My best recommendation is to work on your assertiveness. Asking for a raise or move teams is the correct thing to do. Think about it like this: * What is the w

My best recommendation is to work on your assertiveness. Asking for a raise or move teams is the correct thing to do. Think about it like this: * What is the worst that can happen? They can fire you. * What is the best that can happen? They can promote you. If you have 2 days per week allotted for programming then make those the last two days of the week. If they ask you to do anything ad hoc involving the application during the first three days of the week that time should be deducted from time in the last two days of the week. This also means accounting for your time in a ledger or time tracking tool that you can show them later. While doing that send one email per day about the status of your transfer. Send it to HR and CC your boss and the VP that keeps robbing you of your time. If after two weeks (10 emails) there is no a status update include the HR department head on the email as well. Be clear in these emails you are thrilled to be a team player and help out the company, however the time spent on these efforts lowers your potential compensation compared to your peers and deprives the employer of your talents to perform that application work full time. In my experience leadership is powerless to retain employees from lateral transfer when compensation and promotion are negatively impacted. If the stress of that job is impacting your health simultaneously be looking for other jobs outside of work hours. This takes time, maybe 3-6 months, so start on this immediately.