I think it does. At the end of the day they will (and should) choose to protect the company above all else. That's their only job.

They can also want to help people, have a ton of empathy and be literal saints. But that's their personal motivation and not what the job actually is.

I'd be interested to see the logic applied to other jobs. What's your job using this kind of reductionist logic? Are there any jobs that aren't "protect the company" in some way?

If you're working for a for-profit company .... uhh no?

And I'm a software engineer, I solve business problems with code. If I decide to to write some code that doesn't help the company I would probably be fired or at least put on a PIP

If there's one thing I've learned from mgmt it's that happy teams make for performant teams. The employees trust that I'll support them in creating a fulfilling work environment and look out for them. If I'd take all decisions with the companies profits in mind I'd break that trust which wouldn't lead anywhere good. When an issue arises I'll sometimes be on the side with sr mgmt, sometimes with the team, sometimes it will be more complex than choosing sides. Not all decisions can (or should) be boiled down to dollars and cents.

Perhaps you should ask someone in your HR department to tell you more about their mission as I doubt they'd share these views.

That's right your job is to protect the business by producing code that maximises profit and doesn't put them at risk.

That's all you do

> people who go into that line of work often do care about making people's lives better.

That's a fine motive, but it's similar to joining Facebook in order to help people improve their attention span