Ask HN: Started job 3 months ago...not going as planned

I started a job at a fairly large software company about 3 months ago. I was fully prepared for legacy code and dated processes, but in the interview process I was sold on “transformation” and “change”.

Three months in and I am far less happy in comparison to my previous software engineering role. I work on a fairly distributed team, which was supposed to be agile. We don’t have a product manager and our manager isn’t involved much. We are told that we will be getting a PM, but nothing in sight.

I have one colocated team member and they are less than ideal. They fall asleep at their desk or during conference calls and don’t seem to care much about software development in general.

Onboarding and training was nonexistent. It has been pretty much trial and error since day 1.

I feel like I was sold something in the interview process that is not accurate.

Long story short, how long do I stick it out before looking elsewhere or even returning to my last job as I left on good terms?

I've had this type of job before. Twice actually. One was for 2 weeks (which I left for personal reasons not job related), and the other was a similar situation to yours (which I left after 4 months). I just didn't list them on my resume/application at places I applied to later. When asked about the gaps, "I just needed to take some time off. For N years, I've never really taken a long vacation so decided to do that".

If you've got the cash and don't have to have your next gig set up, give your two weeks now and start the mental healing.

Some background checks may reveal to your next employer that you had these jobs, even for a very short period of time.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and point out that apparently this is the kind of place where people can in fact fall asleep during work hours, even during calls. That opens up a lot of possibilities. How about doing the bare minimum and working on bettering your skills on your own? Or even do some side hustle?

Leave.

Feel no shame in it either, it sounds like the company misrepresented some or all of the role and the team.

Find another role, give standard notice, leave on good terms, but control your departure and exit, don't wait around for things to improve.