I'm feeling frustrated / at a loss career wise.

I started at what I thought was a dream job this past summer and now want to quit. 

During the interview, the firm principal/hiring advisor outright stated he was looking to align me with design and master planning opportunities given my experience. He communicated I would start on smaller projects to help push things through and get acclimated then larger projects. That all sounded great to me.

The confusion started within the in the 2nd month when the principal who interviewed me said I was on the project manager track from what he took away in the interview. I was confused and made a note to follow up at the 90-day review two weeks later as that meeting was not the time. The morning before my 90-day review I was onboarding on a new project when that project's manager said “Think of project manager goals you want to take away from this project” unprompted as if I was looking for those. Later that day during the 90-day review I expressed to the principal that while I am open to learning PM skills while I am on this project, that I want to be a project architect or designer. He got testy and fired back “Well I have plenty of project architects and project designers I have great ones already. What this firm needs is project managers.” I was confused given the roles explicitly discussed during the interview were Architectural Associate and then Staff Architect upon my licensure(very close). Never once did we discuss the PM tract. Note, this is a departmental firm, and PMS does not design but exclusively facilitate contracts/client relationships/budgets. Forward a few weeks later to my professional development meeting with HR and the Principal. Neutrally, I began the meeting by trying to understand where the wires were getting crossed: if he felt I had said something that would imply PM role, revisited what roles and expectations were explicitly discussed in the interview to get to the bottom of what was happening on his end. Then he back-peddled and said he had only said it as a recommendation along the lines of “I thought you would make a good PM.” I then proceeded to push further to recite the 90-day review and other incidents that went (in my mind) beyond recommendation and more into directive action. Essentially, all I got was back-peddling and equivocating from him. He played the whole thing off as a weird game of telephone gone awry. While this doesn't seem like the door he was trying to shove me through swings only one way, I still feel very very disoriented and demotivated by this ordeal. I now feel like a sitting duck at this firm and that trying for positions I thought I was being hired for is already filled. I no longer care about pushing for leadership positions. I can't help but think this all could have been avoided if the Principal had stated they were looking to hire someone for the PM track in the job ad or the interview.

For context, I've done about 2.5 years of PM at my previous job but I made a point not to mention this during the interview. While I enjoyed working with clients, I felt I missed out on larger projects that would have had a lot more scope to glean institutional knowledge, expand my technical ability, and improve/update my portfolio with local projects. I was doing very small projects (which makes sense to start with) but few to none of those projects can go into my portfolio. I also felt like I plateaued-- I wasn't getting to learn anything new architecturally because the project scopes I was managing were so small. "A wall or door here there" Since our industry relies on portfolio/work to both interview for prospective clients and architecture jobs I felt like my career trajectory took a blow due to it. Sure, I learned soft skills, contracts, etc. I haven't worked on a full-size building in a long time because of it and still feel I have much to learn about the entire process. I miss it. Beyond that, I've generally noticed a higher attrition rate among Project Manager positions due to being overworked, less rewarding, and unsupported. You get paid more, but you leave the craft side of the profession behind which I feel I am still too young to do career-wise. I love working with people and mentoring, but I don't have to do that in my 9-5. I'm ok with making less if I'm maintaining a connection to the craft of this industry.

TLDR: I feel like a sitting duck - I got hired at a firm that promised design and master planning opportunities during interviews. As soon as I started the boss started speaking on my behalf saying I was looking to become a Project Manager, when I've never said that. Now I feel stuck because this same boss said this firm has “too many project architects/designers” and they need PMs but that was not communicated during the interview.