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 is giant! But campaigns need millions of dollars in order to survive. It’s way harder to raise a dollar because in order to donate to campaigns the person usually needs to have discretionary income. And to move the needle financially for a campaign, you need to be fairly wealthy.
At the end of the day, maximizing your salary and donating, say 10k (2.8k direct + 7.2k via PAC) to a political candidate that you believe will make a way bigger positive impact than working for minimum wage or free for that candidate. Because your skills aren’t being used optimally. If you take a paycut from 300k to 60k, are you still comfortable making that donation?
Anyways, my personal mantra is to maximize income at impact neutral companies or positive adjacent. And then commit to donate a significant chunk of income to positive impact organizations. Don’t know if this helps or not.
- 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 with your own hands, vs a larger impact that's unsustainable because your soul isn't being fed with a sense of purpose, because you're too far removed from the purpose.
I'm sure your approach works for some people, but I don't think it's an end-all answer to the question
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.
That's unnecessarily and destructively cynical. There are plenty of politicians (and others working for governments) at all levels who are there to do a good job.
The showboats and bad actors (which are almost coextensive) of course by definition get most of the press. Don't let them distract you.
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 developer who is willing to look a bit beyond just code, but still bring serious tech skill and experience to the table, I'd like to talk to them.
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 of getting very tangible rewards (which are quantifiably greater than whatever free time you can spare on it)
And this is for congressional-level. For state senate, state house, local gov, etc. I imagine this could go even further. City councils and mayors have lots of impact but little donations.
I think there's a buried over-simplification here. It's rare to find politicians whose views 100% line up with your own, and too often, politicians are willing to flip their views to satisfy a donor (who, even if you donate 300k-60k=$240k, will not be you). Even if you mostly agree with the politician, you're taking a gamble that your contribution doesn't really end up with the positive impact you desire.
A better argument would be to put the $240k/year into a WayneLi2 Foundation, which directly acts only on whatever you define as good. Of course, in the beginning, the endowment is too small to do anything, but give it several years, and perhaps the donations of a few people who share your vision, and you'll have more control over the direction of the positive impact.
For those of us who don't have that kind of cash, picking an organization whose focus is limited to its mission serves as a boon to know that our efforts will create the impact we'd like to see.
Based on the question though, the OP's goal might either be to (1) maximize impact or (2) just earn a living while also feeling good about their company's impact. If (1) is the goal, I'd say listen to that podcast, look into effective altruism [2], and find the highest paying job you can. If (2) is the goal, I'd recommend including GoFundMe and Rivian in the list of companies to check out!
[1] https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/271... [2] https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
Another issue is that these problem domains are constrained by government policy, not by private investment. For example, the US solar industry is really hurting right now because of tariffs and a recent anti-dumping investigation[1]. Imagine working at a company in this space and watching all your projects get put on hold over an issue that has bipartisan support in the Senate (a very rare thing), but an executive branch that wants to be "tough on China" (yes, believe or not I am talking about Biden). We are literally putting an entire industry on hold so we can prop up a handful of domestic manufacturing businesses.
If you really want to help, you have a few options. Make a lot of money and become a customer of companies that are doing good. Buy an EV, put solar on your roof, buy clothes and goods that are manufactured sustainably. I am personally not a huge fan of carbon offsets, but even if I don't think they are effective in their current form, supporting that industry does allow for motivated professionals to spend their time on that problem.
You can also volunteer in your free time. Lots of organizations out there that could use some help. I regularly volunteer for beach cleanups. But if you want to use your technical skills I am sure it would be easy to find someone in need of those as well.
And thinking outside the box. It is possible that one of the biggest contributors to reducing our CO2 footprint in this current century was Netflix. "Netflix and chill" was a fun meme, with the idea being that you would hang out at home and watch Netflix (among other things) instead of going out. Imagine the number of vehicle miles avoided because of that meme! So if you want to have your cake and eat it too, consider working on projects that keep people in their home (especially if it keeps people working from home, imagine all those commute miles avoided).
And another outside the box idea. Join a company that is doing bad things (whatever that may mean for you). Then work your way up the ladder and change the company for the better from the inside. If ladder climbing is not for you, simply become an internal advocate for change. Or more cynically, make them less efficient. You could do this by simply being ineffective at your job. Or you could more actively steer projects in suboptimal directions.
[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/america-first-c...
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
However would personally remove Adobe as the single black eye to the entire list -- I cannot think of a more morally bankrupt company short of FAANG, and possibly surpassing FAANG -- due to its habits of dark patterns, subscription shenaniganry, and jacking up prices way beyond what most hobbyists/students can afford let alone professionals who are not part of an enterprise platform.
The goal is to drive down healthcare prices using the levers that are available. Right now, there are often 10x price differences between two providers for the same service (or even between two patients at the same hospital) because all pricing is negotiated in a vacuum separately by every insurance company. It leads to a very distorted system with little downward price pressure.
We don't have a magic wand that we can wave to "fix healthcare", but we feel like we are driven by having a positive impact in the most pragmatic way possible. The premise will sound strange to people outside the US where heath care prices aren't defined by what insurance plan your job provides, but it is a huge market in the US where a ton of GDP is mis-spent on healthcare and ripe for disruption.
(And yes, we are hiring!)
