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I am the last developer on a team that used to have 5. The Great Resignation has stripped my team bare.
How feasible would it be to hold my company over the barrel and try to get a mega salary increase? 2x type of thing? Anyone had success with this? I am the last developer
My other alternative is to basically quit and focus on appearing to be working while I leetcode.
I mean you can give it a shot, but I was on the receiving end, I'd fire your ass that instance.
It's double the salary today, but what is it tomorrow?
May as well gut the whole thing and build a fresh tech stack. If I'm finding it hard to find people, it's likely there needs to be a tech stack refresh.
How feasible would it be to hold my company over the barrel and try to get a mega salary increase? 2x type of thing?
It may be possible if you have a lot of knowledge about buggy spaghetti code and undocumented requirements that'd be hard for a brand new team to ever get their heads around. It's less likely if your team used standard technologies in a standard way and have clearly written well tested code. Either way, it's a bad idea - it could encourage your dismissal in some geographies. Even if you manage to get a huge rise now, you may well be dismissed as soon as a new team are recruited and have some basic training.
My other alternative is to basically quit and focus on appearing to be working while I leetcode.
You could do that. Or you could view this as a clean slate with the company, ask for more responsibility (with an appropriate pay increase) and use this influence to address whatever issues caused your colleagues to leave. If you want to change development processes, the technologies you work with or even the type of people you work with, you'll never have a better chance. This way you can help rebuild the team in a form you'll enjoy working in and get a pay increase.
The success of this is going to entirely depend on the company, and our experiences are going to be fairly irrelevant.
Some things that make it less likely to work:
Are those really and truly your only options? You can't think of anything else you could do? Personally, if I was a manager in your company and you did either of the things you suggest in your question, I'd try to find your replacement as quickly as I could.
Also, accepting a salary for work you have no intention of completing is effectively stealing. They're paying you to work, so either work or don't accept a salary.
I think you will a better chance of success if you would ask a raise of around 40 percent. And also not phrase it as "I have you by the balls, so pony up" but argue that it is only fair since your workload and responsibilities have grown considerably.
It is highly unlikely they would cave in. This situation has been going on for a few months already and you have not stepped up until now. At this point, you would need more than just a proactive attitude and strong negotiation skills to assure them you would be able (and willing) to handle the workload.
Be careful: it may seem like you have the upper hand, but they might have an ace up their sleeve. You could end up just kickstarting their contingency plan without you. This kind of "shark move" could also backfire in future job applications, especially in companies with a habit of contacting a candidate's past employers.
Why cant you do both?
Still you will be doing more, now when all of the development work fell on you.
Perhaps there is a chance to get a lead position :)
Company may decide to give you a raise in order to hold you in the interregnum, but when team will be back to full complement, may decide to cut their losses and let you go, this is when you would need a leetcode
Given that you didn't mention your location, its hard to advice further on the situation.
Focus on leetcode
The software world is on fire right now and companies react a lot better to resignations than attempts at big raises, so I would just depart. As the other answers pointed out, they will likely not be pleased with this attempt of yours. I think this is especially true as retention/hiring is clearly not a priority for your firm.
Being the last dev probably provides you some protection even if your performance slips, so enjoy the grind.
