Would you accept a job at Facebook?

I’ve thought about this question often — especially poignantly after completing internships at Facebook over the past few years. I’ve reached a juncture in my academic career where I’m finally trying to take the time to think intentionally and purposefully about what I want to do in my remaining year (or two) here, and how that will translate into my professional life after I graduate. Amidst cranking my way through core classes and getting inevitably caught up in the impersonal and mechanical motions of internship recruitment, I never really stopped to think too hard or too deeply about where I wanted to work, or what kind of work I wanted to do, or even what purpose and meaning I want in my life and how my creer fits into that. At the time of accepting and working these internships, they really were just a stepping stone in my mind, a means to hopefully lead me towards this “end”, this “purpose” I seek now.

Before, I always anticipated working at a big tech company as either a SWE or a PM — which company, I never particularly considered at the time. And to balance out the capitalist grind of my 9-5 (and keep myself sane off-the-clock), I thought I would pursue and further my other pasions and hobbies in life — like music, and art. I see myself teaching music or art at some community level, like I used to in high school (I used to teach for free at a music academy and an art academy for underserviced communties, and it was one of the highlights of those few years). Like this quote in the reading — “Which is part of the reason it’s so clear that this is a job for people who want meaning in their professional lives, a purpose separate from their own comfort, and one involving the environment.” — I thought that I could have both: a stable job that would pay the bills, and things to do outside of work to give me meaning instead. But now I’m not sure if I can quite do that and stay true to myself. Would I inherently be a bad, or a morally worse person for still choosing to work at a company like Facebook, regardless what I did in my time outside my job? Thinking of the pros and cons of working a job at a company like Facebook, like the comparisons in the reading for jobs like day care and actuary etc — the pros would be the (mostly) stable hours, the level of pay, flexbility of location and hybrid working formats, and plenty of benefits that would help myself and my family like insurance, childcare stipends, etc. And there’s the pros of the company and its products themselves, all the “good” parts of social media, keeping people connected, etc. But all the cons — the company itself and what it stands for, the lack of transparency, the money-feeding, the inaction surrounding certain political and social justice topics and conflicts, the way the platform itself encourages or enables such behaviors, all the downsides of social media and the lack of action by the company to own up to them or address and mitigate them, everything they could do but don’t do and exploitation of consumers and intentionally misleading — the list goes on. And if I worked there, I would also be enabling and facilitating all of those harms. And I don’t know if I could live with that long term.