
Used to be a high performer and now getting in trouble since I want to switch and preparing. How to handle this?
I used to be a super high performer in my team. I used to work on 2-3 things simultaneously, stay awake for the off-shore team and used to wake up early for the same, used to take up PM adhoc asks, take in the bugs that are coming, used to instantly review PRs, giving learning sessions to the team, documenting relevant stuff and a lot of other things. Everything was going well until recently when I got promoted. My hike was peanuts. Seeing the numbers devastated me, had me question my life choices. I had given up so much for this, sacrificed my personal life a lot. They had added a new title for almost the same salary. As soon as it happened, I instantly started to prepare and apply. Got few interviews but got rejected in them which demotivated me further therefore started giving more time towards preparation. Since I started preparing a lot, I wasn't doing work as much as I used to. I started maintaining WLB but when this was happening I already had 3 big features in my plate. They got delayed. Now, my manager is getting angry on why I have lowered down the performance, that people are saying bad things about me now. He is scolding me every other day to go back to my earlier self such that he can promote me again. I don't want a promotion but definitely need a switch but want to go a better place where my efforts are valued and I'm fairly compensated for it. Also, the interviews I have given made me realise that the work here isn't that impactful as well and in most interviews I end up discussing the work I did in my previous org.
I am feeling super broken right now. Getting scolded by the manager and getting rejected at inteviews. Just hoping that this phase will pass.
One interview, 1000+ job opportunities
Take a 10-min AI interview to qualify for numerous real jobs auto-matched to your profile 🔑I'm also in the same boat. I am a designer and I need a portfolio. Haven't got a single interview. I have so many tasks on my plate.. I am tired of working here. I can neither complete the tasks quickly nor work on my portfolio.

Yes can relate to it. Feels like vicious loop. Prioritising work one day since backlog is getting created but doing switch prep the other such that I am prepared for interviews.

You are at Microsoft and why do you want to switch from such a good org ?

It is definitely not that good.
- There profits are all time high but they are not giving hikes. FYI: 2023 was no hike year and 24, 25 were super low hikes(2-4%)
- As I said, my work here isn't that great. It's not adding any value on my resume. Just the Microsoft tag.
- I have the dumbest manager(technically) who has no idea what's going on just pushing people all the time with unrealistic deadlines.
- We have off-shore team which expects us to be awake in the late nights/early mornings which is unrealistic expectation.

@TeraSolid I don't understand why even companies like microsoft don't run their project on pure agile basis.
If a pm is asking adhoc requests it means things are so unplanned mostly