So I've been working at a company for a close to 4 years now, most of my role was built up from scratch, with a portion of it being “temporarily” handed me to when my old manager left and they were looking for a his replacement (which the new manager never actually bothered even learning so I keep doing those tasks). to help my workflow I wrote multiple bits of software dedicated to helping my workflow. which was originally cleared with the previous manager.
Yesterday my manager told me to handover source code, documentation on how to use, and executables for all the tools I developed.
He claims that he needs this in case I ever go on a long vacation, or if I am for some reason unable to work due to an accident or sickness so that others could use the software. however this doesn't explain why he needs the source code and when I asked that he just said “Incase we need to change or fix bugs”… Which again makes no sense, I am the only one who knows programming in the company, so the chances that they find an urgent bug and hire a freelancer to fix it all during my vacation/sick leave seems extremely unbelievable low.
The way I see it, they're trying to achieve two goals.
- thanks to holding those tools I developed I have leverage and using that leverage I keep negotiating pay raises every year. handing over the source code, executables and to give documentation on how to use those tools I will forfeit a major part my leverage and be in a better position to deny me a wage increase in the yearly review
- once my leverage is gone, they can replace me with a cheaper employee, with tools and documentation the only thing he wont be able to do in such a case is to support the code but they can hire a freelancer for those cases, no need to keep me full time.
Let me be clear, this is not a software company, and my role has no actual programming requirement. these are just tools I built to make my life easier and were done with the blessing of the previous manager where he had no stipulation about demanding the source code.
So, how do I play this so I dont lose my leverage or my job.