throwawayAug16

I had a longer reply but I deleted it because I was here for advice not to defend myself and I would get nothing but terrible useless advice if I lied.

The possibility of your explanation being legitimate is certainly not there. It only makes sense in a world where someone following me out the door is a good thing. And seeing as I have a lot of stock options it is most definitely not a good thing. It is motivation to stay not leave.

I'm sorry you are so jaded you think someone can't be good at their job.

I'm also sorry you apparently live in a world where complaints to HR go unacknowledged. Because at our company they get addressed head on, not buried.

I'll rest easy at night knowing that 7 out of 10 of the developers who left have kept in touch after and thanked me for my mentorship. Something they had no obligation to do. Because if you treat your team right, as I do, and you consistently have their back and mentor them as I do, you don't need to guess if they are telling the truth.

Not true, I don't think that is obvious at all. In fact, I think very highly of my boss. If I didn't, I would have left years ago. It's one of the things that makes the idea of leaving so difficult.

Second, that is a very specific soft skill that not everyone has. You might have that skill, I don't think everyone does. If I saw my boss' writing I'm very sure I would not recognize it.

Edit: adjectives I've used to describe him in this tread... nice guy, generous, ruthless business person. With the exception of that last one they are positive, and depending on who you talk to, ruthless is a positive word in business.

Do you have any numbers or articles I can refer to to back up #2?

There are actually a lot of investors in the company and it raised a fair amount of money before I came on board.

I won't rule out #1. However, I'm basing that assumption on a lot of inside knowledge of how the company works. It's an evidence based assumption not an emotional one. And it's based a lot on how long I have been here and what has come to depend on me. I absolutely 100% do not think I can move to another company and be as irreplaceable, it is a niche I moved into by being the only one who could pick up the pieces when each of the other people left.

Your first point is a fair one. Although in this situation I think it falls under the "rarely" category, for a few reasons:

- I do architecture, middle-tier, front-end, backend, DBA, devops, and engineering management. I have only met a few people my entire life at my level with all of those skill sets.

- I work an ungodly number of hours and a single new hire is unlikely to be willing to do the same.

- I have a significant amount of proprietary knowledge that while not unusually is very unusual to find in a single person.

I can't say for certain it would take three people but I can say for certain it is either multiple people or one extremely rare person who is going to have a lot of demands and take a long time to find.

And I say this as someone who does hiring. I have interviewed literally hundreds of people.

Per your second point, as I answered previously. I'm not entirely sure the CEO and/or investors wouldn't fund the suite personally. I can't go into detail here on why I feel that way. And even a small chance at a suite is not something I'm willing to risk.

Per your third point, it was more. They have actually paid me back some so I'm optimistic about the rest.

Per your forth point, either its true or they lied and I can't see why they would lie. The team team trusts me and they confide in me. More so they they do with the CEO or even HR. It may not be my problem if they leave but it doesn't bode well for the company.

Edit: as an aside we have had a job listing out for someone to take over just part of my job. We haven't even had anyone apply... and no, I didn't sabotage the listing. HR wrote it.

We do have products that are made in-house but none that generate even enough profits to cover a single salary.

It didn't start that way. The consultancy came much later as a temporary alternative to shutting down. Unfortunately (fortunately?) it's been successful enough that it shows no sign of being temporary.

The cases where I wasn't paid, my employer has a written agreement that I am temporarily taking a salary decrease in exchange for a deferred bonus with no date or time limit on the bonus so it's not quite that clear cut.

I'm not a lawyer though, I'm sure if I want to get dirty I could find a way to bend it to my will but I'm not eager to get in the mud, I just want to build great software and get paid a fair salary for it.

Near 100%. The non-consulting amount is not statistically significant. Why?

No, he doesn't.

But even if he did. I've been careful not to include any answers that don't have plausible deniability and I have changed a few key numbers in such a way that it doesn't change the question significantly.

Edit: even if he did, I think with a few minor exceptions if he read this it gives me more leverage not less.

Thank you for the advise.

