I'm almost in the exact same situation after being hired basically straight out of college a little over 6 years ago. When I joined I was one of 3 total developers in a company with about 20 total employees. My hands have been in basically every part of our monolithic code base. Our team has now grown to 14 developers and about 70 total employees.
Earlier this year one of the other original developers who was hired 4 months before me was made "Software Development Manager". The boss and owner of the company used to look at he and I as equals, but now this other dev my superior. This superior is the same guy who once threatened physical violence on me years ago, and recently drove one of our other developers to quit over a personal squabble.
He doesn't give me orders or check up on my status or do any real managing of me -- I still get all that from the owner of the company (along with also being brought around to "meet big wigs", conventions in Vegas, being told how much value I bring to the company and being called the "MVP" of the programming team).
Where do we go from here? I could quit and try to find more money and room for advancement elsewhere (though I feel like my skills are not particularly strong). Or I could stick it out and collect a paycheck in (what appears to be) a very secure but boring position and hope that the management mess above me doesn't grow in a way that negatively impacts what I do.
This is the debate I have daily. Sorry for the stream of consciousness.
I'm almost in the exact same situation after being hired basically straight out of college a little over 6 years ago. When I joined I was one of 3 total developers in a company with about 20 total employees. My hands have been in basically every part of our monolithic code base. Our team has now grown to 14 developers and about 70 total employees.
Earlier this year one of the other original developers who was hired 4 months before me was made "Software Development Manager". The boss and owner of the company used to look at he and I as equals, but now this other dev my superior. This superior is the same guy who once threatened physical violence on me years ago, and recently drove one of our other developers to quit over a personal squabble.
He doesn't give me orders or check up on my status or do any real managing of me -- I still get all that from the owner of the company (along with also being brought around to "meet big wigs", conventions in Vegas, being told how much value I bring to the company and being called the "MVP" of the programming team).
Where do we go from here? I could quit and try to find more money and room for advancement elsewhere (though I feel like my skills are not particularly strong). Or I could stick it out and collect a paycheck in (what appears to be) a very secure but boring position and hope that the management mess above me doesn't grow in a way that negatively impacts what I do.
This is the debate I have daily. Sorry for the stream of consciousness.