Dude, you don't need high tech to slaughter the innocent, any fool can do that. What gold-plated weapons systems do is credibly deter a Chinese landing force from showing up in Taipei, or help the Ukranians achieve the 5+ K/D ratios they need to survive as an independent nation.
I'd be happier to know that my code would let a shaped charge target a J20 cockpit in the unlikely event of Really Bad Decision Making, than to know that it was targeting teenage girls with contagious mental illness.
On the other hand, I can give you plenty of reasons not to work in defense. They don't pay enough for you to ever own a house in a desirable place; security clearances are an invasive relic of the J. Edgar Hoover days (and your sensitive data will get hacked by China anyway); it's assumed that you don't know "foreign persons" (hint: This is actually now a mark of the lower-class and uneducated.); a software engineer without an advanced degree is basically nobody; cloud stuff is mostly off limits; work may happen in windowless rooms; perks are non-existent; and it's embarrassing to answer "so what do you do for a living" if you're trying to exist in blue-state society.
But ethics? Compared to FAANG? I wouldn't worry about that.
I'd be happier to know that my code would let a shaped charge target a J20 cockpit in the unlikely event of Really Bad Decision Making, than to know that it was targeting teenage girls with contagious mental illness.
On the other hand, I can give you plenty of reasons not to work in defense. They don't pay enough for you to ever own a house in a desirable place; security clearances are an invasive relic of the J. Edgar Hoover days (and your sensitive data will get hacked by China anyway); it's assumed that you don't know "foreign persons" (hint: This is actually now a mark of the lower-class and uneducated.); a software engineer without an advanced degree is basically nobody; cloud stuff is mostly off limits; work may happen in windowless rooms; perks are non-existent; and it's embarrassing to answer "so what do you do for a living" if you're trying to exist in blue-state society.
But ethics? Compared to FAANG? I wouldn't worry about that.