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

> It is perfectly fine to say you left a company because what you were looking for and what the company was doing didn’t align.

As someone who has done a good share of interviewing and hiring in my career I disagree somewhat.

The answer you gave (what you were looking for and what the company was doing didn't align) seems like a good neutral answer, but it immediately brings some questions to mind:

1. Did you not see this misalignment when you interviewed for that last job? Did they deceive you about the environment and work?

2. What exactly are you looking for? If I ask that question after someone told me they quit because of a mismatch I expect the candidate to tell me clearly what they are looking for. That creates a couple of risks. What if the candidate tells me what they're looking for and I interpret that as demanding and fussy? Does the candidate think their personal goals and wants are the most important thing in an employment relationship? Did the candidate take that last job out of desperation despite seeing the warnings, or did they not do the research that would have made the mismatch obvious? Unless the last employer changed everything radically in the last six months I would wonder about how the candidate got themselves into that situation in the first place. I would excuse that for a junior but a senior person should know what they're walking into.

3. My concerns are bringing someone on who aligns with business priorities, adds value, and gets along with the rest of the employees. I want to respect that every candidate has their own goals and preferences but there's a fine line beyond which those start to seem like demands, or maybe exceptions. For example a lot of people now are asking to work remotely before they have demonstrated they can produce anything or function as part of a team. I may not be against remote work but to have that presented as a requirement or something I have to "align" my team with may be too much at the interview stage.

I won't say I've never talked myself into taking a job at a dysfunctional company (I have, more than once), but that's a mistake I need to take responsibility for. If I need to explain that in an interview I will be very careful about how I present that. When a prospective employer hears an explanation that amounts to "They lied to me" or "That place sucks" they imagine you feeling the same way in six months at their company. The more you talk bad about the last job the more it will seem like you got fired or encouraged to move on, which is a bad signal to give to a prospective future employer.

I joined a company and within a handful of days it was clear it was an absolute mess. From code to management. As a cherry on top, the only frontend developer would be leaving the company within a month, and the code was a mess. I discussed my termination of the trial month with the CEO and he was shocked, but asked if I could at least give feedback and guidance to the team, which I did for the remainder of the week, after which I left and got a great job at some other company, been here for 3 years now.

Bottom line is, if you're not happy with your job, then quit and look for something else. No amount of money is worth your sanity (maybe for a handful of months), if you give some feedback upon leaving you've handled it fantastically professionally. If they're too proud to accept the feedback then that's their loss and you leave without a doubt in your mind it was a bad decision.

Go for it!

You are not a slave. You can always leave your job, anyone can. It is appropriate to give them warning and a little time to prepare for that transition and start getting someone else. Where I live, the usual time is 2 weeks notice, though some extra time is reasonable.

>essentially keeping on-prem 2000's philosophy and revamp it as microservices)

This sounds like a company that is frozen by it's legacy code base. There's a lot of companies like these, and they are trapped in survival mode.

> So, the question is, is it unprofessional to abandon ship just 6 months in or given the circumstances is exactly what I should do in order to protect my well being and my career prospects (the project is a slow motion train wreck IMO).

There's really only a few things you can do: If you want to fix the problem, ask to do so. Be prepared with a plan to do so (here's what I'll need, and here's how we'll approach fixing it). Helping a team out of a corner they've been painted into can be very rewarding, but it's an emotional challenge. If the answer is no, or you don't want to fix it, then get another job and leave. There is nothing wrong with that.

Many contracts (at least where I live, ymmv) contains a trial period, usually the first three months. Those are not just for your employers benefit. Some things, like team fit and culture, will only become apparent after a few weeks.

That being said, 6 months is a perfectly reasonable time for an employment that you’ve found unreasonable. If I’d see something like that on a resume when I was hiring, I might ask a question about the short stay during the interview process, but an answer about mis-matched culture fit would be perfectly legit for me.