Getting team lead responsibilities without the team lead title or pay is one of the oldest tricks in the corporate playbook.

When one engineer who had spent seven years loyal to his company found himself doing the full job of a team lead without the title or pay, he quietly started interviewing elsewhere.

But as toxic management continued to dangle the fabled promotion above his head, he questioned whether leaving was the right call.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

WIBTA for interviewing for new jobs while my company is trying to sell itself?

I (37M) have been at my current company for 7 years as a backend engineer.

I’ve always given it my all — stuck through hard pivots, rough deadlines, reorgs, and worked overtime when it was crunch time.

I stayed loyal because I believed in the mission and I liked my team.

Unfortunately, the company hasn’t repaid the same courtesy.

Lately, though, things have gone downhill.

Upper management has been vague and kind of all over the place. There’s been a lot of micromanaging and weird decisions, and communication has been lacking.

They seem to be dangling empty promises above employees’ heads.

Now they’ve announced that they’re in early talks with a potential buyer — nothing signed, nothing guaranteed, but the vibe is “stick with us, it’ll be worth it.”

At the same time, my direct manager has gotten super micromanage-y. Constant check-ins, hovering over every little task, and very little trust — it’s draining.

This all came after this employee already accepted more responsibility on the team.

What’s worse is that I’ve basically been acting as a team lead for months now, in all but name.

My predecessor left and we needed someone to step in. I handle mentoring, help with architecture decisions, and serve as the go-to person on the team as the owner of many parts of our codebase.

They were supposed to hire someone, but due to mismanagement, the unpaid labor was now stuck with him.

The company was looking for a new team lead, but my manager was overly picky and the process stalled. Eventually, they just stopped trying.

The responsibility didn’t go away though — it all just landed on me.

So the employee tried to make a promotion happen, management dragged their feet once again.

When I asked one of the co-founders about making it official and actually getting promoted, he told me I’m currently doing “about 70% of what a team lead should do” and that I need to “add the missing 30%” — then they’ll consider giving me the title.

Now he’s not sure how much longer he can stick it out at a job that clearly disrespects him.

So basically, I’m already overperforming my role, carrying extra responsibilities, and they still want more before they’ll even entertain a conversation about a promotion. No raise, no recognition — just “give us even more.”

I haven’t quit — yet — but I have started interviewing elsewhere.

He now considers his current company as somewhat of a sinking ship.

I’ve lost trust that they’ll actually pull off the sale or promote me properly after so long. They’ve been trying to pull this off since 2020.

I just don’t think I owe them more loyalty at this point.

But he’s getting mixed messages from his colleagues.

Some coworkers I’m close with are telling me I should “wait and see” — that interviewing now is disloyal, and that if too many people leave, the sale won’t go through, and I’ll be partly to blame. That made me second-guess myself.

So Reddit, AITA for quietly lining up a new job while my company is in limbo?

Having a backup plan is the smart thing to do in this day and age.

What did Reddit have to say?

If it were this commenter, they wouldn’t bat an eye about leaving.

It’s time to stop over-performing just to get under-rewarded.

This user agrees that the writing appears to be on the wall.

This commenter reminds this employee that most companies don’t feel any real loyalty toward their staff.

There’s no point in staying loyal to a sinking ship.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.