
Ask HN: Is working for Huawei a bad career move? - ElTigreDeLibre
I received a very attractive offer from Huawei to working in cutting-edge machine learning research. This offer was for an office in the US, which operates via their subsidiary, FutureWei.<p>However, given recent news about security concerns of Huawei, I&#x27;m concerned whether working for them would be a blemish on my resume for future opportunities with American companies. I keep seeing news articles pop up here and there, and one of my friends warned me of certain American companies having &quot;blacklists&quot; for hiring former Huawei employees (this may or may not be true, but the sentiment may still be there).<p>I&#x27;m not sure if future recruiters or hiring managers might look upon this experience with distrust. I&#x27;m early career (mid 20s), and I have large career aspirations in machine learning research&#x2F;engineering. I do not want future employers, especially Silicon Valley companies or government-related work, to be concerned of any potential security risk of hiring me. Or, just the fact that I worked at this company to be some sort of red flag in my application.<p>On the other hand, the money is good, and the team seems strong. I would be working on very interesting topics, which would be great for my career advancement.<p>The offer almost seemed too good to be true, so HN - are my concerns justified?
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lettergram
Is working at Facebook a bad career move?

You'll always have ethical concerns when working at a multi-national, multi-
million dollar Enterprise. I don't think anyone is particularly looking at
your background from an ethical perspective. We (as in general public) still
hire people from the government for instance, who are from the military.

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ElTigreDeLibre
I definitely agree with your statement about tech company ethics as a whole.
However, Huawei is particularly in the spotlight for US national security
reasons, possibly leading to perceiving involvement with Huawei as a
liability. See the following (more articles on the subject can be found with a
search):

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/14/17011246/huawei-phones-
sa...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/14/17011246/huawei-phones-safe-us-
intelligence-chief-fears)

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000)

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/huawei_spied_us_jur...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/huawei_spied_us_jury_finds/)

Given the increasing US-China tensions, the beginnings of a so-called "AI arms
race', and Huawei's use of employees to breach the trust of other companies,
would this make an employee seen as a potential risk to US companies? It may
sound paranoid, but even unfounded rumors can have an effect if a company is
paranoid as well!

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ThrowawayR2
A variety of companies have been vilified in the past: IBM, Microsoft, Oracle
and now even Facebook, Google, and Amazon to some extent, yet their employees
have no difficulty finding new employment. Short of working on a controversial
project, your past employer should have little bearing on how future employers
view you.

Should it ever become an issue, you can always leave Huawei and cite ethical
concerns as part of your reasons for doing so to future employers.

