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Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

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Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#21

Post by rurban »

wolfgke wrote: post #8
sveme wrote: post #6

I'm always wondering how the software developers of FinFisher justify working for such shady players like Turkey and other middle east authoritarian regimes. Are they heading home to family and kids after destroying the remnants of the turkish democracy and tell themselves "twas a good day"?

In Germany (where I live), the job market for software developers is not that you can arbitrarily choose for whom you want to work; you have to take the job that you can get (and I know quite some people (in Germany) who work in software development who would love to find a better job). So I personally believe that these people simply could not find a better job with less moral dilemmas.

It might be a moral dilemma, but mostly it's basic risk mitigation, when you have to work for a company or agency doing illegal or unconstitutional things. In many cases the company will throw you under the bus.

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#22

Post by bigiain »

sveme wrote: post #6

I'm always wondering how the software developers of FinFisher justify working for such shady players like Turkey and other middle east authoritarian regimes. Are they heading home to family and kids after destroying the remnants of the turkish democracy and tell themselves "twas a good day"?

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#23

Post by wolfgke »

BjoernKW wrote: post #16
wolfgke wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany (where I live), the job market for software developers is not that you can arbitrarily choose for whom you want to work; you have to take the job that you can get (and I know quite some people (in Germany) who work in software development who would love to find a better job). So I personally believe that these people simply could not find a better job with less moral dilemmas.

It might not be Silicon Valley but the German market for software development services is very much a seller's market, too. In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer).

> In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer).

I was looking for a job in software development for a very long time (region: quite everywhere in Germany or Austria). As of today, I "only" found a job in a very different sector (which is not a bad job, but it hardly has anything to do with software development). And yes, I know quite some people in Germany who also had lots of difficulties finding a job in software development.

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#24

Post by adrianN »

wolfgke wrote: post #23
BjoernKW wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be Silicon Valley but the German market for software development services is very much a seller's market, too. In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer).

> In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer). I was looking for a job in software development for a very long time (region: quite everywhere in Germany or Austria). As of today, I "only" found a job in a very different sector (which is not a bad job, but it hardly has anything to do with software development). And yes, I know quite some people in Germany who…

Maybe it depends on the type of software development that you want to do? What area is your expertise in?

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#25

Post by goatinaboat »

wolfgke wrote: post #8
sveme wrote: post #6

I'm always wondering how the software developers of FinFisher justify working for such shady players like Turkey and other middle east authoritarian regimes. Are they heading home to family and kids after destroying the remnants of the turkish democracy and tell themselves "twas a good day"?

In Germany (where I live), the job market for software developers is not that you can arbitrarily choose for whom you want to work; you have to take the job that you can get (and I know quite some people (in Germany) who work in software development who would love to find a better job). So I personally believe that these people simply could not find a better job with less moral dilemmas.

The market is hot if you are a webdev in Berlin but elsewhere in Germany programming is no more in demand than any other technicians job. This may be hard to believe for the SV bubble crowd but this is how it is.

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#26

Post by AlchemistCamp »

BjoernKW wrote: post #16
wolfgke wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany (where I live), the job market for software developers is not that you can arbitrarily choose for whom you want to work; you have to take the job that you can get (and I know quite some people (in Germany) who work in software development who would love to find a better job). So I personally believe that these people simply could not find a better job with less moral dilemmas.

It might not be Silicon Valley but the German market for software development services is very much a seller's market, too. In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer).

I would disagree with the final part. Freelancing and actually earning a first-world developer income successfully requires quite a few skills that aren't part of a typical development job.

Knowing where and how to find leads, how to convert them into prospects and clients, how to negotiate, how to scope out a project, how to appropriately push back against scope creep and how to manage a pipeline of future projects are all important skills if you're freelancing (and not using a "race to the bottom" platform).

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#27

Post by dsfyu404ed »

sveme wrote: post #6

I'm always wondering how the software developers of FinFisher justify working for such shady players like Turkey and other middle east authoritarian regimes. Are they heading home to family and kids after destroying the remnants of the turkish democracy and tell themselves "twas a good day"?

>I'm always wondering how the software developers of FinFisher justify

"stopping terrorism" for when they make a sale to Turkey and "preventing anti-social behavior" for when they make a sale to London or NYC.

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#28

Post by lnsru »

wolfgke wrote: post #8
sveme wrote: post #6

I'm always wondering how the software developers of FinFisher justify working for such shady players like Turkey and other middle east authoritarian regimes. Are they heading home to family and kids after destroying the remnants of the turkish democracy and tell themselves "twas a good day"?

In Germany (where I live), the job market for software developers is not that you can arbitrarily choose for whom you want to work; you have to take the job that you can get (and I know quite some people (in Germany) who work in software development who would love to find a better job). So I personally believe that these people simply could not find a better job with less moral dilemmas.

I share your opinion, job market in Germany is a tragedy today. I fully understand people writing shady software for VW group at Bosch, they have no alternatives. Kids want nice vacation, payments for the bank must be done every month.

Though I am not software developer, but I get also some recruiter offers every week. I was interested in changing jobs and starting talking to these recruiters. Max offers were at €60k what is a bad joke for Munich. Many offers that start negotiations as employment end as contract for 6 months.

Before writing here, that changing jobs in Germany is easy, talk to these “recruiters”. Get other work contract with negotiated salary ~€100k for Munich every week. I doubt this will happen soon again.

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#29

Post by wolfgke »

adrianN wrote: post #24
wolfgke wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general, software developers have no problem at all with finding a job (or clients as a freelancer). I was looking for a job in software development for a very long time (region: quite everywhere in Germany or Austria). As of today, I "only" found a job in a very different sector (which is not a bad job, but it hardly has anything to do with software development). And yes, I know quite some people in Germany who…

Maybe it depends on the type of software development that you want to do? What area is your expertise in?

I think I know quite a lot about C and C++ (which means Modern C++ (currently C++17)), but have also worked in a lot of other programming languages (including Python, Java, JavaScript, Erlang (additionally, some further ones for university courses)). Additionally to computer science, I studied mathematics, where I also have a doctorate. I wrote my doctoral thesis about some very tricky questions about geometric structures behind optimization algorithms for discrete optimization problems. In all of these areas (mathematics, computer science, doctorate in mathematics), I either graduated with best possible or second best possible mark.

I also claim to know more about IT security than my CV suggests (I got one job interview for a job in this sector, and afterwards the interviewer told me that I have far too much knowledge in this area to be suitable for the available jobs; "you belong into academia").

The same holds, I believe, for embedded programming, where I also think to know quite a lot. Why am I so sure about it? Because as a hobby, I worked on reverse-engineering the firmware of some quite non-trivial embedded device.

I also think that I have an immense knowledge of arcane details of the instruction encodings of various CPU architectures, but this is merely a hobby of mine and useless for the job market.

--

There exist lots of people who seriously could not understand how I could not find a job as a programmer. For example quite some doctoral classmates (who could find a job in software development) called me a "wandering encyclopedia of the history of computer science".

--

As I said: I found a job in a sector that is very different from software development. Just don't tell me that it is easy to find a job in software development; it isn't, even if you are willing to relocate anywhere in Germany or Austria. And I know quite some people who have the same experience.

Re: Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany

#30

Post by cyborgx7 »

Off-topic: This is an article I would consider spending 1-3 dollars to read. But the only option for me is to subscribe. Therefore I won't be reading it and they won't get my money. I know that on demand paying for articles hasn't been made to work yet. But it still feels like there is a potential here that isn't being serviced.
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