>Being invaluable to the team gives you negotiating leverage.
In my experience that hasn't worked out. Being invaluable just means more pressure gets piled on you, and any reward or leverage you think you might be getting in return doesn't materialise. The credit you earn doesn't translate into anything tangible.
Managers just don't take into account the fact that you can and most likely will leave. The project ends up screwed but that's no longer your problem. I've seen it happen multiple times at multiple companies.
I’m in this spot now. Being invaluable to a project just means more work gets piled on me because it’s valuable work that needs to get done. I think I have something like 20 jira tickets in my board at the moment. Maybe half of them are complete with a deadline on Friday.
But it also puts me in a spot where my manager feels he has to micromanage me. If I up and quit, it’ll pretty much derail the project many months. And I do feel like quitting. Not because of the amount of work but because I have this micromanager breathing down my neck every day.
I was in this position recently. It's pure hell. I moved teams internally. Now I'm happy. It feels like an abusive relationship, you don't realise how bad it was until you leave.
You should really draw a line and tell the manager that if this continues that you will quit. Then it's up to them to either not micromanage you, split tasks to more people or make the deadlines more relaxed. If none of that can be done, you should 100% demand a salary increase. There's no reason not to, if they don't give it to you, you quit.
You have no obligations even if it feels like that. I've had the same exact situation so often and it always felt bad until I started drawing the line
In my experience that hasn't worked out. Being invaluable just means more pressure gets piled on you, and any reward or leverage you think you might be getting in return doesn't materialise. The credit you earn doesn't translate into anything tangible.
Managers just don't take into account the fact that you can and most likely will leave. The project ends up screwed but that's no longer your problem. I've seen it happen multiple times at multiple companies.