That is problematic. Small, independent, high human-capital companies are best antidote to authoritarian leaders supported by oligarchs and natural resource extraction. If western sanctions selectively restrict the first ones, while keep business for the second ones (because Europe need russian gas), then they are likely worse than no sanctions at all.
This is absolutely ridiculous and shitty thing to do. At no point in history has punishing people for the mistakes of their leader resulted in a better situation and more peaceful world.<p>I suspect everyone is trying to one up everyone else and show their "patriotic duty" by punishing Russia. The propaganda and rabid "i got you" displays far exceeds the post 9/11 drum beats.<p>Don't bring politics into Tech. There is a time and there is a place. This is not the time and this is not the place. If it was, then similar punishment should have been handed out for destroying Syria,Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Vietnam....
How disappointing that the Twitter crowd is cheering this on. What a sick joke. And what's up with the whole public announcement.<p>To me, it feels like we think that we can stop the war by punishing some a Russian developer team. Oh, the war didn't stop? It's just you didn't bully and fire enough Russian developers.<p>I work in an international team, many of us from countries that were either in war or whose leader made some controversial decisions. I'd be appalled if my team mate was fired "because Iran is bad". Let's fire this Polish guy because "abortion is still illegal in Poland, and if he disagrees with that, he should have protested harder".<p>Unless you are a highly ranked government official or one of the top oligarchs, you have not much say in any of these wars. I'd not like to be judged by the laws and actions my president or prime minister takes. I have zero control over what they do. Trust me, Putin is not trying to invade Ukraine because this software testing company gave their blessing to it.<p>Also. The hypocrisy... coming from a US company. How many countries is the US bombing now? Most of us probably don't even know, because the narrative is that it's good bombing and necessary to spread democracy or whatever. Maybe Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen?
The problem is: once you kick open this door, you are probably going to push more people out of it.<p>A slightly better solution is to terminate the contract but offer work permits to some of the engineers.