We may get fired and I don't know what to do

Ask HN: We may get fired and I don't know what to do

Since the beginning of the year 2013 my department have lost more than 50% of its earnings and keeps losing at an alarming rate. Discussing with my team mates it is obvious what is going wrong: We have an incompetent project manager and lead developer and they are the only ones who seem to not notice that there is even a problem.

Back Story

At the end of last year both the lead developer and project manager left the company. A decision was made to promote from within to decrease the learning curve for any new hire since our department is one of the most profitable. Not me our my team mates where consulted and a new manager was transferred to our department and the main reason was his department was a complete failure and since he has been in the company for many years they didn't want to let him go. We were not aware of this when he started.

We had no official lead developer at the time so one of my team mates (with the most experience) was promoted to interim team lead until we find someone. Since the project manager was just learning at the time and not interfering with the work flow everything was going just fine. We were working on a complex project that had been on the works for a year at the time and people were finally getting satisfied with it and being productive. Unfortunately, the manager finally felt confident enough to step in and take over.

He started by hiring a lead developer without even consulting with the current one which turned out to be the worst hire in the history of mankind. Looking at his work experience and project he worked on in the past I would have not given a second of my time to interview this person, but it was done and he started working with us. It didn't take him very long to want to try to impress so he started looking into our very complex system we were building. Him and the manager secretly started redesigning it from scratch.

The system was not perfect, but this task was like saying I don't like I don't like Excel, so I'm gonna create a new one from scratch, without even knowing how it works really.

I wouldn't care if they just wanted to redesign it as a side project but here is what they did: They reassigned every body on the team to work on it. The problem with that is this system was not our bread winner. It is only a tool that complements the many other websites we work on. Those websites are now completely neglected and are losing money for various reasons. We get complaints that some parts are broken but we can never fix it because the "redesign" is our priority now. Due to broken pages some of our websites our making less than 20% of what they used to make and there is no one to fix it. When we talk with the manager he thinks that it's not a big deal and once the tool is complete we will not have this kind of problem any more... Well by the time the tool is complete we will not have traffic and users any more.

Now I saved the best for last.

This project is built entirely in secrecy. Our strategy team is not even aware that the tool they have been using for almost a year new is being redesigned from scratch. And that the reason we are losing money is not a seasonal (or act of God) kind of thing. It is caused by the same manager that already destroyed one department and is successfully continuing his tradition on ours now. Every single one of my team mates agree with me but so far no one wants to step up.

They way things are going I am afraid that stepping up will mean losing my job. But at the same time I don't want to be working with people who are completely incompetent and may just get us fired for destroying the most profitable department.

Maybe it is this ugly weather here in London that is causing me to rant but I had to share my frustration. I am stuck and HN I need your advice.