Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#131

Post by ksenzee » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

iliekcomputers wrote: post #130

ksenzee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last ex-Amazonian I interviewed managed to express his discomfort with Amazon without "badmouthing" anything or anyone. I was impressed with his diplomacy. We hired him.

So it becomes an interview of diplomacy essentially. Not really sure if that's ideal. I could see many false negatives of people who are technically strong, uncomfortable with their employer's ethics but still avoiding the topic so as not to say too much by mistake.

In this particular case it was an engineering manager position. Diplomacy is part of the job description.

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#132

Post by jentist_retol » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

secondcoming wrote: post #76

jentist_retol wrote: post #2

I've taken a hard line with people who work at Facebook. If you're still there and unwilling to represent the failings your company has done to society, then I need to hear a justification before moving further in the conversation. I don't think I've ever felt this strongly about a tech company. I know that's tough but it's a matter of ethics. And frankly, Facebook is an amazing technical institution, and I would lov…

And if I got your dumb question in an interview I'd walk out. It's obviously a politicised, hostile workplace.

If you take offense over a variation of "as you know [your company] made the news for being caught doing [horrible thing]. On your resume you worked on [horrible thing]. How do you feel about that?", then you have a very thin skin and also I would not want to work with you. So it would be mutual.

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#133

Post by jentist_retol » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

gabereiser wrote: post #65

jentist_retol wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to emphasize the nature of the answer which was a defensive "I was just following orders". At that point, I was conducting dozens of interviews a year, and I think that sort of question came up... maybe three times? One of those people was from a medical company with a very large and very embarrassing contemporary incident, and the interviewee and I talked about development process problems. In fact, they ad…

exactly this... I think there are more factors at play than “Didn’t you think about what you were doing?” such as, maybe they have a family they have to provide for and they actually like the people they work with and what they do it’s just Jim from sales all of the sudden suggests a feature that’s unethical but the company believes it’s the thing to build... at some point, leadership should be blamed, not the engine…

In software, there is incredible demand and engineers have a lot of negotiating power. So, we have the power to actually get new jobs easily!

And fine, but then when that horrible thing makes the news and their answer is "i don't care, i was just building the feature", I take that to be an extremely unsatisfactory answer.

And if they work at Facebook with those kind of unsatisfactory answers, they are probably very qualified for a lot of positions, and I don't think they'll be hurting for job offers elsewhere.

Re: Facebook staffer sends 'blood on my hands' memo

#134

Post by iliekcomputers » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 11:36 AM UTC

ksenzee wrote: post #131

iliekcomputers wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it becomes an interview of diplomacy essentially. Not really sure if that's ideal. I could see many false negatives of people who are technically strong, uncomfortable with their employer's ethics but still avoiding the topic so as not to say too much by mistake.

In this particular case it was an engineering manager position. Diplomacy is part of the job description.

That makes sense!