Would working in a Silicon Valley Huawei research lab have subsequent negative career implications? [closed]

Question

I was offered an interesting job working on some cool new technology connected to location and positioning for Huawei's consumer cell phones.

I'd like to accept the offer, but I'm concerned that subsequent employers would look at a candidate who spent time at Huawei and wonder if they're some kind of spy. I value integrity and would never do something like that. Moreover, while I have no reason to suspect that I would be asked to do something unethical at Huawei, should that arise I would quit immediately.

What does everyone think? Would I get blacklisted for accepting this job?

Answer 1

It's hard to know for sure. Most people who are old enough to remember it know about the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal. Unless I missed something, I haven't been able to find any evidence that former employees of those companies had any more trouble than normal finding new jobs. In fact, one company even went as far as to bring the Arthur Andersen name back 15 years later.

One difference, of course, is that it was common knowledge that the misconduct (at least at Enron) was limited to upper management and that "low-level" employees were victims, too. In the case of Huawei, though, as far as I can tell, the individual who was arrested for spying in Poland wasn't an especially high-level employee. Some of the news coverage has definitely implied that spying was pervasive and included even relatively low-level employees; if that's the case, then being seen as a participant is a legitimate risk. Even if people know at some level that most people who work for the company were innocent, if people have a negative association even at a subconscious level it could be harmful.

One other thing to consider: Huawei's regulatory troubles introduces a higher risk of layoffs (and other finance-related problems) if Western companies ban them from working in their countries. That could cause them to struggle financially, or to be forced to shut down a large number of projects that were related to banned products.

So yes, there is at least some risk of that happening.

Answer 2

I can’t give a definitive answer and doubtfully can anyone else, but if you google search “does+being+employed+by+a+company+with+a+scandal+hurt+you”, the top results all indicate it can.

Forbes

Money.com

Harvard Business Review and another

Couple this with how you might feel about a company when scandal occurs and it’s easy to see why.

Example: I despise a well known financial institution and want to see them razed (even though I’ve never directly been affected) because of the multiple times they’ve been caught doing wrong to their own customers; I would certainly judge people that worked there harshly. This might be wrong of me, but with mass corruption proven to have existed, how could you know who is honorable and trustworthy?