So to start I'll like to add some context as to how I got here. I graduated from college in summer 2022. The job market SUCKED but through grit and belief in myself I landed a job in march of 2023. That job was as a FULL STACK developer for a start up. I was 1 of 3 developers, with a starting salary of 53k CAD in Toronto.

Little did I know what I was in for, this was my first job as a developer. Man did I learn A LOT. It changed the way I viewed software development and for that I am grateful. Also my manager is an amazing person to work with, the dudes work ethic is respectable and he provides me with useful advice in how I can get better. So what's the issue?

In 2024 I feel like I truly leveled up as a developer. My manager also recognized this by giving me projects that are on par or harder than the developers that were there for years before me. My ability to solve bugs and foresee future problems has also improved. Don't get it twisted I have my faults. For example I suck at managing webservers and cloud environments like Azure. Will improve this by getting some certs.

So what's wrong my salary is now 54k and the CAD, also the CEO stated there will be no raises or bonus's this year for our team. Even though our company claims to be a tech company we don't act like one. Development work isnt recognized by anyone higher then my manager. We were a group of 3 devs now down to 2, with 22+ customer facing employee like PMs.

Most companies have some sort of path for developer like, junior--->mid---->senior. However my company has none of that. In order to get a raise ill have to go into management and that's what I find so frustrating, I just want to become a really good developer first.

Should I find another job and leave? Or work with my manager on how we can fix this, I know they would love for me to stay.