151–160 of 201 posts
You could try looking at civic technology organizations. I felt that the work I did at USDS had a huge positive impact, and you can find private firms like Nava or Truss that work on the same / similar projects if you don't want to work directly for the government. There are similar agencies and organizations in Canada, the UK, EU countries, and some Latin American countries, too. There are also some orgs at tech gia…
Work in the healthcare / life sciences world. I choose to work mainly with oncology related life science companies and it is a great feeling know that I am helping patients live longer and help with the treatment of cancer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if you are in a FAANG, remember that you probably have a very negative impact in the world. There's no money you can donate to compensate the amount of disinformation in YouTube or Facebook or WhatsApp.
> There's no money you can donate I understand you don't mean that literally, but (to minimize disinformation among others): There is absolutely some number of lives saved which would compensate for that. https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities Before writing off an entire industry, I beg you to consider that $45,000 could save 10 lives and improve many more (Yes; it's not precise. No; it's not out of their…
1. Some people are happy with creating more positive than negative. 2. Some people want to do no negative.
The practical problem with what you proposed is that now I need to vet the charities I donate and make sure its not a scam. Its a hard task to (i) spend 8 hours a day doing net negative (ii) spend more time per day to make sure you as a whole are net positive (iii) be social and have family etc.
If you want to work at positive impact companies, Khan Academy is one that comes up in my head. But take it from me, someone who has volunteered for civic tech organizations and have participated in ground work for political campaigns. The most positive impact you could possibly make is money. Political campaigns need thousands of volunteers. But someone who has no skills or education can volunteer. The supply pool i…
Two caveats to this approach: - The work you're doing to make that 300k doesn't happen in a vacuum; it has an impact on the world too. Make sure it's not doing more harm (including the political donations that might get made by the owners you're making richer) than your donations are doing good. - People aren't robots; intrinsic motivators are important for some. In some cases it can be worth making a smaller impact…
At the end of the day, it’s all about what you want. I do think that if you want to make the biggest positive impact as a software engineer, and that is your only directive, then I believe my approach is a worthwhile option.
For a large tech company I find it extremely impressive how much everyone at the company–from senior leadership to L1 engineers–sincerely believe in the mission and what we’re doing.
I’ve got several openings on my team. I’d encourage you to read more about our values. If it aligns with what you care about feel free to reach out.
If you want to work at positive impact companies, Khan Academy is one that comes up in my head. But take it from me, someone who has volunteered for civic tech organizations and have participated in ground work for political campaigns. The most positive impact you could possibly make is money. Political campaigns need thousands of volunteers. But someone who has no skills or education can volunteer. The supply pool i…
> But take it from me, someone who has volunteered for civic tech organizations and have participated in ground work for political campaigns. The most positive impact you could possibly make is money. I don't really agree. Perhaps we're incredibly lucky as a civic tech non-profit, but our limiting factor generally isn't money. It's skilled people who can take responsibility and deliver. So if OP is an experienced dev…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But take it from me, someone who has volunteered for civic tech organizations and have participated in ground work for political campaigns. The most positive impact you could possibly make is money. I don't really agree. Perhaps we're incredibly lucky as a civic tech non-profit, but our limiting factor generally isn't money. It's skilled people who can take responsibility and deliver. So if OP is an experienced dev…
Could I posit that your limiting factor is actually money, which prevents you from hiring more skilled people?
The main struggle is lack of sufficiently skilled applicants.
The problem might be our ability to attract them! But it's a tough market.
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If your skills are relevant and good, you ought to be able to have way more impact on a political campaign than a 17k donation, which at most levels of developed world politics barely scratches the surface and isn't going to teach you anything about politics either. It's a little different if the volunteering is something low impact or something you're way out of your depth in, or if the cause wanting money has a way…
Have you ever donated 10s of thousands to a political campaign? For anything congressional-level or lower, this gets you calls from the politician, face-to-face access, emails, meetings, and up-to-date info. You will soon be fielding calls from people you haven't donated to, who think you may donate, and they will also listen to you. And this is for congressional-level. For state senate, state house, local gov, etc.…
10k is not a lot at the presidential election sure, and maybe not for Senate either, but it is a lot of money even in House races. And for many state races.