[Tactic]

You were in a losing situation from the start. You were selected to be the heavy, the patsy and the scapegoat all in one.

It is clear from what you have said that your people were overworked, deadlines were not reasonable and there were not enough proper employees. Yet management persisted with their existing paradigm and you got to be the one that bore the bad news to everyone so they all resented you.

The best you can do in that situation is exit. Which it sounds like you and others figured out.

Sleep well knowing you cared about the people and the results, it was upper managment that did not. They cared only about the money.

As a side note, I hear this excuse a lot, about how money will be lost if we don't do this bad thing or that. Money is brief, setting up the proper business practices is long term. Sure, there are temporary situations that require extra effort... but they are obvious and temporary.

[IgorPartola]

Thanks. The money thing is tough. On the one hand, I do believe that the company had negative cash flow and was a few months away from closing the doors unless sales ramped up. On the other hand, part of the problem was that new upper management was brought in to replace the CEO who was not doing anything for the company and I believe they took quite a large salary, possibly enough to make take the company from positive cash flow to negative.

At the end of the day, the dev team pulled through and got product out the door, warts and all. This then enabled sales and other teams to get more clients on board and paying, which actually saved the company.

[logfromblammo]

So the executive office was bleeding the company dry. You, as a middle manager, put in extra effort to save the company. As a result, you lost your middle manager job. You were replaced by three different people.

Were you rewarded in any way for your efforts?

[IgorPartola]

I left on my own mostly out of frustration. I was compensated for my work and I own a tiny percentage of equity in a company that is still around. I generally believe that if you are getting paid to do something, you should do it to the best of your ability even if it is not exactly fair. After all you can always leave and that is what I did.