So this has a bit of history. Im developer in .NET and i work for a firm consisting of about 3000 people.
About five years ago i was recruited from a different department in the company and trained with several other junior engineers and given a position as junior developer.
I had this collegue, lets call him A.
Fast forward to three years ago and all ( four of us ) juniors learned that HR was looking at our function book to determine if we where eligible for promotion. The promotion eventually went to A. He was made a mid level. I didnt agree with it, but what can you do. It always felt i was cleaning up his mess and he always came to me for help. But i guess life aint fair.
Fast forward again to last month. A. Has jumped ship to another team. Internal relationships in the team where quite rocky and everyone was getting tired of his constant mistakes and terrible work ethics.
When we learned they where making him a senior developer in that team, all 3 of us went to HR together with our manager and we pleaded with HR not to do it. They promised us he would stay a mid-level.
2 weeks ago we got insight into what exactly earned him his mid-level position in the first place: he lies about his successes and acomplishments to HR. Every single succes he claimed was achieved by someone else, most he stole where mine. All his failures he managed to put on us 3. HR didn’t do their due dilligence and verify with us and we didn’t have a manager back then ( it was just the four of us ). Manager cant do anything about it because it was before his time and both HR and A.’s new manager say the case is closed.
3 days ago we learned that HR, on the advise of his new manager made and gave A. The senior developer promotion.
Meanwhile us 3 are still considered juniors fixing and doing damage control on all the mistakes A made and the mess he left. We’re held responsible for everything and our team as a whole is looked at. We’re not getting fired or anything but promotion is out of the question.
I love this company, I really do. But in what world is this considered fair? What can we do about this? Manager cant do anything. Its out of his hands.