I'm a junior dev, have been at this startup for over a year and have built 90% of the frontend. I learn very fast and work 60-80 hour workweeks by choice because I love the work and understand the potential of the business. I manage the codebase, write all the docs and style guides. But recently I've become very overworked, so we've hired a senior frontend dev that was supposed to mentor me and basically be the tech lead for the frontend.
The company's first year has been rocky, as the CEO has decided to change course drastically several times; we've built a version of our application in each JS framework, have switched from AWS to GCP to AWS again, have switched from a Lambda-based backend with Go/Python/Node to Java Spring, and have gone through 7 lead developers who have all quit and cautioned me to do the same.
So we hired a senior frontend dev who allegedly has 9 years experience and 4 years in our current JS framework of choice, which I have built a large application in already. After 4 months, the new tech lead has been awful, and my workload has increased by a large margin to fix her mistakes, broken code and Git disasters (they do NOT know how to use Git). I was involved in the hiring process and I definitely screwed up. I should've vetted them more aggressively, they are new to the country but I'm quite sure they lied on their resume. I asked the CEO to replace them, but the CEO decided to instead make me the tech lead (since I'm the only original dev at the startup) with a small bump in pay.
Since I was part of the hiring process, I also helped decide salary as our CEO is non-technical. I make a fair amount less than this new dev and am spending 1/3 of my time fixing their work, yet I am making less money. They finish around 1/10th of the user stories I finish and I'm starting to feel extremely undervalued. The CEO doesn't want to reduce their pay out of respect and the fact that our new dev is a female; the CEO doesn't want me making more because I'm male and have less experience on paper.
Then, last week, without warning, the CEO hires a contracted company of 3 devs to basically start the next component of the frontend that I was supposed to start, without telling me or even including me in meetings. Non of them have worked with our JS framework before, yet they're apparently going to handle a gigantic chunk of the app. This has increased my stress tenfold as I know I will need to fix their work as well, because I was told I am responsible for the frontend.
So I am now her superior but am not paid or treated as such due to fear of offending her. I asked specifically what my role was and the CEO said "if you say jump she should ask how high" yet I am not the one consulted on changes to the infrastructure or design at all and am not recognized for working and producing 10x more than her (and features that actually work, have been tested and don't require fixing).
What is going on? What should I do? I am a very passive person and have trouble confronting the CEO about this, mainly because I have only worked as a dev for 2 years and don't fully know my place. I know the CEO is also running another company at the same time and works even more than I do and I feel like a burden whenever I try to engage him. I am the quiet, head-down workaholic type. I have had significant interest for interviews from other companies (I have not been shopping around) so I am wondering how I can salvage this situation, because I am emotionally invested in this company and do not want to leave.