Comment by opportune | Hacker News Reader

Comment by opportune | Hacker News Reader

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I don't really think these are compelling arguments, since at least for me, the only better thing than working for a megacorp as far as finances and QOL would be running my own company and succeeding which is substantially riskier.

>If you quit, remember that they will have forced you to sign an NDA and a non-compete.

Not really likely considering there is a huge revolving door between all the major tech companies. There is also a risk I get hit by a car on the way to work.

>You will probably be much happier at a small to mid-size company. The “dream job” megacorps have sold you on is just good marketing.

Actually I've worked on interesting, highly used stuff at megacorps in mature work environments, and was paid much more than most random small companies would. The concept of a "dream job" doesn't exist, neither in big companies or small companies, IMO.

>They could hurt you, and they could make you hurt others.

I could just leave and get another job at any time. I don't understand why this author is so paranoid.

I feel like you skipped the most compelling reason. I posted it in this thread already, but it's the abhorrent behavior that these companies routinely engage in and the harm they cause, enabled by well-meaning engineers who just want to solve problems and do interesting work.

Yeah, the issue with that is that for most megacorps only one or two of those criticisms are valid. I've definitely refused to work at companies (like Facebook) on the grounds that I think they are doing much more harm than good in the world. But there are also megacorps which I consider to be doing less harm per capita than other technology businesses which I would work for.

Part of the issue is that media companies have darlings and enemies that they don't really cover proportionately to their offenses, IMO (for example if Google even considers doing any business in China - uproar. But Bing actively sells out Chinese users to the Chinese government and nobody cars, because right now Microsoft is a media darling). And the media doesn't write about smaller companies doing bad things usually, unless they are particularly bad, because they fail the "who cares" test.

There is also an inherent chaos that comes with companies with hundreds of thousands of employees - bad people will get through hiring and do bad things, people will make very high impact mistakes, things become uncoordinated. So for me personally I try to think of companies in terms of badness-per-capita and whether the rot is coming from the top (Facebook) or is seemingly "random".

I would rather work for a weapon manufacturer than Facebook. It is way more honest work to drill guns than to "bring people together" a la Zuckerberg.

You kidding, working at raytheon or BAE sounds must more engaging and impactful (puns intented) than running web apps.

I have a couple of objections to that:

- These companies aren't monolithic. If you object to say Google's monopoly on advertising, you can take a job on a team that has nothing to do with it, like image compression.

- If you disagree with the company's practices, you might have more impact by changing the company from within than trying to compete with it.

> ... and they could make you hurt others

This is the part you missed. You can’t easily walk away from that.

I don't see how that's possible. I could just quit if I felt I was doing something unethical. It is easy to get hired as a software engineer, though if you are on a restrictive work visa "just quitting" becomes a much harder decision.

Did you not read the part in the GP where he said "I could just leave and get another job at any time."? How is that not easily walking away from it?

You may not walk away if the BigCorp is subtle enough to hide how your actions are supporting an unethical intention.

I don’t blame people for working in a BigCorp. You gotta pay rent or mortgage. I’m wary of the uncontrolled power they hold over humanity and the prestige we associate working for them. These two together can be lethal.

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