Realize that you're statment is a euphemism. What you really mean is we have the choice between implementing a dark pattern or finding another job and letting someone else implement it. Stated this way it's a lot easier to understand people's behavior.
You incorrectly reduced the available options.
Here are a couple more options:
- convince your peers and supervisors why using dark patterns is trash
- just don't implement dark patterns and rather focus on useful features and bugfixes
- be loud about your distain of such request for dark pattern implementation and tweet, blog, write about it.
- ...
(Though, realistically speaking, either one will probably get you fired, sooner or later.)
One could be tempted to think we're overpaid or have it too good as is, but we're basically lightning wizards making rocks think for us from sometimes thousands of miles away from where we physically are. When put that way it doesn't seem so farfetched to pay us a lot of money for our works.
s/implementing a dark pattern/performing any immoral or unethical act/g