There are plenty of companies that have paid products and still do user-hostile things including stalking, spam, dark patterns, etc.
I paid full price for a Playstation 4. I still had to opt out of "enhanced data collection" and spend 15 minutes disabling every option on their bullshit attempt at a social network. Even the games themselves had their own telemetry crap I needed to disable buried deep in some advanced settings.
Spotify still insists on ratting me out to Facebook by loading their SDK even if I'm paying for the app. They also interrupt my flow every so often with in-app popovers about some stupid feature I don't care about.
A client I worked for that has a paid app had an insane amount of analytics and marketing SDKs in the app (including Facebook of course), so much that I actually refused to install the app or use the product myself even though they gave me a voucher.
This is a good point and I'm glad we're finally seeing some pushback. I would have a problem working for a company that does unethical things and I was surprised that so many people don't care. And before you tell me that people don't have a choice — perhaps some don't, but that certainly doesn't apply to all the crowd that moves to Silicon Valley to work for Google.
https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.spotify...
And Spotify doesn't make much money because most of their users are freeloaders. Their poor business model should not become the problem of the paying users.
So I say this based on personal experience. The Siemens' sales force uses their size and influence (especially with existing customers) to absolutely screw over customers and smaller competitors with better products. Siemens is no different than many other big companies who can use all sorts of unethical (but legal) tactics to sell.
It's very possible to work as an engineer in a big company and have zero idea as to what everybody else is doing to screw people over.
I always thought that I would be able to switch to any programming job I wanted, and that the only decision would be between making a lot and roughing it up (like the GP), or working for a better cause for less money (as you propose).
But now I find it -- after 25 years of professional experience -- nearly impossible to find any job. Maybe it is due to the coronavirus, or the budding depression (or both), but I've never seen the market so slow... :(
You might have to change tech stacks and rebrand yourself to appeal more to enterprisey jobs, but that's more of an issue of marketing than anything else. It will be a small transition, but once you do that you'll be fine.
There's plenty of bad actors (like any biz) but most of the time when I ship features everyone is happy, and no one is taken advantage of.
I'd much rather have a 40 hour a week job somewhere else, where everyone understands it's a job and you can be your own person at home. It's hard to articulate, and I could write much more about it, but it's almost like the identity you have to don to fit in there feels too all-consuming.
I don't want to pretend I'm changing the world instead of just installing a new social hierarchy run by the meritocratic elite. I don't want to pretend that programming is my only hobby -- I want to do other things than learn new Javascript frameworks at home. I like my nice 3 bedroom house which is just minutes from downtown and is less than 3x my annual income.
It's admittedly an outsider's perspective but the only reason I would go back is to save up money for a few years then go somewhere else.
1) I switched from being a software engineer to a data scientist in 2010, in part because of the culture. I totally get not enjoying the culture, though I do recognize how much it varies from person to person and company to company, so I try not to stereotype. But on some level, I get it.
2) We're opposites in some way. I've been writing code since I was 8 years old, and enjoy it. I'm the type of person who loves to find a fun and challenging problem and dive in so much I don't turn off. However, people like me are rare. In the last 15 years in the Bay Area, I've only worked with one other person who fit that criteria. Everyone else treated it like a 9 to 5 job. Me, I've never been one to judge or think negatively of that. That's how people are. It's normal. I get there are problems with SE culture, but some people being super passionate about what they do, to me isn't one of them. I don't believe I've ever annoyed anyone, bothered anyone after hours, or done anything unreasonable, and if I did I would appreciate people letting me know in a 1-on-1 fashion. The last thing I want to do is bother my coworkers.
3) You're on ycombinator, the center of Bay Area tech culture. Frankly, I'm baffled you like hacker news, for the people who like this kind of stuff after work hours, yet at the same time are anti that. YC is the heart of tech passion, and if you don't like it, why are you here? Not judging. Your comments and views are valuable. I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.
If your company starts to go the route of evil, you can find another job with people who are less morally bankrupt.
