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What's your opinion on balancing ethicality and salary for a CS job? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/cs_career_questions

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I know this is a really vague question, I'm hoping for some open discussion

For some background, I currently have 2.5 years of professional work experience, and I work for a large defense contractor doing devops.

My approach to ethicality so far was basically, I need to start somewhere before I can be picky. I got hired at a large defense contractor out of college, and now that I've hit the 2 year mark for work experience, I have some flexibility in my next job when I decide to do that.

If money wasn't a problem, I'd love to use my degree to do good for the world, or at least work for an industry I don't think is evil. And truthfully, even the lower end of CS jobs still pay better than the higher end of many other degrees.

But right now I'm looking at job offers, and it seems like if I move to a tech, medical, or financial company, I could likely see a salary increase of 30-50%, which would be huge for me as I'm young and have debts to pay off (though much less than others, I'm pretty privileged).

At the same time, if I took a tech job working for my city, I found a position that I am perfectly qualified for but it's a 10% cut from my current salary which I already believe to be a bit too low.

Just curious to see how everyone else has made these decisions. It's very tempting to follow the money and take the highest paying job, but I'd love to work somewhere I'm genuinely proud of.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Im surprised the medical pays on the level of financial. The thing to me is the more financially independent you make yourself the easier it is in future to take jobs less for financial reasons. Just don't allow your lifestyle to need the money. Live a simple lifestyle and save and invest. Get and pay off a house, fund your retirement, eliminate debt. If you have all that done then take the job you find most fulfilling.

[–] silasmariner 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

A lot of 'medical' is basically funded by pushing drug ads to the US market. It's... not always ethical, let's say that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's a CS-related board. I guess it's about medical companies who write software or make robots, and the salaries are a bit higher that the average dev while still doing ethical stuff and avoiding killing people.

[–] silasmariner 1 points 5 days ago

I've worked at a medical tech company and whilst it started with ethical aims it devolved into what I described, alas. There's a huge range of kinds of medical tech company, but a depressing number of them are funded by some rather shady stuff

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Oh im not saying they don't make plenty of money, Im saying they are not big on paying money to employees.