
Ask HN: Unethical Software Developer Behavior? - 0x445442
Would it be considered unethical&#x2F;unprofessional behavior for a developer&#x2F;engineer to continue to work on a project where:<p>1.) The developer knows, with certainty, the ROI for the project is negative... by a large amount.
2.) The developer knows, with a high degree of certainty, the project will never have a positive ROI.
3.) The project is not under any type of R&amp;D heading or mandate.
4.) The organization is a financial institution.
5.) The organization is of the mutually owned variety.
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PaulHoule
This is a really good question.

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saas_co_de
If you are hired as an engineer and it is not your job to provide investment
or business advice then I would say that you have no professional or ethical
duty related to your personal private evaluation of the business merits of the
project you are working on.

If that is not your area of expertise then your evaluation may be wrong or you
may be missing information on the bigger picture to understand the strategic
reasoning behind a project.

If you are highly confident that a project will result in financial losses
then the only really important questions are personal: do you want to work on
this project given that you think if will fail financially? will financial
failure negatively impact your career later?

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matchmike1313
If you are a contractor / employee I would simply voice your concerns, and if
they don't listen that is on them, as long as the project is paying your bills
and you are learning I would continue.

