I think I would have to consider exactly what my role within Facebook would be in this particular situation. For my current position career-wise, I think that a position at Facebook would provide opportunities to tackle meaningful issues and challenges, given the right position, while also giving me both valuable experience and a positive point on my resume that would allow me to work at companies that I feel more aligned with. Even though I personally don’t feel super strongly about prestige or power, I do recognize that the brand value of being a ‘Facebook employee’ would set me up better for the future. Ethically, I certainly have some issues with Facebook, but I don’t believe that they are so monolithically awful on all levels that I cannot bring myself to work for them. I also think that Facebook recently has placed a much higher priority on reducing the harm that they might cause, and I think that most Facebook employees are aligned with that mission statement. Ultimately I think a large deciding factor will be how much agency I have in deciding what products I am working on and how those products shape out – I don’t think I would benefit much career-wise or experience-wise from a position where I’m solely a developer without any say, and I would also have some additional qualms if the work I’m forced to do is something I believe is overall harmful for the world. If my position affords me an acceptable amount of agency and say in how the products I work in are developed, then it’s definitely something I would accept.
Although I will say that this is a highly idealistic way of looking at things, and I’m very privileged to be in a position where my family does not require my immediate financial support and so the (likely quite high) compensation offered by the position is not a huge factor in my considerations. I do think that if this situation changes then I think that my responsibility to take care of my family will take priority over some of the ethical or career-focused issues I might have.
