Since I started learning about programming, I've always imagined what I'd do if someone asked me to make a product that I think is immoral. Today, we go live on a product that is shady at best, and exploitative at worst. I've designed a UI with the specific intent of rushing people through a health insurance application - premiums only average ~$10/mo for this specific policy, but written in the small-print is the fact that your premium decreases by 50% after 3 years, and by another 50% when you retire. You'll still pay the same premium, but you could have a quarter of the coverage you thought you did without ever being aware of it. Because I didn't tell you that. What if you get diagnosed with cancer, and you need the money that you thought was promised to you? What if you go to collect, and you learn that your $500,000 policy is only going to pay out $125,000? What if you have a heart-attack, and your $75,000 policy only gives you $18,250? Could people's lives be destroyed by a well-designed UI that pushes them forward, urging them to click before they think at every corner? I feel like shit about this. I'm not going to do anything to stop it. I don't have any savings, or any real fall-back plan because I've only been a working professional for less than a year. I just hate the fact that I'm putting this shitty financial trap into the wild. I hate our client. I hate this project. Ugh.
Yes, but it's complicated. We didn't know what we were getting into because the guy who made the SOW quit unexpectedly before the project began. I didn't bring it up in my last comment, but he made a lot of impossible-for-our-timeline promises and quoted them a ridiculously low figure for the work to be done. He was known to work late hours and not actually bill them - a huge no no - so my team's theory is that he was planning to do a lot of these features pro bono. SO basically we're developing this shitty product at a higher cost than originally estimated, and on a longer timescale than originally promised. It's a real shitshow, but we're contractually obligated to see it through.
It isn't, really. This is clearly over your moral line. Tell your management that. Yes, you have a contract. Yes, there will be penalties for defaulting on those terms. But there are also penalties you will suffer personally if you continue with the project. Think about it... why should you take on that personal burden on behalf of a company who would fire you tomorrow if you stepped over any of a dozen different lines? And... what will it take you, personally, to erase the image of someone getting scammed by your product and design? I don't know what type of brain bleach you have where you live, but I am unaware of any product or service that will quiet my brain-weasels as I lay in bed at night, unable to sleep, and worrying about something I have done... In the end, the customer still has a need, and you still have a contract. Contracts can be negotiated, and this one clearly needs to be re-evaluated, collaboratively, with the customer. "We cannot morally perform this work. Here is why. Here is what we propose, and here are the contract terms we need to modify to make this happen. Let's talk." If all you get from this is to leave the company with your integrity intact, you still have made the right choice. Yes, but it's complicated.