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Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#31

Post by fock »

msrpotus wrote: post #15

Check out Tech Jobs for Good: https://techjobsforgood.com/?q=&impact_areas=Environment&imp... Big NGOs also need technical people, too. Check out the Humane Society, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Compassion in World Farming, etc. They aren’t going to be the highest paying jobs and there are all sorts of downsides but it’s a way to use your skills to make a difference in the world.

scrolling through the non-JS accessible adverts: it's like 80% of (probably VC-funded) startups offering some vision of "we are making the world a better place" for their usual, "crappy" (yes, they are also advertising) capitalists dream of: - "aggressive ROI goals" [https://techjobsforgood.com/jobs/3172/]

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#34

Post by faceplanted »

linuxftw wrote: post #22
jefurii wrote: post #17

It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other deve…

> the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. In a free market economy, this is an entirely false statement. People pay for the things they value. They more they value it, the more they pay. Compare the amount of hours spent playing video games to the amount of hours spent touring museums. It's not close. People value video…

The video games vs museums comparison is kinda terrible though, don't you think? I physically _can't_ just go to a museum after work like I can play a video game or watch a documentary. There's a huge number of literally free museums in my city, but I still have to cook for my family.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#35

Post by mepiethree »

jefurii wrote: post #17

It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other deve…

when I left Google to work in clean energy, I took a 50% pay cut. But, that's still more than enough money to live very happily on. IMO it's true what they say about there being no marginal improvement to happiness after ~80k.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#36

Post by fock »

pvaldes wrote: post #20

It depends on the country, probably. I would suggest you to assure first a well paid job and use your free time for volunteer activities. Nobody should be doing science before 50 Yo. Not at this moment when postdocs are being paid 300 euro/month. Is committing economical suicide and starting a family first and having kids should be your priority. About oceanography. If you can read spanish (if not, you can always goo…

you missed two 0s for our postdocs annual net salary. But hey, generalization is so great.

And while I understand that in most parts of the world, it's paid a lot worse and you might have problems making ends met, I don't really get, how you want to solve these problems (interlinked with nowadays capitalism) by getting more kids (wow, just 30t of CO2/year more "output") and helping the 1% redistribute an even larger fraction of the wealth to themselves (which are imho the only really "richly"-paying jobs.)

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#37

Post by dougmwne »

linuxftw wrote: post #22
jefurii wrote: post #17

It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other deve…

> the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. In a free market economy, this is an entirely false statement. People pay for the things they value. They more they value it, the more they pay. Compare the amount of hours spent playing video games to the amount of hours spent touring museums. It's not close. People value video…

Simple, black and white mental models of the world may lead a person to draw shockingly wrong conclusions about the world. The pay in non-profit absolutely sucks. It sucks for a number of reasons, not some simple econ 101 reason. It sucks because there just isn't much revenue in asking people for donations. It sucks because all the leaders making pay decision are making sacrifices and feel like everyone else should be as well. It sucks because there are always more young, idealistic people to replace the burned out, cynical ones. It sucks because most of the work is low skilled. It sucks because non-profits are somewhat divorced from competitive pressures and are not forced to pay for absolutely the most talented people. It sucks because the kind of people who take these jobs are happy to take pay cuts.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#38

Post by Angostura »

linuxftw wrote: post #22
jefurii wrote: post #17

It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other deve…

> the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. In a free market economy, this is an entirely false statement. People pay for the things they value. They more they value it, the more they pay. Compare the amount of hours spent playing video games to the amount of hours spent touring museums. It's not close. People value video…

> In a free market economy, this is an entirely false statement. People pay for the things they value. They more they value it, the more they pay.

Except this is an entirely false statement. In free market economy, there is no easy way for people to pay for many things they value, and know that they will receive the goods in return.

I may value a stable climate, clean air, a stable ecosystem, but the free market alone doesn't provide a way for me to pay what would be required and know that I will get a return, because unfortunately, such things require collective action.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#39

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

jefurii wrote: post #17

It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other deve…

> my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services.

There is no "what society values" at work here, only supply and demand. What you witness is the fact that jobs that have intrinsic meaning and are more fulfilling are paid less well, because employees are willing to make that compromise. You could say the increase in happiness is priced in. Same reason game devs have bad working conditions, people still wait in line to work on them.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

#40

Post by thenickb »

It's a bit of an adjacent field but there are many tech jobs in Animal Rights. You could check out https://thehumaneleague.org or https://mercyforanimals.org.

You could also dive into the world of Effective Altruism which is broad and has a lot of tech related jobs. Check out https://80000hours.org and https://www.gfi.org

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