My daughter and my wife are certainly doing well but not as well as they can be. It's not like I can't provide for them at $110 per year.

I think I will be talking to a lawyer if I do decide to leave.

And if you think 5% is bad... I negotiated up from 0.5%. I'm not sure I agree that 5% is bad. It is above average for a CTO from what I understand and I'm sure many of those CTOs are just as critical to their companies as I am to mine.

As far as the wage claim... I don't think I can. Technically it is on the books as a deferred bonus. The company paid me minimum wage for that time and I stupidly agreed to it. I'll talk to the lawyer, though.

Back of napkin math... staying an extra year would be slightly less than 50% more (the second 25% of my largest grant would hit and I'd have half of it).

This is part of what makes the decision so hard. And it's worth noting the valuation of the company is not terrible. If I had this valuation after 4 years I'd be ecstatic. Problem is it's been 7 and I have a lot of sunk cost.

The company is break even, no sign of an investment round at the moment. I don't think the CEO has any desire to fund raise.

We've had multiple seed rounds (about $5MM total) but haven't had one in over four years.

Edit: break even with all the software engineers being underpaid by at least 15% and myself being underpaid by 50%.

That is probably what I will end up doing.

Depends on your definition of "ramen mode"... on my salary I can certainly afford more than ramen. (as previously mentioned, I live in an area cheaper than SF)

I'm not sure asking him the plan would help, though. I've been told the plan before only to have us pivot when that doesn't work and essentially reset the clock on the plan.

And yes, I realize how awful that sounds saying it out loud.

The tax burden on the options would be well more than I can afford. And like you mentioned, my leaving would have a very negative impact on valuation.

My window is 2 years. So at least there is that. Although (not sure if I mentioned that), a bulk of my options came within the last year and I have a 1 year cliff with four years total vesting. So at best 30% of my total options are vested.

Thank you for the advice. I have tried similar in the past, but I have stopped shy of putting him in a corner.

I have gotten him to agree to let me work on side projects in exchange for the company getting 20%. But I found the hours I need to put into my main job are so long that there is no time left for the side projects (unless I neglect my wife, daughter, and/or my health) so it's an empty promise.

And obviously I can't contract on the side. That would be direct competition.

Just to add to it, there is a saying that comes up in my mind all the time (I'm paraphrasing and I don't know where I heard it):

"The only thing worse than a failed startup is one that is doing just well enough to barely stay alive."

To clarify: I give it a decent (but still less than 50%) chance of having a reasonable liquidity event. But I give it no chance of having that event before I sink another year or two of opportunity costs into it. It's a decision I weight constantly. And yes, I know I'm probably buying into the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

It's a good idea.

But I just want to correct one thing. The CEO has generously put a lot of his own money into the company. Nearest I can figure close to (if not over) half his net worth. I don't blame him for not wanting to use his whole net worth. If anything that is part of the issue, he's used his money to lengthen the runway but it hasn't been able to take off. He's also used that as a guilt-trip on me a few times.

That is a worry of mine, that 7 years at this company looks bad on a resume.

Also, I was not trying to impress anyone with my salary. I am aware it is probably at least 50% below market. I was hoping the company would make due on it's offer to give me a raise and I could negotiate from a stronger position.

The CEO has a fair amount of money personally, I wouldn't put it past him to go after me with his personal funds. He's a generally nice guy but a ruthless business person, especially if someone torpedoes his company.

On that note, he has gone without pay much longer than me. It's not like he's been taking paychecks this whole time. But he's also a millionaire and I'm barely getting by after my entire savings went away from all the missing pay checks.

Some notes because I ran out of room:

I am a full-stack engineer with deep knowledge of devops, architecture, cloud computing, middle-tier, back-end, and front-end development. I wouldn't call myself expert in any of them but I'm at least a level III in all of them and a level V in some. I also have a fair amount of engineering management experience.

I have a computer science degree from an accredited and regionally well ranked school but it doesn't rank high nationally.

I've also written several books and regularly speak at conferences.

I think it is fair to say that finding another job would be low risk if it weren't for my non-compete.