<prompt> Human: First time posting here, I hope Im not breaking any rulesformatting.May 1st I will be starting my third year of employment at my current company. I work at a tech startup in the marketing department. I was told when I was hired that they were taking a gamble on me, as I was not a perfect fit for what they were looking for. In time, I was told that gamble paid off, and they are very happy with my work.In December, at year-end review, after I had personally taken control of a very large project that didnt start out as mine, worked 20-hour days for a week and brought it to successful fruition, I spoke with my boss VP Marketing about a raise after 1.5 years. He said that there was a general freeze on raises because 2016 wasnt as successful as 2015, and that the freeze was expected to lift in April.I just left his office, he said that at the moment, the freeze is still in place, and there wont be a raise for me. When I mentioned taking it to the CEO, he wasnt so much hesitant as he said that it wouldnt really do any good, and he saw no reason to approach the CEO with it, it wouldnt make a difference. I take his word on it, because the relationship he and I have is excellent, and hes never been anything less than 100 honest with me, and hes gone to bat for me before. Im looking for advice on where to go from here. On the one hand, I love this job, I love my boss, we have a great product and several Fortune 500 companies as customers. Also, my contract stipulates that I work two days from home. They are very liberal with work hours comego when you please, just get the work done, and my rapport with my boss is excellent. The downsides are the distance 1 hour drive each direction, 3 times a week, and the fact that I want to grow my family and otherwise do things that will improve my living conditions, but am unable to on this salary. Specifics: Monthly mean salary in my country is 9,800 in local currency, median salary is 6,200 in local currency. After taxes, pension and savings, I take home 10,100 in local currency. Worldwide, the company has 60-65 employees. Marketing has the VP, myself and one other in this country, and another employee in another country. If I leave, I will be hurting the team and by extension the company, but not as much, but I dont know if my positionwork aside from 2-3 very large projects are critical enough to force the issue with the CEO.With the skills I came here with, as well as the ones I learned here, I can easily find a better paying job closer to home, but I dont know if a the working environment will be the same as I have here, and b the working conditions will be as friendly particularly working from home. In the interim, I will be able to sign for unemployment, and am eligible for severance pay worth 8.33 of my salary for every month worked, meaning I am eligible to use up to 2 months salary, more if it takes me a while to find a job.What steps do you recommend I take?EDIT Thanks everyone for all the input. I know that it looks like I need to move on, Im going to update my CV and start looking for my next step. EDIT 2UPDATEIm sorry if I wasnt able to answer everyones comments yesterday. The consensus seems fairly clear, that its time to update my CV and begin looking for something new, so thats what Im going to be doing.Just to make the situation entirely clear, though, I let my boss VP Marketing know that I was going over his head to ask the CEO directly for a raise. We the CEO and I met, and he confirmed to me what my boss said, that 2017 was a bad year and the Board had determined that aside from 2-3 exceptions throughout the entire company, no one had gotten raises, including the CEO, senior partners or VPs.After explaining the situation and asking him for a raise, he said he would review it again with my boss to see if they could justify giving me a raise to the Board. I choose to believe him, because a Ive worked in very close quarters alongside him for two years and have a pretty decent read of him benefits of working in a startup, b Ive had the chance to review several documents and requests that document how bad 2017 was for us, and c The vibe I got from him was one of well try to see how to get you this raise as opposed to whatever makes this discussion end quickest.That being said, and as many of you here have mentioned, its time to start getting my ducks in a row and looking where to move to, as much as it is something I most definitely do not want to do. My CEO asked me to give him a week before he gives me an answer. If the answer is in the negative, Ill start actively searching. Since I wont push the trigger here unless I have something in hand, waiting another week for an answer doesnt hurt me.Thanks everyone for your input, and I really hope that next week Ill have positive news to share!Assistant: When I was in your predicament earlier in my career, I interviewed around and got an offer for more money. I took it to my boss and said I want to stay here, but this job is offering more. My boss beat the offer and I stayed. Youll never know if a new job will be better or worse. You need to take a chance. But you should be compensated for your skills. Earn earn earn. Good luck. Human: One of the main things holding me back on this is that my boss took a chance on me, and it paid off, both for him, but especially for me. I learned a lot more than what I gave at first, and Im leaving with much more than I came. I dont want to screw my boss over, and I dont want to present him with a take it or leave it, because theres a chance hell say OK, was good knowing you. Not because he doesnt want to keep me around, but because financially he cant at the moment.  <response>: my boss took a chance on meThey took a chance on you and everyone else they have ever employed. Guarantee theyve hired multiple people in the past they thought were sure things, didnt backhandedly denigrate to their face as a risk upfront, but who still royally screwed up in ways that they as managers took no responsibility for. This characterization of you by them was a negotiating and political tactic that was meant to pay off right at this moment when your contributions could be documented and valued in ways theyre not currently inclined to account for. To be clear Im not saying this in support of suggesting that you leave, but just to preclude your placing any relevance of that comment or the logic behind it as a material factor in your choices. I had a manager tell me once after a second positive review in a row that HR had come up with a policy that year that my specific role required three years of tenure to get a standard promotion that everyone before and after me, including the HR managers son a couple of years later, got after six months. I wont go into the specific demographic differences between me and every other employee in that department but I understood immediately that half of what a manager says is false or at least tailored more so for the sake of manipulating behavior or maintaining hierarchies rather than conveying accurate, actionable information. Ego and agenda are the only motives behind most interpersonal comments or actions in a work environment. 