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We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

drewdevault.com

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Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#21

Post by aaron_m04 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #15
Loughla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was sort of the entire point of the writing. Because tech folks are in a privileged class, they have the ability to move jobs based on morals. And therefore they should. Not doing that, when you are making as much as you are as a programmer at BIGCORP means you are complicit in the bad behavior. That was the entire point. He addressed your concern in the first two paragraphs.

If you were to ask my circle of friends and family, even bigcorp programmer money isn’t sufficient to feel secure due to future economic volatility. Especially if your goal is to make sure your kids get to live in the richer neighborhoods and go to the richer schools, and so on and so forth. And it’s not just a perceived fear. The data shows that if you’re not in the portion of people increasing their rate of income/…

> And it’s not just a perceived fear. The data shows that if you’re not in the portion of people increasing their rate of income/wealth growth, then you’re in the portion that is decreasing in income/wealth growth, and that compounds for your kids.

Neither income nor wealth growth are zero sum games. This whole post reads like a bunch of excuses.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#22

Post by mcny »

tensor wrote: post #8
ddevault wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I addressed this upfront in TFA. Especially if you're working at for FAANG level salaries, there's no excuse for trying.

People making FAANG level salaries on this site routinely complain that they are "grossly" underpaid.

> People making FAANG level salaries on this site routinely complain that they are "grossly" underpaid.

I wouldn't say they are grossly underpaid as much as I'd say executives (not necessarily all management) is grossly overpaid. The market has failed us.

People tell me to not look at someone else's plate to see how much more they have than I do but it doesn't make sense when so much wealth/power is concentrated at the top.

Btw, I don't make FAANG level salaries so I can't speak for them. I still believe there is a magic number like maybe 10, 50, or up to 100 which is a multiplier of the minimum wage above which the income tax must be 90%+

So for example, if the magic number is 50 and minimum wage is $15, then $15 * 50 * 2000 (a year), then income above 1.5M would be subject to the highest level bracket. I sincerely believe the magic number should be no greater than 100.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#23

Post by clevergadget »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #15
Loughla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was sort of the entire point of the writing. Because tech folks are in a privileged class, they have the ability to move jobs based on morals. And therefore they should. Not doing that, when you are making as much as you are as a programmer at BIGCORP means you are complicit in the bad behavior. That was the entire point. He addressed your concern in the first two paragraphs.

If you were to ask my circle of friends and family, even bigcorp programmer money isn’t sufficient to feel secure due to future economic volatility. Especially if your goal is to make sure your kids get to live in the richer neighborhoods and go to the richer schools, and so on and so forth. And it’s not just a perceived fear. The data shows that if you’re not in the portion of people increasing their rate of income/…

Can you put a ballpark net worth at which you would feel secure?

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#24

Post by chrismartin »

Nobody makes enough money to pay multiple-six-figures developer salaries without people being exploited somewhere, and any $bigcorp is generally incapable of acting in a way that doesn't maximize shareholder value (except as needed to comply with laws). If you want to quit $bigcorp in protest, $bigcorp2 across the street has its own ethical problems.

There is a lot of important software work to be done for the world that doesn't enable mass surveillance, doesn't exploit addictive behavior, and doesn't degrade worker protections or evade taxes. It also doesn't pay multiple-six-figures. You'll just have to live like all of your non-tech friends.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#25

Post by ddevault »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #15
Loughla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was sort of the entire point of the writing. Because tech folks are in a privileged class, they have the ability to move jobs based on morals. And therefore they should. Not doing that, when you are making as much as you are as a programmer at BIGCORP means you are complicit in the bad behavior. That was the entire point. He addressed your concern in the first two paragraphs.

If you were to ask my circle of friends and family, even bigcorp programmer money isn’t sufficient to feel secure due to future economic volatility. Especially if your goal is to make sure your kids get to live in the richer neighborhoods and go to the richer schools, and so on and so forth. And it’s not just a perceived fear. The data shows that if you’re not in the portion of people increasing their rate of income/…

The level of hubris shown here is obscene. The median household income in the United States was $63,179 in 2018. Richer neighborhoods? Richer schools? Give me a break. This is wanton greed on plain display, and blatant disregard for the systemmic suppression of the poor that you are directly enabling by working at bigcorp.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#26

Post by clevergadget »

mapleoin wrote: post #3
OneGuy123 wrote: post #2

Everyone will always prioritize the wellbeing of their own family VS some random people in the company you work in. Well-off devs like the guy who quit Amazon don't have $$$ issues, so he can afford to do that. Others don't, and that doesn't make them bad. That makes them care for their family first.

I don't think that anyone with a developer salary and the ability to find another job with exactly the same salary or better within a month you can honestly say they have $$$ issues.

This is so obviously true and the higher the number of people questioning it here == the rate at which I devalue hacker news. Outside of specific extenuating circumstances to not have this perspective is either devil's advocacy, ignorance, fear in a way that suggests therapy. If you can't feel safe without hundreds of thousands of dollars in passive income that is a you problem not a world problem.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#27

Post by ashtonkem »

spaced-out wrote: post #18

We technologists like to pretend we're powerful, that we could bring these giant megacorps to their knees because those fancy suits need us, right? No. They need an engineer, not any one specific engineer. Companies like Amazon reject many candidates that could probably do the job they applied for, but were rejected because they can afford to be picky. If anything changes at Amazon it not be because of the loss of th…

> “Graveyards are full of indispensable men”.

— Charles de Gaulle.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#28

Post by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 »

> This is why I hold my peers accountable for working at companies which are making a negative impact on the world around them.

Oh these are the rules now? Judging other people is easy. You can look at almost anyone and find something you don’t like about them: sweatshop sneakers, ignorance of their history, consumer waste, eating meat from commercial farms... don’t you know people around the world are starving and you’re throwing out food?

Finding faults in others is easy and helps change exactly nothing. Turning it inward in self examination is the hard part.

Re: We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

#30

Post by mataug »

ddevault wrote: post #19
mataug wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all devs have the privilege to make that moral choice. Especially devs who are in the US on a visa. Unlike Canada / Australia where folks can get a permanent residency relatively quickly based on education + job offer. The US has a long PR process which is tied to a visa, the visa in-turn is tied to an employer, instead of an industry(such as Tech / Software). So every job switch is rolling the dice and wading th…

Author here. I decline to extend my comments to H1B workers, I agree that they don't enjoy the same level of mobility as programmers who are US citizens. This is a problem in and of itself, but I don't hold H1B's accountable for their employer's deeds due to these extenuating circumstances. The point of my article is that you should be held accountable for things which are within your control, and for US citizens wor…

Appreciate your response here, Thank you !
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