My first paid developer job was writing backend code for what I would later learn was the Canadian mafia. I was doing some backend and embedded work to build super shitty gambling kiosks for them. They already had some person "managing" project and the Indian contract house that was building flash games for the kiosk. He was useless, so I was stuck figuring everything out. Including getting things running on a then obsolete HP Itanium Integrity server with an old insecure version of Fedora on it. Plus figuring out how this was all going to work in the Dominican Republic where power was not a given at any particular time nor was connectivity. These kiosks would be scattered across 10's of casinos down there.

Eventually things got weird, and I figured out that it was probably a form of scam against their investors. Since they wanted things very insecure and unlogged. Then they wanted me to come down to the DR and help with setup there. I bounced at that point, I was unwilling to give them that sort of power over me. They were in with the former president down there and I would have been at their mercy.

10 ish years later I would hear from the "manager" again. He wanted me to help with an automated locker system. I helped a bit but once he begged me to go to an ATT store and recharge his prepaid phone I was done with him. (I did recharge his phone because I am a sucker for a sob story)

If someone seems scummy, DO NOT work for them. Your gut is probably telling you something.

That said, a good work ethic and a baptism by fire where you have to do everything can be an effective way to get your start.