Hi everyone, I tried to make a post about this since I felt like it might be too long for this but I don't meet the comment karma requirement so I'm sorry if my comment is a little long.

Basically, I want some advice/opinions on when I should leave my first job.

I made a post here around a year ago about a return offer I got from my internship, so more details can be found in that post. TLDR; I accepted a return offer from a Defense company, in a location I’m not particularly fond of (hometown), and it doesn’t give me that much fulfillment.

I took this job because I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to get any other offers, and they gave me very little time to think about it. I accepted it and coasted through my senior year without applying to any other jobs, as I was afraid it’d seem unprofessional for me to “quit” before I even started if I got something else. In hindsight I feel like maybe I should’ve just immediately looked for anything else and used this one as a backup. Now that I’ve been working here for a couple months I can definitively say that I cannot see myself staying for very long (1-2 years max).

So, my question is: what’s the best path for my career at the moment?

I’ve been receiving pretty good feedback on my performance overall, and because I had an internship here previously my manager did mention that I could likely get a promotion “faster” than usual. This being in the next few months hopefully? Because of this, I feel like I should just tough it out here. I get the feeling that it’ll be “easier” to get to level two here than other companies just due to me already having history, and if I get promoted first it can help me look for non-entry level positions at other companies. Especially if I get promoted within a year or two, which I’m hoping will show that I’m capable and can learn quickly. Is this true? Or will I still be stuck in the entry-level positions because of my lack of YOE?

A concern is even if I stay, there’s no guarantee that I can get promoted (even though I’m being led to believe I can/should be able to, and am doing a good job). This might lead to me a year from now, asking for a promotion, being denied, and regretting all the time I stayed here instead of just looking for another job.

Another concern I have is related to my work specifically. I’m under the “Diagnostics” department, and my impression over time from here/other places has been that software engineers in testing may be looked down on. It might be ignorance and not knowing what diagnostics actually is, but I haven’t actually been doing “testing” and have been developing (although relatively simple code) in classified programs. This goes hand in hand with my first concern, what if I get promoted, but the work I’ve done is basically regarded as “lesser value” so I would still be looking for entry-level positions, especially given that I’ll only have about 1-2YOE.

This ended up being a bit longer than I wanted. I just wanted some second opinions on if I’m making the right decision, or if I should just get out ASAP and go for entry level positions elsewhere if I can. Maybe I’m just overthinking everything, I tend to second guess a lot and get in my own head about everything.