Yes, I would take a job at FaceBook, despite ethical concerns. This is for two main reasons brought up in the article.
For personal and professional development.
FaceBook as a tech giant has a huge name in the space and their employees are well-respected in the tech community. This leads to many of their former engineers or product managers to have accessible opportunities to ‘job-hop’ through different companies with different products and missions. This is important for two reasons. First, able to move to different jobs would allow a former FB employee to take their time in finding a company that properly has an ethical mission. Often times from the outside a company may look ethically just, but only the employees truly know the inner workings of the company and any secrets that are hidden. Second, ‘job hoping’ often leads to a rise in title and rank with every ‘hop’. As one rises higher in a company, their impact on the company increased and therefore their potential to make internal change and suggestions that might urge the company in the direction of more ethical practices. Especially if the job hop were coupled with a move to a smaller stage company, a former Facebook SWE could find themselves as a head engineer of a small start-up and have a strong say in ensuring a product is developed ethically.
Distance from ‘stink’
Again, considering FB as a tech giant with countless business facets, not every Facebook employee is involved in data privacy breaches, content curation, or algorithmic decisions that have raised ethical concerns. For example, a software engineer building a post button or working on user experience may feel their role is far removed from the aspects of the company that are morally questionable. The role that the FB job would offer is very important.
I also think there is something to be said about whether declining the job offer would really make any impact. With FB seen as such a favorable job in tech, chances are that if I reject this job offer, there will be countless people behind me waiting to accept the offer in an instant. If we take ourselves out of the equation, and consider our goal with avoiding unethical jobs is to benefit the world as a whole, then is allowing someone else whose morals might not be as strong as yours really the most
