I'm going to try and keep this as dispassionate as possible.

I did a project with a UK gambling company. I have tried to do everything in my power to expunge it from my work history as well as, more importantly, my moral history.

If you need the money, need the money, then it's up to you. But it is an industry that preys on the vulnerable.

I was at one for a handful of months. It was way grosser than I imagined it would be.

This one also happened to be a subsidiary of a major far-right media organization, which didn’t help, but the gambling arm per se was totally disgusting.

I now know I couldn’t work on ads at any major company, too. Same kind of harmful optimization dynamic.

(Incidentally, as I was able to gather, a great deal of money in sports generally but almost all of it in esports is connected to gambling. So, there’s that)

I worked for an online casino for a few months. Our first major meeting was a brainstorming session to take advantage of the gaming fad to get those kids into betting.

> it is an industry that preys on the vulnerable

It is. It’s like working for organised drug dealers. Or for a cryptocurrency. Hoping dumb suckers will waste their money by making poor choices.

I would be more comfortable with gambling/betting than someone that worked at Facebook.

it's kind of interesting how i have started to look differently at ex-FAANG employees compared to how I used to view them only like 3 years ago. For me, it's less about someone's morals because look, if you're going to get paid 500k--there are very few people in the world that wouldn't take that. It's more about the fact that after reading Blind, the culture behind FAANG just turns me off so much. The optimizing your entire existence around TC, the musical chair company jumping just to increase said TC, working just barely enough to avoid PIP while delivering near zero. It's become so soulless and cringe that I can't view FAANG as the upper echelon of engineering anymore. I understand you killed it at leetcode and system design and you're probably very smart, truly I do. But I really just don't want to work with those types of folks. I'd rather work with slightly "worse" engineers that maybe couldn't hack the leetcode grind or chose not to and instead shipped a bajillion features at startups/mid tier companies that are actually normal, fun humans.

Basing a company's culture on Blind comments is like basing it on the movie Office Space. Sure there's a subset of scenarios that mimic them, but they're both ultimately characitures of the actual job.

i do understand its a generalization, but it's not just Blind. Culmination of personal experiences, too. I've worked with a lot of these types of folks. I also highly disagree with this analogy. One is a fictional, creative work of art set to make fun of the corporate world, and the other is an active forum with actual people that work at these places. It's completely fair to judge based on an anon forum (where people can transparently spill their biases/views without any repercussion). Also, a lot of them are in leadership positions and it takes only 1 or 2 to set a culture for a team and eventually a department. Blind also leaks into many many other areas because it has become so famous. At what point can you say that maybe there's a problem endemic to FAANG?

prime example: my last company decided they wanted to become more of a "mature company" and start hiring these geniuses and got someone to lead product from FAANG. He came, did some very fancy pontification (i.e would never let anyone else speak and fill the room with his opinions). Stayed for a year (guessing he got his 25% cliff), delivered literally nothing, and moved back to FAANG to a higher position (VP) and is now probably making a solid 2MM in TC. What a sweet life. I would pay a lot of money to be a fly on the wall of those interviews and how much bs was said with what he did at my last company to get that VP job.

I’ve interviewed once with Google, didn’t make it so take that grain of salt in my comment:

Every time I’ve met with ex-FAANG types in the last decade (and I’ve got dozens of anecdotes) I felt like I was talking with a Wolf of Wallstreet bro stereotype. Complete lack of humility / big ego.

The big name and big money attracts a certain personality type.

I realize full well this is broad strokes and not all are bad, but there’s a bias in the population pool.

Someone recently joined my team (mid size SaaS) from a FAANG, and the couple times I asked about their time at said FAANG they quickly steered the conversation elsewhere. I took the hint.

I get the sense that they would mostly rather forget the experience.

> I am concerned about the ethics of the industry itself

You have a moral problem working with gambling.

Decide for yourself if that's what you want to do.

And don't care what other people say.

> and worry that having something like this in my CV could hurt me

It arguably makes your CV less neutral.

It might hurt some opportunities, it might improve some, and for a lot it won't make a difference.

Just don't do something you will personally regret or feel the need to hide.

> Would you hire somebody who worked on gambling/betting systems?

Yes.

Many years ago I asked a new colleague what he used to do before joining, and he said "Oh, I used to work for a gay porn site."

I bet that made him a better programmer, considering the high traffic.

I liked him better for his approach to honesty.

