What other industries but tech do any of us bother to talk about finding jobs that align with our values? (Outside of avoiding illegal or immoral work.) I think we were incredibly fortunate before ZIRP went away that we had much greater opportunity to choose companies that appealed to us.
I think it’s in part due to the fact that we’re expected to expend effort in these jobs thinking “big picture” about the roadmap and planning.
If you’re at a job where you get handed jira tickets and crunch bugs, you can probably ignore the big picture purpose and purpose and just be a cog that pushes code.
But if your job keeps telling you to think about why and how to improve the product, you will immediately see your values butting up against management’s values. This is a recipe for disillusionment because it causes you to think about what you value and then you get sucker punched when you see decisions being made with a different set of values by a machine that disregards your own.
Normally when you plumb a building, you're probably not working on an application that performs sentiment analysis on call workers, or finding a way to become a middleman in financial transactions, or you're probably not aiding the intelligence agencies of a world power.
I think more than you think? I like to believe that pretty much any career can have moments of “I’m proud to be part of this organization.” And “I can’t be part of this anymore.”
We’re not special in that regard. Our challenge lies in the sheer breadth of options available to us; but even that’s not unique: managing non profits, janitors, HR professionals, and lawyers also can work with a breathtaking array of companies.
Really the only folks who don’t have that issue to the same extent are tradespeople: carpenters, electricians, plumbers; but even they can say no to a job for a person or company they don’t want to support.
I choose every single job according to my values. I'd easily pick jobs where I earn less solely due to the company operating on ethical grounds. I did that throughout both of my careers (retail & tech) and will continue to do so.
Easiest choice of my life. How can one live with themselves knowing you fuck over people?
