Can quitting during probation be viewed as negative by future employers

Question

I spent almost 3 years in my first job as a developer , I really enjoyed it because I had all the freedom to grow , learn and work with cutting edge tech that I wanted to work with . None the less I did realize that I had reached a point where I needed to get out of my comfort zone and explore other domains as well.

An opportunity came my way and I took it . It seemed really interesting since It was a new domain and they were willing to match the compensation I was expecting . However , I'm entering my third month of my probation period of three months and I'm already feeling like I've lost interest . There are two major reasons :

1. I'm stuck on working with old tech and the project I'm assigned to is very disorganized . I tried talking to my manager and he told me that that's something i'd have to get used to because it's a service based industry. I even spent some time finding a suitable way to upgrade the project to the current industry standard and gave a presentation but not much came out of it . On top of that , I find it very difficult to meet their timelines because the project is a big mess and I haven't really gotten enough help from collegues in terms of knowledge transfers or documentation .

2. I feel that the processes being followed here are really poor and can actually go against the developer ! There's no proper issue tracking being followed .. and most of the times developers are blocked in completing their tasks and are almost always under risk of being targeted for not meeting deadlines .

So now , I did have a plan B when I had resigned from my first job to take this one up . I've been preparing myself financially to get into remote consulting . I had taken up ad-hoc projects in the past and really enjoyed it. Now I feel that I'm ready to go full swing at it .

So what's the best way for me to quit this job? Will It be difficult for me to find a full time job in the future if I quit this early ? I'm just considering the fact that there can be a possibility that I would need a full time job again.

Answer 1

Probation period works two way: the employer gets to know you, and you get to know the employer.

If either of the two is not satisfied with the other, probation period is meant to facilitate separation without too much harm.

How this will impact your job search in the future strongly depends on how to expose the story. If you are able to explain you didn't see a match between the job and your skill/competence/passion/drive I see no big harm (try not to trash talk your old job); it will just highlight to the interviewer that you are able to evaluate yourself and your fit into an environment.

Answer 2

Will It be difficult for me to find a full time job in the future if I quit this early?

It shouldn't make a big difference in a single case, but why you quit the job during the probation period is a question that you should expect to be asked in future interviews (and so you should prepare a good answer accordingly.) So long as you prepare a good answer in advance, this is unlikely to be a major sticking point.

However, it's important to note that if this is a trend that continues, and you have more than a couple of jobs in quick succession where this is the case, it almost certainly will be viewed negatively. It doesn't mean you necessarily won't get the job, but in this case it would almost certainly count as a negative strike against you compared to other candidates.