Some might have liked him less because of the porn.

Standing by your choices filters away the people who won't like you anyways.

Where I'm located and as I have relevant tech experience I'm frequently approached by what most would consider a reputable online betting business. I politely excuse myself as I dislike gambling and don't want to work in the sector.

I know many great people who work there and I think no less of them. People are allowed to make different decisions and we should respect that.

Similar, when involved in hiring decisions, it's the tech/culture fit that's important.

As stated above, it's probably more important you are comfortable with it, than anyone else. That might also involve considering your own personal situation and what other opportunities are available.

IMO Pornhub or a gambling company is much more ethical than Boeing or Lockheed. Just list it but as a regualted online betting platform, focus on the tech not the gambling.

As someone who has been in both industries (defense and gambling), be honest with the product. Tech can be nice and it has interesting challenges but if your growth is outside the tech, then you are going to struggle.

At least the moral problems of defense or gambling companies are clear.

But there are also big problems in social media companies. Would they harm your CV? The dark patterns in these might be even bigger problem than in gambling. The audience is much larger.

Having worked 10 years in betting companies, I sure hope not. There is vast protection and regulation for customers. Especially in the UK. Some companies where I worked earlier in my career were a lot more predatory to customers. That included a company that did those 4 euros a week scams for wallpapers and ringtone that were legal in Europe back in 2009, and a company that had previously been an iteration of Lehman Brothers. Either of those were way worse than a betting company. I was 20yo and had no idea what they were before joining. Left both in less than a year.

Similar story with others in this thread. Used to work in UK for a white label sportsbook company like 10-15 years ago, who operate legally in the UK. No one question when they see my CV. As a hiring manager now, what I care is your work ethics when I meet you in the interview and thereafter, not your past.

Absolutely would not matter to me as a hiring manager, as long as it’s legal in your jurisdiction.

I think there are two issues you're wrestling with here; they overlap but they aren't directly-coupled.

On the CV side: no. Gambling is heavy statistical analysis, a lot of regulatory-compliance work, and no small amount of human behavior work. It's a challenging space that any competent future employer will recognize as a place where you wear a lot of hats and learn a lot of transferrable practical skills in those three mentioned spaces. Nobody who would be willing to hire a former Boeing, Raytheon, Facebook, Google, Pornhub, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, SpaceX, Tesla, Baidu, Amazon, Alibaba, Morgan Stanley, or Palantir employee is going to bat an eye on you having Fanduel or whatever on your résumé.

They care about the skills you can bring to them today, not how you got them.

On the moral side: that's the one you're going to have to decide for yourself. As other commenters have said: other people can tell you their morals, and you can collect facts about the industry, but it's your compass that'll tell you whether you can sleep okay at night working in that industry.

My father spent most of his career doing systems work for a major tobacco company. He was able to make enough money doing it to support his family extremely well. It does, sometimes, keep him up at night whether securing the future of his children was worth indirectly contributing to the premature unmaking of so many other families.

Life has not handed him an answer to that question. How much you care about your own system of ethics, how much personal integrity you choose to maintain, and how many compromises you're willing to make to trade one negative for another positive is up to you.

(It is perhaps also worth noting that no answer is set in stone. Google was seen as a savior-factory about a decade ago. I have relatives who will tell me about the Bad Old Days of computing before Microsoft reigned in the chaos by clear-cutting the massively-incompatible diversity of choice in favor of an ecosystem that worked with itself. And IBM's rise and fall from grace are industry legend. This isn't a question you ask yourself once; it's a question you'll keep asking yourself your whole career.)

Don’t worry, you’re going to be unceremoniously rejected by so many tech jobs regardless of your work history

I used to be involved in hiring for a consultancy. We didn't care for previous employers as long as they were legal, we cared about projects, technologies, challenges... Then again we were open-minded, we did work for a quasi-pornsite and a very official gambling site.

My guess would be that some companies will object, but very few. Probably the same for which your religion, marital status, sexual orientation... will matter, so maybe not very desirable employers ?

I worked at a new online betting/gambling company that launched in the US during the pandemic. I have worked at two other jobs since. I never had a problem getting my resume screened, so I don't think it prevents you from getting hired at the major tech companies out there. There are a lot of interesting problems that these gambling companies face. For example, they have requirements about which particular states their infrastructure can operate in. Since I am a Platform engineer / Cloud Admin / whatever you want to call it, this could be a good use for things like AWS Outposts that most companies aren't going to have a use for.

