Engineer passed over for promotion for their own direct reports, instead up-skills himself on the job, uses those skills to land a better job with 3x the pay: 'I developed skills on the company dime that got me a >100% raise at another company'

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Oct 9, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

When loyalty is taken for granted, and neglect is a management strategy, initiative becomes the best way to get even.

When your employer denies you the chance at a raise or a promotion, you sometimes, instead, need to promote yourself… to another company.

It's easy to find yourself taken for granted when you always have your head down and are stuck in the things that are really important. Grinding away day after day on tasks that will meet the goal or finish the project that you know can be reached.  

It might sound counterintuitive, but doing too much of this can actually be disadvantageous for your standing in the office and your career.

See, while you've had your head down churning out your productive tasks, the managers have been getting together for hours a day and talking about other things that they've convinced themselves are important. And if you don't have a manager who knows how to broadcast your great work for you and be your advocate, you might find yourself overlooked.

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  • 01

    "My boss refused to promote me or give me reasonable raises so I developed skills on the company dime that got me a >100% raise at another company."

    Cheezburger Image 10562524416
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • See, outside of their monitored KPIs and watching the graphs go up and down, managers don't really have a developed understanding of why those numbers fluctuate, just that they do, and when they go up, you celebrate and spend money, and when they go down, you tell everyone to make them go up again. If a project is done on time and ticks the right boxes for them, they won't ask any questions, but they won't celebrate your work either; they'll simply pat themselves on the back for “enabling” you to do your work.

    Without the right manager, you'll have to come up for air yourself and make sure you're communicating properly with the people you report directly to and ensure that they know just how important you and your work are. This, of course, is called “upwards communication" since you're directing the flow of your own information, well, upwards.

    After four years working as an engineer at a large firm that was almost big enough to swallow them whole, the engineer sought to progress their career by getting onto the management ladder. 

    Their development included leading a single project, which, when completed alone, earned the company $1.6M in its first year. Regardless, once the project was successfully launched, the engineer quickly found them largely forgotten, being handed peanuts for their accomplishment instead of what they were sure was going to be a promotion.

    Frustrated, they resolved to solve the solution themselves by using their time at the company to upskill themelves as much as possible.

  • 02
    Early in my career I worked as an engineer for a defense contractor for about 4 years getting my typical 2- 4% raises and standard promotions that take years and years to qualify for. I realized that in my current role I was pretty much maxed out for the foreseeable future, and would be scraping by for years more, so I tried to get on the management track and got given a project engineer position to prove myself.
    via apost8n8
  • 03
    I managed a team of 4 engineers, a designer, and 2 admins and we designed and manufactured a system that made $1.6M in sales in our first year of work. We got the company a patent, and were nominated by the USAF and became finalists as DoD
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  • 04
    Contractor Technical team of the year (I don't recall the exact wording) and were flown to DC for a big awards ceremony. I spent 100 days away from my family that year, traveling to test locations, customers, vendors, etc. It was brutal but we were wildly successful.
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  • 05
    When annual performance reviews came in mine was 10/10. I was thrilled, then I found out one of MY team members (who had a different manager) was promoted early to a senior position and that I did not and I just got the standard 3% raise again. I was livid.
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  • 06
    I had a meeting with my boss and his response was that he didn't think my team member deserved a promotion or a big raise but he wasn't their boss so basically I should try real hard again and we'll see next year.
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  • 07
    F that. I basically quite quit and just barely worked my 40hrs and went home. I never traveled unless I really wanted to, I never stayed late, I took almost every Friday off to burn through my leave. I took all my sick days, etc. My mental health was much better. The only thing I really did extra was take advantage of the education budget our group had but rarely got used.
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  • 08
    My previously promoted co-worker (who I really liked personally) started taking MBA evening classes, that the company reimbursed him for, but they came with obligations to stay there for x amount of years. They also had a nice budget for software training (without such stipulations) so we both signed up for FEA and 3D modelling classes. We traveled around together taking these classes and building our resumes.
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  • 09
    About a month after the classes were finished I secretly started applying for jobs that required those specific skills and quickly got hired for a position with a base annual income that was 200% my existing rate plus it paid overtime. I put in my notice and my boss was really upset.
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  • 10
    "Don't you have any loyalty or guilt!" "How much are they paying you, lets see if we can match it" "That's more than I make!" It was and with OT I made about 3X the following year for a competitor. Life changing good times.
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    Cheezburger Image 10562524160
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 12
    Awkward_Dimension_12 "Employers hate this one simple trick....." In OP's case, wasn't simple, but highly effective!
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  • 13
    chrisk9 Wouldn't be surprised to see management respond by slashing training budgets rather than directly address the appropriate compensation issue
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  • 14
    fvives Nice. Always love the "you have no guilt?!?"...."oh I do, the same amount you had when you denied me a promotion after I crushed my goals and made the company top $".
    via apost8n8

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