My team lead on my project is so rude and condescending to me. I’m the only dev and for various reasons the thing I’m working on had significant issues right from the start. Nevertheless, he promised it to the client anyways. Now we are way behind, problems left and right and he has asked me several times to deploy things that are either not working or have not been tested. I put it in writing each time and he backs off. He’s definitely the type of guy who will throw me under the bus if we don’t deliver this feature to the client.

I’ve been working so much overtime and despite all of that we’re in a really bad spot but he still almost never helps with anything if I ask. He just barks orders at me and then tells me he has to go to another meeting. Or, he won’t meet with me at all and pawns me off on other people who have been mostly unresponsive or unhelpful.

I know he’s writing a bad performance review for me. To make matters worse my supervisor has just gone out on leave unexpectedly. No reason or time frame given and the manager he reports to is my interim. I had a 1:1 scheduled with my supervisor the day he went out on leave and I planned to discuss this guy with him and to maybe be asked to be rolled off but that was of course canceled. I’m not sure how to handle a conversation like that with the interim mgr who has zero rapport with me.

I have been on bigger and more complex projects than this and I excelled. I have years of good to excellent performance reviews but I know how my company is. None of that will matter. I’m worried about a PIP. I worry that discussing the way I’m being treated will make things worse for me. I really don’t know what to do. There was a round of layoffs today and tbh, I wish they picked me. Severance till October and not dealing with this asshole would be pretty amazing.

How do I address this? How do I sound credible to someone who doesn’t know me? Is trying to get ahead of it by talking to the interim manager the right thing to do? I’m actively looking for a new job I just need to survive until I get one.

Edit: things have improved a bit. I was moved to a different mgr who is known as being a great advocate. The engagement mgr from a previous project is looking for folks to join her current one so I told my new supportive mgr I’d be interested if possible. She reached out to the engagement mgr and the EM was super excited she might have me back on one of her projects. The two of them are working on getting me over to her project, which is a huge relief. I just heard today that they are working on extending people on my current project so I’m really hopeful that they (EM and new mgr) can push back and say I’m not available to be extended because I’m going to this other project. The only downside is that if I waited to be rolled off this one then I’d have some time inbetween projects I could use to find another job. But I think of the options, staying on my current project is riskier because of the bad reviews, stress and I’m obviously not building relationships for things like job references. So I’m crossing my fingers I get put on this other project and I will take periodic days off to focus on my job search. If it’s like the last one with the EM it will be busy and difficult with a lot of OT but that also means I’ll accrue time off faster and make more money. It’s stress but good stress. I learned a lot and enjoyed my work with her.