A lot of DevRel seems to fail/get a poor reputation because the individual seems more focused on making themselves the center of attention/launching their influencer career versus actually trying to help others use their product.
This seems more true the more prestigious the company you work for is, as you get free prestige without having gone through the grind to get in as a SWE/Researcher.
This is a great project. It'd be fun to look at some of the more popular startups over time, both those that ended up successful and those that didn't.
Your argument erases the employee's biggest moral choice: did the Meta employee just spawn a Meta employee? No, they chose to work there. You assign maximal agency to someone buying an index fund and minimal agency to someone who voluntarily spends 40 hours a week advancing Meta's objectives. That's backwards. (Or, more likely, a purposeful troll comment).
I'll make sure to shame my Illumina scientist neighbor for working on tech that deliberately targets underage children (purposely violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.). After all, he owns the world's most popular index fund, which includes Meta. He certainly should feel just as culpable as the Meta employees!
I don't care to dive into imaginary philosophical debates. I'm responding to the person in this thread saying, "I'm stuck" while clearly being financially well-off.
I agree. That said, a cursory glance at their post history shows they donate 6-figures to charity, which while very commendable, flies in the face of the idea of being 'stuck'.
In any case, it's quite simple. If you work at Meta, you certainly have other options. Similar-tier companies pay just as well, and lower-tier companies will interview you readily.
We're not talking about someone scraping by here - working at Meta is a choice, and takes hard work to get into. That does not absolve you from the damage the company has done to the world. If you work there, you contribute to it (no matter how small the capacity) and you benefit from it literally through wages and share ownership. Your vested interest is in the company growing. Historically, that has meant via very dark patterns.
They author thousands of open-source. Nobody would consider those 'products' (though feel free to play pedantic). And many would argue React did far more harm than good.
It's actually incredible that you can share that bottom paragraph with a straight face after we just went to war with Iran.
Let's discuss it openly, as you prime: how do you contrast what you just shared with the war, and Israel's actions after the agreed to ceasefire and declaration of war's end?
Meta continuing to be the most shameless (and shameful to work for) company around.
I can't think of a single product of theirs that hasn't made the world a markedly worse place. Even their recent hardware foray is managing to find a way to ruin trust in everyday interactions (guys filming drunk girls with Ray Bans, surveillance, etc.).
Have several friends at the more 'thoughtful' frontier labs that bin meta applicants straight to the trash for this very reason.
Many dataviz people are like this, and it comes off odd. Awhile back, there was an entire 'Bar Barplots' movement, with exactly the same argument. Same for Pie Charts vs Donut charts ('angle shouldn't encode magnitude!').
The marriage of stats and design can bring the worst from both.
(And even if you find that plot X is bad, that doesn't mean you need to treat it as a personality trait.)
No - not everyone has a moral number, believe it or not. And no, most people don't give a shit about the car you drive, or want to friend you for it. Maybe in your social circles, but as someone in circles of both non-tech people and (literally) the richest bunch in tech - I promise, they don't.
What a truly sad mindset/worldview that you believe that to be true.