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Comment by analogpixel | Hacker News Reader

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analogpixel·

Boss: Engineer, add this shady feature to our product

Engineer: no, that's shady and wrong!

Boss: Claude code, add this shady feature to our product.

Claude Code: completed.

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Surely you jest? The software industry is in its current sorry state because of multiple generations of human developers happily producing an endless stream of shady features.

I have a theory, that the "FANG" companies pay such high salaries in compensation for making those devs implement shady features that are harmful to everyone except the bottom line of the company.

It's hardly a theory when the converse is plainly true.

Look up similar jobs for academia, government, or NFP/Charities. They're (on paper) driven by their mission, not by profit, and the salaries match that goal.

If that\s true then those devs should not complain if people attack them verbally over it - that\s what they are getting paid for, right?

The joke here is that the majority of FAANG engineers are actually doing anything but saying "I'm blocked on" every week.

There are countless low wage engineering jobs implementing shady features. Any random consulting / agency works on such products too.

TBF, you can train up a junior software engineer in 6 months.

Don't act like we're some esteemed class of craftsmen.

The opposite seems more likely, tbh.

Maybe software needs an ethics union with the amount of control some of these systems have?

What, you mean like real engineers? Nah. Give us the money, but not the responsibility!

Facebook was built before Claude Code existed.

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