| You've basically got a very mild variation on the Wernher Von Braun thing going on here. Engineer of prolific impact and talent, working for the worst possible people, indirectly exploiting people in the worse possible way to do shit work that is related to his pure and commendable goals and interests. The engineer feels as though he is powerless to resist the the exploitation that is demanded by his employer. Eventually the bad guy employers go down in flames to everyone's delight, but the engineer still has the technical chops to make himself valued. The question, does the previous employer reflect poorly on the engineer? To be honest, Von Braun is one of those ambiguous figures in history for me. I don't really know how I feel about him. However, the fact that he is ambiguous at all means that I have to admit to myself that his affiliations during the war do tarnish what I think of him. I don't think it is possible for that not to be the case. Ex-Zynga software engineer? Obviously the ambiguity is not going to be "is this guy a war criminal or not?" But would there be any ambiguity of any sort? Yeah, I think for me there would be. I don't think an engineer of any caliber is evaluated in a vacuum, past employers shape how we view them, for better or worse. This (particularly how I feel about Von Braun) is something I have thought about hard in the past when considering what I want to do as an engineer. |