We are complicit in our employer’s deeds

We technologists like to pretend we're powerful, that we could bring these giant megacorps to their knees because those fancy suits need us, right?

No. They need an engineer, not any one specific engineer. Companies like Amazon reject many candidates that could probably do the job they applied for, but were rejected because they can afford to be picky. If anything changes at Amazon it not be because of the loss of that guy's engineering skills.

What would actually make the world a better place is if we recognized that we're really just well paid technicians, and that the true power in society is held by a relatively small number of people who hold a massive amount of capital. We need to give up the fantasy that we can change things with individual action, and start looking towards collective, society-level solutions to the problems today.

Engineers should begin to understand that they are not some enlightened beings that have somehow grown beyond the need for workplace organization. They are still cogs in the machine that can be replaced at any time; pricey cogs for sure, and replacing them may take some time, but they are still cogs.