Certara - We have software products for accelerating the development of medicines.
Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
41–50 of 201 posts
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#42Oden Technologies (https://oden.io/careers/) is hiring... We build data and analytics solutions for manufacturing problems. We help factories improve their digitization; democratize data; and generally help real people make things, better. We work with customers who operate using pen and paper through to real-time streaming machine learning models on the factory floor – a wide range of fascinating technical problems. We're able to help reduce material usage, use less energy, make less "scrap" / throwaway product, and other ways of bootstrapping existing manufacturers to operate at their highest potential, by making their employees better at their jobs and minimizing the negative impact of production.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#43https://techjobsforgood.com/ is where you can also look. I applied but never got a response back (need experience to get experience smh).
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#44In my experience, the companies that have spent the most time touting their positive social impact wound up being the most disappointing to work for. The thing is that you will always find people who will justify poor company behavior because it benefits them financially (just look at all of the Meta people that hang out here and make excuses about what that company is doing to society.)
I hate to say this, but your ability to find a company making a positive impact in the world will largely depend on your tolerance for corporate PR and what you'll see behind the scenes. Because no matter what your company does, you're gonna see stuff you don't like. Capitalism is simply war by other means.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#45Hard to answer without knowing more about your values and perspective, friend. A lot of smart, experienced, well-informed, decent, and sincere people would say you can't do much better than Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, or Exxon Mobil (although maybe not so many of those people hang out here on HN). Less controversially/polarizingly, even more people would point you towards companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, SpaceX, Ford, Atlassian, etc
However, since you mentioned that you think your goal probably rules out FANG, I'm gonna make some rough guesstimates about your values and recommend companies like:
* Wikimedia Foundation
* Khan Academy & to a lesser extent Brilliant.org, and to an even lesser extent Masterclass and Outlier
* edX, YouTube (for the enormous amount of high quality educational content on there) & to a lesser extent Coursera
* MIT & other major research universities, especially ones working actively to expand and improve their free/low-cost online offerings
* Intercept Games, Zachtronics, Wube Software, Giant Army, Klei, Microsoft (cos of Minecraft), SCS Software, Dry Cactus, Fakt Software, and the many other companies making games that inspire, support, and develop intellectual curiosity, creativity, systems thinking, analytical reasoning, etc
* Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, etc
* Raspberry Pi Foundation
* Blink Fitness & other companies that provide and promote low-cost, accessible fitness
* Melodics & other tools that help people build their musical skills and confidence
* Content creation software companies like Procreate, Image-Line Software, Adobe, Affinity, Apple (Logic Pro), Cycling '74, Cockos, etc etc
There are many ways to feed a cat
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#46Eyenuk (https://www.eyenuk.com) - we are healthcare and AI company, working to prevent the leading cause of blindness among working age adults (diabetic retinopathy). This not only saves people's vision, which is hugely important, but it also helps avoid the societal cost of taking care of those who have lost their vision.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#47I have thought long about this myself in my life (I'm 43) and experienced quite a bit from friends and family who have specifically sought out work to help people and it's complicated.
My best resolution, personally, and advice, is to not worry too much about anything too "big", just about what's around me wherever I am, the people I work with and live with and help them, improve their day, as a start.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#48My company, Self Financial (https://www.self.inc), offers a credit-building product that helps people get out of the catch-22 where your credit score is so low you can't get the financial products that people normally use to build it. We've gotten lots of testimonials from people who have used it to change their own lives.
We are a VC-backed for-profit company, not a charity. But I wouldn't work here if I thought we were having a negative impact on society, and I genuinely believe we have a net positive impact. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about our financials, but from my perspective they seem healthy. I believe it's a positive and sustainable business.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#49You said "company". Have you considered working for your local civil service?
I've worked on things which have had a positive contribution to society. It can be something as "simple" as making a confusing form simpler, or it can be something as complex as advising on national technology policy.
The salary may not be as high as a private company (although you'd be surprised) - but the pension is usually pretty good. You get to work on things which - nominally - a plurality of your fellow citizens have decided is a priority.
If your national government isn't your thing, then your local government is probably crying out for decent technologists. That way you can make an impact on your community.
Are you going to agree with everything your bosses say or do? No. But that's not much different to any other organisation.
Re: Ask HN: Recommend employers with positive social impact
#50I'm founder and CEO at ODK and we are hiring (https://getodk.org/jobs)!
ODK is an open-source mobile data collection platform. The common use-case is a data collector in the field fills out a form while offline. Whenever a connection is found, the data gets sent to a server where it can be seen and acted on.
ODK is basically the Land Cruiser of mobile data collection apps. It's designed to be very reliable in challenging settings and it's trusted for that reason. ODK is unique because the tool is generic, but it's primarily used by organizations working in humanitarian aid and global health. It's also unique because it's got a very friendly community of developers and users who hang out at https://forum.getodk.org.
You asked about impact? The impact of ODK on global health alone is pretty wild.
* ODK was a key tool in the eradication of wild polio in Africa (https://www.africakicksoutwildpolio.com/the-top-five-tech-so...)
* ODK was used to collect the clinical trial data for the recent malaria vaccine (https://forum.getodk.org/t/odk-s-role-in-the-first-malaria-v...)
* ODK is used to measure the global burden of disease through verbal autopsies (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/health/death-records-afri...)
And that's just global health...
* Jane Goodall Institute uses it to track the health of apes (https://www.google.com/nonprofits/success-stories/jane-gooda...)
* Red Cross uses it in most crises they respond to (https://americanredcross.github.io/2019/01/08/odk-collect-im...)
* Carter Center uses it for election monitoring (https://getnemo.org/)
* Honduras uses it to track education progress of students (https://proceso.hn/imperdonable-invisibilizar-casi-2-millone...)
* Sierra Leone is using it to monitor the planting of millions of trees (https://blogs.worldbank.org/sustainablecities/freetownthetre...)
So yeah, if you want to work on something that is objectively having positive impact, ODK is a great option!