Will this cause damage to transistor?

Hi,

Can anyone tell me if this is a terrible way of using a manual switch.

The base is driven from a Uc and the switch is the manual way to trigger the transistor.

Will this kill the transistor?

The components as it is drawed here shouldn't harm the transistor, unless values for R or R0 is so low that too much current flows through the transistor. Or if the load consumes more current than the transistors maximum rated current, Ic max.

Just do a quick sanity check here, looks ok i think.