Ask HN: What would make you want to work for a non-profit as an engineer?

Might want to consider remote.

Being in one of the top 20 most expensive cities in the world probably doesn't help.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-19-most-expensive-cities-...

I've worked for non-profits before and have loved the experience. A couple of things stand out for me:

1) Remote Work & Flex Schedule - Quality of life is a major concern. Working in startups 100 hour weeks have happened. It's kind of a rush actually. But everyone needs to take some time off that. Allowing people the opportunity to work from wherever they want, whenever they want makes all the difference. A common miss of non-profit managers is adopting the idea that you need to be on the job from 9-5 and be seen being productive. Don't treat your devs like they're cashiers.

2) Community Engagement - Mid-sized companies and startups tend to be wildly jealous about their employees time, often requiring employees to work in a vacuum. Let your devs publish open source software that's derivative of your core business. Support their desire to establish development blogs. Encourage their extra curricular activities. I've often taken second jobs teaching software development just because I enjoy it. A lot of for profit companies don't like that.

3) Intrinsic Benefits - Be willing to hire off platform. Look for people interested in expanding their skill set. The mobile developer looking to learn web development. The web developer looking to learn API development. The boot camp graduate looking for their first job in the field. Find people who can figure out how to do the job. Have the practical experience make up for the lost direct income.

All of these are great points of advice. I would add that remote work is not simply about quality of life—its also about broadening your pool of candidates from those who live near you to those who are living, full stop. If it costs too much to hire developers near you, go where cheaper developers are (but have someone on your team, if not you yourself, who is able to filter good developers from the merely adequate.)

A non-profit has a budget for hiring, just as a scrappy startup has a budget for hiring, just as Facebook has a budget for hiring. The first two may try to spin a story about how they need to spread that budget farther because of $narrative, but really all they're doing is trying to pay you less money for your work.

Notice how they're not "not able" to pay market rate for things like power, rent, office furniture, and phone service to the building. Those things are only different from developer talent in that they are not willing to negotiate their rate down because of a story.

Developers should take a page from their book.

When I was at a non-profit ~10 years ago, the salaries were ~30% below market, but employees regularly had 8+ weeks of vacation time. I think after 5 years there I had built up 5 weeks a year, and employees topped out at ~55 days of vacation a year.