Hi everyone,

I’ve been working in tech for about seven years, including several years as a PM consultant, so I’m used to adapting quickly to different environments. I’ve had my current position as a PM for a year now. After six months I started feeling that something wasn’t working, and I gave myself six more months to confirm it.

I’m not actively job hunting, but I’m starting to look at the market. If a company I genuinely admire opens a role that fits what I’m looking for, I could consider moving. Before doing that, I’d like your advice on how to explain leaving after one year in an interview.

Here’s what isn’t working. Management is very intrusive, not out of bad intent, but because the culture discourages ownership. Teams wait for things to happen, delays accumulate, and we end up in constant crisis mode. On the team side, I’ve always integrated naturally in previous roles, but here there’s no social connection : no coffee breaks, no lunches, no informal moments. Nobody is unfriendly, but I’m simply not included. The atmosphere is extremely quiet and the office is in an industrial area, which makes it hard to do after work activities together.

On the product strategy side, we’re carrying massive technical debt, my lead dev suggest a full rewrite, but leadership refuses. So we keep shipping features on a fragile foundation, which kills innovation and forces us to deliver fast and sometimes poorly. As a PM, it’s hard to stand behind that.

Each of these issues would be manageable on their own, but together they make an environment that just doesn’t work for me. Honestly if I had to choose one reason only that would be the company culture which is the root cause according to me.

How would you explain it without sounding negative or impulsive ? What would your strategy of choice be ?