It might prevent you from getting hired at certain companies. I currently work at a company focused on the challenges faced by poor families, and gambling obviously is notorious for disproportionately affecting these families. I was honest with the CEO about why I left (which was in some part due to naivety about the wider impacts the company would have). I got the job without a problem. I'd like to think he was happy for my honesty, but I won't ask him as he's currently on holiday.

You’re not obligated to put every company you ever worked for in your CV anyway.

Maybe some will then ask about the “gaps” in your CV. But whatever.

Plenty of jobs are posted on HN as “Stealth startup”, can’t we also do that on resumes?

that's relatively common for former freelancers and consultants. eg: "some project, client confidential. did such and such..."

For example:

    Undisclosed employer. July 2024 - present day
    
    Worked on the backend for a popular online service. Work included programming in PHP and working MariaDB. Solved scalability challenges and optimized backend response times.

And you can still tell them a bit more in the interview about the technical side of things without having to say that it was a gambling site.

I will give an anecdote from someone I worked with. Years ago he worked for an online poker site before they were under any scrutiny. At some point the company was being regulated and moved offshore. He was told that he had a choice at that point to quit or never set foot in the US again.

I have no idea how much the details of my coworker’s situation was due to the industry or the specific company circumstances, but from other rumors I’ve heard around gambling, it might be wise to do some research around other potential ramifications of being assiciated with the industry.

Also, as to your question. I’ve worked now with 3 people with who’ve worked with various gambling resume points, and I didn’t get the impression that it effected their job searches. And, for what it’s worth, they all happened to be better than average coworkers.

if it's a regulated platform, then no. a few hiring managers might have a problem with it, but the vast majority won't care as long as it's legal.

I've worked for several betting companies, and I don't think it hurt me anyhow. And once you have experience with the industry, other betting companies are more likely to pick you when hiring. The same is true for banking (but probably also other industries).

I think it can work both ways and will honestly depend on your specific role and the company you worked for and would want to work for. There could be some interesting technical work and challenges that you enjoy. There could also be some things that make you feel icky and regret taking the job. I've felt that way after working on a couple of marketing centered projects.

I don't think it will cause you grief for most jobs in most industries. That doesn't mean all. The same would go for pornography as well. Opinions, cultures and personalities vary. Not to mention regulatory norms.

It helped my career hugely.

I think people need to distinguish between problem betting and betting in general to be honest.

There are plenty of companies which purely bet in house like a hedge fund and don't try to suck idiots in.

I don’t think it would be seen as a negative by most, I believe there are lots of interesting scaling challenges etc. in that industry.

It’s more important you feel comfortable with the decision. I once was in your position and decided against it as it didn’t feel ethically quite right to me, and I never regretted that decision. However if I had really needed work at the time, I’d have taken it so no judgement. It’s legal and regulated in the UK at least.

I do hiring in the public health IT sector of a big european country, and this would lead to some tough questions.

Just as a counterpoint. The previous CTO of the UK NHSx division spent many years working for a major UK retail and online sports betting company.

I always had a similar question about this but with adult tech companies.

Like for example, if I worked at P0rnhub as a web developer if that would be a huge issue if I wanted to switch jobs later? Not in the adult sector.

I probably would not tell my family that’s for sure.

I have several friends who have worked at these places so I have a good idea of the real tech challenges they face and can clearly see that good people can work at such places.

...And yet it feels icky every time I see it on a resume.

I have a friend who did machine learning for Draft Kings and now does the same thing for Amazon.

I would say no, but I wouldn't want to work there for ethical reasons either way.

hr likes to box people based on what they have done before. don't work in gambling if you don't want other gambling company recruiters trying to hire you.

I hire crypto bros all the time. One of my partners advises porn companies.

Who you are and whether you can do the job, matters more. If you’re sleazy, I probably wouldn’t hire you, but that is a personality trait rather than your employment history.

I have a unique unpronounceable first name. I got passed over for interviews all the time. I took it as “if they’re that type of person, I wouldn’t want to work for them anyway.”

I think similar applies here.

Are you saying your first name is actually unpronounceable(I’m thinking similar to Elon Musk’s child’s name) or merely hard for most people in whatever area you’re in to pronounce?

The latter, but even Indians struggle a little. Most people spell it with Ksh, not X.

ask those who have msft or apple in their CVs... even google...

No