In the United States, both employers and applicants can withdraw an offer or stop a job application process for virtually any reason, at virtually any time. The exceptions are e.g. anti-discrimination statutes.
"You accepted an offer already." is a legal reason to bounce your application. So is "You mentioned you're a Cubs fan. We like the Sox." So is "We have no articulable reason at all for not going ahead with you", as long as that lack of reason is not a cover for our true reason, which is that you're black/a woman/a veteran (in certain states)/etc.
You might have a colorable claim for detrimental reliance if it had happened in reverse (Company A withdrew a job offer when they found out you had talked to B, after you had e.g. moved to their city in reliance on their offer), but that doesn't fit the fact pattern you're talking about.
In the future, you should exercise more discretion about what important details of your dealings with unrelated people you share with people you're in a sales situation with. If a company makes a job offer to you, and you accept, but you subsequently don't end up taking a job with them due to them being unable to reach agreement on details of the work, from the perspective of your job search this is a no-op. You have no particular obligation to disclose that fact to people.
Also, you should know that "I recently accepted a job offer, but decided that I didn't actually want to accept it." does not communicate "I am a competent professional who will be a headache-free high-quality productive worker at your organization." That doesn't mean you're forbidden to do it (God knows AmaGooBookSoft would bounce an offer in a hot second if they thought it over and decided "Actually, we have better options"), but again, I would be very discrete on disclosing that in an interview.
Thanks for the advice. Would the correct thing for me to do be to withdraw my acceptance of said offer? It's hard for me to explain how I know I'll dislike what I'll be doing without revealing the company.
I don't know the exact circumstances of how you came to accept an offer without knowing what you'd actually be doing, which sounds to me like accepting without other crucial information like e.g. what salary is or whether you'd be HQed in Mountain View or Timbucktu, but you can quit a job any time you want, for any reason, and the same goes for offers. I'd be appropriately apologetic with your point of contact at the company, but "Thanks for getting us this far. The actual position which the company proposes placing me in is not what I envisioned during our earlier discussion. I'd still like to work for you guys if you can be flexible on that, for example by offering me $BETTER_POSITION." If they're not flexible, then say "OK, I appreciate where you're coming from. You only want to hire the people who'd do their best work as $OFFERED_POSITION, and I only want to work in a position which is the best fit for my skills, so I don't think having me do that job is a mutual win for us. Accordingly, I think we shouldn't move forward on this."
They'll might hem and haw a bit, but ultimately, you have an absolute right to not work in jobs you don't want. You'll probably burn your bridges with that decisionmaker, and more than likely with that company, but the world has many companies.
For your future reference, and that of HNers in the peanut gallery: nail down major specifics like this before saying Yes. If you hadn't said Yes already, you'd have an absolutely not-in-the-least-bit awkward opportunity to continue the negotiation and say "That position doesn't sound like what I'd like to be doing. You should offer me a better one, or alternatively, compromise on one of the other levers in this negotiation.", and if that negotiation broke down it would cost you nothing and not leave anyone with a bad taste in their mouths.
Thanks for the advice. It's definitely been a learning experience. At this particular employer, they just fit engineers into a generic Software Engineering Role, and the team you end up on is determined by business need close to your start date. My team has already changed once without them even informing me (I had found out by asking if any other teams had opened up) and I haven't even started yet.
"You accepted an offer already." is a legal reason to bounce your application. So is "You mentioned you're a Cubs fan. We like the Sox." So is "We have no articulable reason at all for not going ahead with you", as long as that lack of reason is not a cover for our true reason, which is that you're black/a woman/a veteran (in certain states)/etc.
You might have a colorable claim for detrimental reliance if it had happened in reverse (Company A withdrew a job offer when they found out you had talked to B, after you had e.g. moved to their city in reliance on their offer), but that doesn't fit the fact pattern you're talking about.
In the future, you should exercise more discretion about what important details of your dealings with unrelated people you share with people you're in a sales situation with. If a company makes a job offer to you, and you accept, but you subsequently don't end up taking a job with them due to them being unable to reach agreement on details of the work, from the perspective of your job search this is a no-op. You have no particular obligation to disclose that fact to people.
Also, you should know that "I recently accepted a job offer, but decided that I didn't actually want to accept it." does not communicate "I am a competent professional who will be a headache-free high-quality productive worker at your organization." That doesn't mean you're forbidden to do it (God knows AmaGooBookSoft would bounce an offer in a hot second if they thought it over and decided "Actually, we have better options"), but again, I would be very discrete on disclosing that in an interview.