Ask HN: Is it unprofessional to leave a new job where everything is a mess?

Thanks for posting this. The mere fact that you're asking here tells me that you've already thought about this more than most would. I agree with others saying based on your details it's completely the right thing to go after 6 months and seeing no desire to change how things are done.

Normally I would say that this is a problem owned by the senior devs already there. In this new age of "Remote first company", I suspect that it has more to do with the way the company was expected to operate from the outset. The leadership didn't hire senior enough people to tell the difference between good/bad and what was going to cost them for the duration of the company. It doesn't help that the devs are doubling-down on it though--doing what they're paid to do is another way of looking at that. It sucks, leave.

A good thought experiment is if you were (one of) the first senior dev hired, would leadership be happy with how long you were taking to make good choices and do things in an efficient (in the long term) way? If the answer is "no", then the company was doomed before any devs were hired.

Another question is how do we find out before joining? "I'll sign an NDA, show me your code"? If I'm seriously considering joining I'd like to spend a half (or full) day pairing with someone senior at the company on real development in-progress.

> unexplained resume gap

Resume gaps shouldn't have to be explained. If someone thinks you're a bad hire because you don't dedicate every moment of your life to working, they are probably not someone you want to work for anyways.

> a short 6-month employment followed by another gap is the type of pattern that starts to scare hiring managers.

Q: "Why were you only there for 6 months?" A: "It wasn't a good fit because x y z"

If someone is scared of that, then they are a crap hiring manager.

Demonizing people for taking time off of work or for not sticking around in a work environment that not good for them is bs that needs to stop.

Start working on your plan B - another job, a break, contracting, whatever - and leave.

I just did it a few months ago. I worked with a company for 4+ months, figured out how much of a mess everything was, and - most importantly - found that everyone was unhappy but unwilling to change.

The secret is that MANY things are broken in MOST companies at any given moment. The things (people, processes, practices, tools, etc) that worked last week may not work this week as your team, tech, market, goals, and path change. It gets worse the more any of those things change.

The real questions to answer are:

a) do people understand things are broken? and

b) are they willing & able to change to make things better?

The answer to a) is WAY less important than the answer to b)

Never tell why you leave, only if you want a bad reference letter.