IC in tech sales here… am I thinking about this wrong?

Not a Manager

Hi, just hoping to get some insights from people in management who are not my manager. Thanks in advance!

I work at a Series D tech company in a role that supports large existing customers. There’s a team of several people owning these accounts due to their complexity and our incentives are aligned. I am by far the top performer on my team and I get difficult, high profile assignments.

For the past 9 months, I’ve been feeling really disconnected. I like the company and my coworkers so I’ve been asking for help, have been going to my manager and senior leadership about the following issues. I always come with a solution in mind, so assume I did for these.

  • Because I get assigned the most difficult customers I have no time to think, strategize, or find ways to scale up my work.
  • We had a role open on my team for 5 months and leadership was excessively picky about who they hired. I absorbed the excess work the whole time with the promise that I’d eventually get to give it to the new hire but when they finally joined I had to keep it.
  • A specific collaborator on a major accounts is a really nice person but does not develop a deep understanding of their accounts, does not participate in strategic work, and does not express any interest in learning how to be better at their job. Because they’re well liked and our incentives are similar they get a lot of praise and financial reward for my hard work. I will ask them to help with strategy but their contributions are lazy and uninspired, then they gladly sit back and let me redo their work when I have feedback. I can’t trust them to cover for me and they can’t even get on a customer call without me. To be clear, everything I’m asking them to do is a part of their core job.
  • Generally being overlooked. Not as big of a deal but still. Big deals close and even if they were absolutely because of my work, my name isn’t on it in public announcements. My recent work anniversary wasn’t even acknowledged nor was my birthday. I don’t care about this stuff but you should see how people celebrate others.
  • Being sent to conferences and given projects when I am barely managing my own workload. Then, the support for the conferences is poor and disorganized so I have to figure it out myself when I get there.

I am well-liked, get asked for help by peers, etc. I promise this isn’t a personality thing. I will admit I don’t take enough time off at work and work too hard, which can lead to burnout. But the workload placed on me makes me think I can’t let up. My manager acknowledges all of this but nothing has changed for 9 months. I got a raise this year but it was still like… 5% of my base.

I have an offer I am pretty happy with and want to leave. Is there something I should do to resolve this before I do? Is there anything I can do avoid this outcome next time? Like I said, I like my company and it’s a shame that this is happening but I am so tired of being given a huge workload when peers (same or better title, sometimes more pay) get reasonable workloads and tons of recognition.

Thanks for your help. I want to be thoughtful about making big changes and take ownership for my role in this.

Posted Jun 14, 2025, 10:00 PM UTC

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