Lack of Visibility within the Team

Question

Everyone in my team affirm that I do a great job and that I am an important team member.

However, I always feel like I am out of the loop. I am not supposed to know anything related to backstage.

When I am CCed, I alwyas discover that a decision was just made at the last minute and that they are in trouble or something and they need someone capable of doing things, or at least someone to delegate their problems.

mundanely, I am always assigned difficult tasks.

A teammate was recently promoted and was assigned a hard task that was normally assigned to me.

I thought it was normal until I discover that this task has something to do with contract, and our customer is focusing on it among others.

To me, it's obvious, after 18 months in the project that I keep inferring what is happening around me, I am never told ahead what's on the project. And tasks, when they have a particular importance, are not assigned to me.

I described all of this because, at the end of last year, I was neither promoted, nor did I get a raise. I just a discutable bonus.

The problem is that my boss himself asserted that my contribution made the customer very satisfied, but unfortunately, I can't be raised, because I earn the maximum for my position already.

I keep thinking about it, but I see around my some junior colleagues who were rapidly promoted, and I personally don't think they are ready to handle the senior "task" yet.

An old colleague was promoted after 14 months only (senior to team lead), and yet his code quality was mediocre, he didn't get along with the customer, and the customer was always complaining.

This old colleague, who was my team leader. When he was leaving to work elsewhere, he told me that he learned a lot from me. He noticed that the customer doesn't complain about the source code we produce, anymore. The customer has been very collaborative and tolerant - satisfied.

After 18 months, I still feel like I don't belong, I am always surprised. I want to learn from my bosses. They don't share with me (al least) the detail of their tasks.

Many years ago, I learned a lot from a boss I had. That's what I am looking from a working experience. To learn new things, horizontally and vertically.

On a personal level, a lot of people think of me as a naive person, maybe because of this geeky part of me.

Is it normal to do a great work and get an unbalanced reward? while others are promoted more than once rapidly while their contribution is not as impressive as mine?

On technical tasks, I do a great job and I am renowned for that.

Answer 1

You need a perspective change.

You are a senior developer. That doesn't just mean that you're really good at coding - that also means that you have greater responsibility than a junior developer. You are expected to take the initiative and be a leader. When you are assigned to a project, you should be immediately reaching out to the project lead to find out project details, especially requirements and roadmaps. In the first week, you should be intimately familiar with the overall shape of the deliverable, and have an idea of who is working on what. It isn't your lead's responsibility to send you debriefings automatically, this is your responsibility to be in close communication.

Frankly, you sound exactly like one of my coworkers that I dread working with. He's a senior developer with 20 years of experience, but he just sticks his head in the ground and does only the tasks assigned to him by the lead. We have regular meetings where the team lead describes where the project is heading and opens the floor for questions, and while the rest of the senior developers and some of the juniors are asking questions so that they know exactly how they fit in, this guy is completely silent. Then, after he's a couple days behind on a task and asks me for help, I find out that he has no idea how his task fits into the larger picture and has completely misinterpreted what he is supposed to deliver. 3 months in and he still doesn't know basic details about the project and never asks questions, and I've given up putting in extra effort trying to keep him informed. He doesn't get any important tasking because we know that he doesn't have the proper understanding of the project to do a great job, only enough to satisfy the bare requirements.

Are your coworkers keeping you out of the loop intentionally to be mean bullies, or are you showing zero initiative to be in the loop and pouting when you are included? If you want a promotion or a raise, you need to step up, take initiative, and start acting like a leader. Send your lead an email along the lines of:

Hi Lead, I realize that I've been pretty out of the loop on project XYZ. Can we meet for 30 minutes to go over some of the planning and organizational details on the project? Thanks - Leonidas

Immediately send out a meeting (that you think he can make). If he wants to meet at another time, he can propose a new time, but take the initiative to set it up first so he doesn't have to set up the meeting himself.

If you have questions about how the latest customer meeting went, ping him on MS Teams with:

Hi Lead, what did the customer have to say when you brought up our confusion with X in feature Y?

Stop depending on your coworkers to keep you in the loop, because they've clearly decided it's not worth their time (and please consider if they have good reason for doing so), and be responsible for yourself.

Answer 2

1. Work on improving your relationship with management.
2. Speak highly of your job in meetings and take ownership of your work.
3. Make suggestions and recommendations to improve the company's products.

If all of this is not working for you, probably your boss was right you are earning the maximum for your position already and they are not going to promote you, so you can think of quitting and seek another rewarding work.