TL:DR at the bottom. This turned out to be REALLY long.

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I've been with the same company for a little over 2 years now. I have over 19 years in my field and great references. I was hired to be a lead of a team but needed to prove that I could learn the technology before getting the lead position because people lie on their resume.

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After about 9 months I was given my own team and labeled an "acting" lead. There was no increase in pay, just an increase in responsibilities. Now having a "team" in my job here is being over 1 or at most 2 people but there is so much more work. This is one of the most vertically bloated (Too many levels of middle management) companies I've ever seen. The coworker that was given to me was one who had under preformed on every team he had been on.

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At my 1 year review I was given "meets expectations". It was explained that even if you are a rock star here no one gets higher than that on their first review. I was given 100% of my bonus and a really good salary increase. At the midterm promotion cycle (One year and a half years after starting) I officially became a Lead but there was no salary bump because they only do salary reviews once a year. But I was led to believe that when reviews were conducted my compensation would increase based on the promotion.

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The broader development team was awesome but I couldn't get my coworker to do he work. I was telling my boss that I was having issues but the other coworker was well liked and they kept giving him too many chances. In order to complete the team's work a lot of the software developers had to chip in and help. We met ALL of our commitments over the year even with 1 person as dead weight.

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Eventually my coworker was put on a performance improvement plan and didn't improve so he was let go. I got my performance review in February, my 2 year anniversary, and once again got meets expectations (This was being measured as a lead). Then our team was handed a mess of a project and we worked day and night for 3 weeks fighting fires to get it out the door on time. I coordinated all of the work between 3 teams in both the US and India. My boss said it seemed like I had come alive again after the previous year doing 2 people's work. And people really loved the work.

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When I got my compensation the next week (Which would have been done weeks before the CF of a project we took over) I was only given 70% of my bonus and a 2% lower raise than the previous year. I asked my boss if my promotion was included in that number and he said he forgot I got promoted and he would talk to his boss about it.

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The next day my company decided to try an experiment and eliminated my position on the development team BUT another team in a remote office needed a team lead so they asked me to take it. Suddenly I am taking over the testing lead of an under performing development team and I was asked to travel to the other office for a week for planning. When I was hired I was told there would be no travel. While I was there,I asked my boss several times if he had gotten any information from his boss about my raise/bonus. He finally told me that he was pretty sure my promotion WAS considered in the numbers and he was only asking for him to verify that.

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After talking to HR they said that a lot of factors a considered when giving raises/bonuses and that they believe in good year over year raises and that no one gets a bump simply for a promotion. So basically a promotion is just in title and more responsibilities. And as far as I'm concerned even though it is company policy to require people to be an "acting lead" for a year they have gotten me as a lead for a year and a half without compensation.

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My boss keeps telling me how having a liberal work from home policy and the ability to flex my hours when needed is a big bonus that my company offers. I have a special needs daughter who does require more than the normal flex time accommodations but I ALWAYS get my commitments done. I also didn't hide this information from them when I was hired. In my area I do not think this is nearly as uncommon as they make it out to be. I know that $$$ isn't the most important thing but I am now the main breadwinner in my family and it really does matter. Also my company is starting to be jerks about some new technology including requiring us to learn it on our own time and taking proctored tests.

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I am pretty sure it is time to move on. I am planning on updating my resume and will start really looking more actively in 2 weeks after my wedding. I'll be sad to leave my friends but NOT the company. Am I making a big mistake?

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TL:DR. Was given a promotion in title and responsibilities but not compensation and think it is time to move on.

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