> Maybe the best moral option is to in fact try as hard as you can to get an influencial position in the industry to promote energy transition, reduce harm from smoking, etc.

I think this makes sense in situations where there’s an oligopoly or exclusive options (eg, work in government or not).

But when there are thousands of options for engineers (including starting your own) then it doesn’t make sense to me and definitely seems like a societal net negative as well would be really stressful to me.

Knowing that every day, my code is making people angrier and more disconnected would be tough to outweigh with the hope of one day being able to fix things.

It’s not my duty to fix every broken thing so I should focus on fixing and building good things. Maybe one day when all the causes that I think are important are solved, I would consider moving down the chain.