I got a reply from a recruiter to setup a call later this week. I know one of the inevitable questions will be why am I looking to leave my current role.
Personally I want to leave because:
- I have a junior role in the company and I don't see a way of reaching a mid level here.
- The targets for promotion are constantly moving. The managers have changed a few times over the past 4 years and so have the appraisal systems.
- I haven't been given any real projects since the last manager has started. Mainly whack-a-mole type security tasks. This is especially frustrating as I have worked on larger projects before then.
- lots of senior engineers have joined, introduced a new product/application, and then left.
- which leads to lots of firefighting and understanding how things were implemented due to the seniors poor documentation.
- so I'm learning nothing on the job and I'm not working on anything special to talk about.
So would something like 'looking for new opportunities' be sufficient?
Ps. If you got this far, thanks for reading my rant. It has been locked away in my head for some time now.
I disagree with some of this. The reasons OP gave are good reasons in and of themselves. Senior developers having a short tenure is a red flag, and likely brought on the other bullets. If a candidate read those to me, then said "I want to work somewhere where I can own a challenge and grow" I would be pleased with the response.
And totally agree on mid-level target.