I always give them the same answer: no. I don't work for parasites.
I remember the time before the Blair government unwisely deregulated gambling, and I hope we can one day return to that.
Not sure when that was but in Australia a similar decision was made in... 2007 or 2008 maybe? It feels like it has been a constant race to the bottom with endless competing companies trying to out-do each other with enticements to bring in new/re-engage existing players (none of whom have any loyalty anyway).
I know monopolies have their issues but I don't remember it being like this when there was a single operator (yes there have always been problem gamblers but 20 years there wasn't wall to wall advertising, deposit-matching, odds-boost etc).
In the major mode, it feels like 90% are gambling, crypto or traditional finance. The remaining 10% are US tech companies getting a bit more for their money over here. Not sure how much longer that last subcategory will last. Most of these jobs will leave you wanting a good scrub in a scalding shower. Even the US ones.
The minor mode are where you'll find roles at UK-based tech companies, non-tech companies requiring programmers, web developers, etc. etc. The scope is vast and the pay is meh... and maybe my sample size is far too small and time-biased here, but I find the people at these places are so much more down to Earth, operate in a wider spectrum of fields and life experiences, and are just way more interesting and varied day-to-day than endless tech hype drudgery.
You wouldn't have guessed, but for the last 7 years, I have not been in a job at a minor mode company... and maybe the greener grass is glistening rather brightly right now!
We have a pretty abysmal tech landscape really given our involvement in computing history. It has all been sold off and gradually moved offshore. Europe has a reasonably heathly and open tech industry, albiet at a smaller scale than US, but of course us British are not allowed to play with them any more!
> traditional finance
But I won't touch gambling, especially in the UK. It a nasty, predatory industry that preys on people. They know they are doing it, but they hide behind BS excuses and empty promises, and time after time investigations clearly show they intentionally goad on problem gamblers.
To be clear, this isn't a moral objection to people gambling. If you enjoy it, and are in control, then have fun. It's the companies, they are scum.
Feel like specifying what makes them so distinctly more parasitic than, say, a company like Google or Facebook? Both of which many people here seem to have no trouble working for.
It's a fuckton lower than the number of people who have lost all of their money and then killed themselves due to betting.
The morality line for me is at an unknown and unknowable (and you'll just have to deal with that I am a human not a computer) position that is higher than Google/Facebook and lower than gambling apps.
edit: lol no never mind, on further self-examination I would rather starve to death under a bridge than work at facebook trying to figure out how to use AI to addict people so that they buy dropshipped garbage from our advertisers and not the other guys.
I'm a strong believer in people being responsible for their own actions in the face of voluntary options, and free to reject the entreaties of companies whose primary and paramount interest is their own financial benefit at your expense. Gambling companies are a near perfect example of such companies since they sell little more than transient, vapid "fun" at the risk of you completely wrecking your life, but one still can choose. (Yes I know there are also people with a tremendous psychological addiction to gambling, but it's tricky to form both rules or general moral guidelines based on a small subset)
In the case of Google and Facebook (and a few others), some sorts of genuine services are available and they can at least claim by these services to be of a different character from some betting company. However, the case of either business type, a core motivation remains extracting as much as possible from users through mendacious, manipulative means while addicting them into continually using their systems for as long and intensely as possible. In this, they're remarkably similar to your average betting company, except the currency they desire is instead of money directly, your information and attention, and as much of both as possible for as long as possible.
That was my last decade of work.
Working on another company now that will solve some other problems that I know about in this part of the industry.
Trade promotion is about short-term push strategies to get people to buy more. So things like cheaper sodas, chips, and other processed food could contribute to obesity. There's also massive food waste in the industry for the healthier options, but none of the trade promotion software I read about talked about reducing waste. So there can definitely be negative impacts in the food industry that you are enabling. I would bet that there's not a single job that doesn't have some negative impact.
There is demand forecasting software, and there are also logistics tools for things like tracking product temperature from farm to shelf to make sure it stays within the acceptable range...
Those are different tools though, and not the purpose of their TPM package.
So sure, there are absolutly knock on effects to anything you do. I don't think I am enabling these companies to sell any different products than they already were. All it does is find when the distributors or retailers are trying to say "you owe me $100k because I bought N of X product at Y price in the last month" and we know they are really only entitled to $70k, we give our customer the info to go talk to that distributor or retailer and say "here is why you are only getting $70k in rebates rather than what you said you were owed".
That works for any product, not just sugary drinks. We had some customers who sold medical supplies for example.
Tell yourself whatever you need to sleep at night though. You seem to just be a contrarian.