gladly volunteered several hours after work on things they felt were important for their team or company. That's fine and all, but if there wasn't a conversation beforehand that expressed a need for that work, then the risk of those hours being for naught is high.

peteforde 9y ago

Recommend that you don't attempt to stay; you should clearly move. Never take a promotion offered to convince you to stay.

fizixer 9y ago
Yeah that's more my line of thinking. Have a job ready but ask for a promotion without revealing that you have an offer. If they promote, great. If they don't, just leave. If they delay or waffle over the decision, leave. The delay tactics are to pressure the employee psychologically to reveal that he/she has an offer and needs to know about a promotion decision by such and such date. Also it's a good idea to do this around the time of the company's annual review/promotion period (it's not easy to have perfect timing but good to try).
- peteforde 9y ago
  The only thing I can say to that is that you can likely get a job at a company that doesn't have an annual moment where reviews and promotions are carried out. That is actually bonkers and once you've broken free you'll look back and wonder why "the time where you either get a promotion or not" ever seemed sane. :) I'm really excited for you.

nunez 9y ago

While I think there is more that OP could have done to demonstrate value, I agree that interviewing and assessing your worth against the market is critical. If salary is a factor for you, it can be the difference between a $5,000 increase in pay vs a $25,000 increase.