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You're not alone on this. Similar story to yours. Every component of our system was developed by me, right down to the the business model as far as what users

You're not alone on this. Similar story to yours. Every component of our system was developed by me, right down to the the business model as far as what users do day-by-day. I didn't speak up from the start about ownership, and once the product was profitable I was kicked out. I'm still recovering from the burnout, now broke and unmotivated to move forward. Hundreds of users still spend their 9-5 hours looking at a user interface and performing their job that I'll never be credited for.

MuffinFlavored 8y ago
If it makes you feel any better, in the job market it made me realize my worth. I started making $40k/yr when I was 19 (because the investor/entrepreneur knew I'd do all of the work, had no other options, and would be hungry). At the end, I think he got me up to $120k/yr (no 401k, no a lot of stuff lol) but then deducted my pay because I argued back with him that I didn't want to do sales calls once. From there, it helped me negotiate higher salaries because I could say and prove "I can build entire web platforms front to back and maintain them (and architect/deploy them) in production". I don't make $350k/yr Netflix/Google money but... I do pretty well for my age/skill set/years of experience I think. I'd say the startup helped me go from junior to mid to senior level engineer quickly, and gave me the confidence in interviews to demand and know my (reasonable) worth. Let me know if you ever want to vent. I'd love to listen and console.