Ask HN: Is it unprofessional to leave a new job where everything is a mess?
It&#x27;s not unprofessional to quit an unfulfilling job. It&#x27;s unprofessional to quit without notice (since you&#x27;re a senior person), or to badmouth the company online, to recruiters, or to future prospective employers. If anyone asks why you quit you should say &quot;I found a better opportunity.&quot; If you quit without another job lined up you may get asked in the future to explain the gap, so have an explanation that doesn&#x27;t make you look unprofessional. Don&#x27;t burn your bridges if you don&#x27;t have to, in other words.<p>Since you&#x27;re a senior developer you should ask yourself how you signed on to this job in the first place, and how you might discover the kind of dysfunction you describe before taking the next job. I&#x27;ve made the same kind of mistake, it&#x27;s easy to overlook the signs and get excited and think you can make big changes.<p>In general employers focus a lot more on your current or last job than on jobs you had earlier, so how you handle this and frame your decision will make the most difference when getting your next job. When I have found myself in crappy jobs I found a new job before quitting, because it&#x27;s much easier to get a job when you&#x27;re already employed.