My current job, started around one year and a half ago, seemed at first a nice fit on the positive streak that started when I managed to sell my startup 3 years ago.
It is not, organization is despicable and, long story short, I ended up working alone on mildly uninteresting projects with no real goals, no interactions with other people (everybody too busy making sure nobody ever could replace them, so zero information sharing), absolutely bloated times, general hostility (afterall many, many slackers/shady people would end up being exposed by computer-base QC & production management) and so on. This nowhere near my previous experience of "flashing forward a company" that I had with the acquisition, where the management I worked under did all what they possibly could to help us change things (and it worked fantastically).
Put it simple, this is a company stuck in the past and I`m wasting my time going nowhere. This is sad, because when I was hired the initial intention was "hey you startup guy! Bring all the new tech here and make us 4.0!"
Get another job, classic (and correct) SE answer.
Still, if I quit there will be absolutely nobody within the actual workforce able to complete my (well documented, I`m probably the only one honestly documenting my work) projects and they will basically be "left to die" since nobody here will ever admit "they were good projects but we need to hire a new engineer that can understand this stuff in order to complete things". All my work will be basically trashed.
I need this job to provide for my family so obviously I'll never say anything nor give hints of my intentions before having signed somewhere else and resign. I don`t really like this but I am well aware is the only right thing to do.
Questions:
Is it OK, knowing that I always worked honestly, to just quit when I'll have found the new job (interesting jobs don't pop up often around here so when I'll find one I'll just take it right away) and leave my company with unfinished work that, given its disorganization, will probably never be able to deal with resulting in a net loss?
Moreover, and most importantly (and this is the central question, otherwise this would probably be a duplicate....) how can I avoid the "bridges burning" coming from the realistic scenario of me leaving and other people labeling what I did as "crap" not to have to admit that someone else with the right skills would need to be brought onboad to continue the projects/mantain what has been done?
Afterall I was personally asked to work in this company by the owner, an hero-entrepreneur who went from zero to multimillionaire as a self made man, following his son`s advice (I went to school with his son and been neighbors for a while). I would really really like to remain in a good relationship with them (mostly with the son, TBH) and I do not know what the best way to quit/ what to say when quitting to make this happen.