A colonoscopy in NYC could cost me as low as $440 or up to $11k - cash price. Same providers with insurance are 1500 or 9000.
For some folks it's almost worth it to say you have no insurance and get the cash price at the same provider. I understood it was the other way around (negotiated rates). What a world we live in.
One thing is to expose the negotiated prices but I think another important aspect would be to collect actual bills and publish what got actually paid.
https://80000hours.org/ & https://80000hours.org/job-board/
They are aligned with Effective Altruism which is focusing on effective ways to do the most good - https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
The basic pitch is that by far and away the biggest problem people with hearing aids have is hearing in noisy, crowded environments like restaurants and parties. Classical DSP algorithms have a very hard time in these situations because the spectral properties of the noise look very similar to the signal since both are speech.
What we do differently is we provide a small companion unit, about the size of a flip phone, that houses a much more powerful processor than you can fit behind the ear. Since we have more than three orders of magnitude more compute than a traditional hearing aid, we can run modern deep neural networks to denoise audio in real time.
We are hiring for a variety of roles, but I in particular have been looking to hire a machine learning engineer for my team.
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.
jobs@openup.org.za
Finding such organizations is easier now than ever, since GiveWell has been working on this problem for over a decade: https://www.givewell.org/
And 10% seems like a good amount to give to charity - join the thousands of others already doing it: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/
The amount of good money can do is tremendous. For example, $3 donated to AMF (Against Malaria Foundation) results in a distribution of an anti-mosquito bednet protecting about 2 people from malaria for 3-4 years (evidence shows: prevents transmission, decreases malaria incidence in the area; kids don't miss school, parents avoid loss of income due to sickness; prevents death, and other good things).
As best as I could tell when I last checked, GiveWell's one metric is life years added/dollar. That's a great goal, to the point where it feels selfish to care about anything else, but when I look at my local community I do also want to know: What charities are most cost-effective at solving the local housing crisis, or preventing the disproportionate number of deaths for <minority group X> in the community, or helping refugees get back on their feet, etc.?
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
ps - A humble thought. As tempting as it is to help within one's community, it's worthwhile to recognize that given the inequality in the world, and that it's just a luck-accident that you were born in this community rather than another, and that it very likely is the case that you can do a lot more good by focusing on individuals living in less-well-off-areas than what is nearby, it is good to reflect and see if you'd be willing to direct some of your philanthropic actions towards the more-effective endeavors.
But if you want to specifically also work with a company with a "good cause", I'd strongly recommend that you go with a company whose entire mission is focused on a particular cause, as opposed to a more traditional company that says part of its mission is to "do good" or whatever. So, for example, Solar Cookers International could (maybe?) be an example of the former, while General Electric is the latter.
That's not to say GE is in any way bad, but if you want a do-good company and it's not a do-good company first and foremost, then at some point you will likely feel let down by it (or by yourself for working there). Also, it seems that a lot of normal for-profit companies that want to be seen as do-good companies can't help but get mired in politics (usually due to grossly oversimplifying complex social issues).
There are also some orgs at tech giants that work on socially impactful products (e.g., sustainable hardware teams at AWS or Azure, like the folks who work on https://natick.research.microsoft.com/), so I wouldn't rule those out entirely.
Head over to Idealist.org and pick a cause. Choose carefully, you better really f-n love it. Source: been there, done that, got the t-shirt somewhere around here. (And yeah, I changed the world too while I was at it.)
Among traditional auto makers were one of the most serious and committed to full electrification by 2030 and 50% electric cars by 2025. We have the same schedule for selling cars online only, so software is not just a cost center or marketing channel, it’s the future of the company.
Volvo Cars creates a significant number of well paying jobs in manufacturing with good working conditions, benefiting local communities. For example, all employees across the globe, across manufacturing and offices, were recently given 24 weeks of paid parental leave (https://www.volvocars.com/intl/about/family-bond/).
We’re hiring in multiple locations https://jobs.volvocars.com
Do Volvo make cars out of Shanghai exclusively these days?
I sell used video games online. I make the world slightly better by giving thousands of people each year a bit of fun, nostalgic escape. I also create a good, well paying job for at least one employee so far.
My dad worked in the rockwool/glasswool industry for 30 years as an engineer. He made the world better by helping people insulate their homes.
I'd be very hesitant to say that the average for-profit company doesn't make the world better. I'd be even more hesitant to say that social enterprises, nonprofits and other well-meaning organisations that sell themselves on being ethical are typically effective. And based on the experience of people I know who've worked at the Red Cross and Headspace, to say that a single employee in one of these organisations can actually make a difference (or even achieve anything) is incredibly rare.
Outside of companies that monetise addiction (this includes things like social media and mobile games) or spend huge amounts lobbying the government it's actually really hard to make money these days without providing something people value. It's very easy to burn grants and donations for no gain, though.
We're here to fix that! We are based in Mexico City and are working to show that insurance can be different, not only by being trustworthy and paying out claims when they happen but also by making the products more accessible and friendly for our customers. For example, we simplified our earthquake product by designing it to require NO ADJUSTORS. If you have a policy with us and live within a certain radius of where an earthquake originated, you will get a payment even if there is no damage to your home. It's that simple.
I am the CTO of Súper and would love to tell you more about what we're trying to accomplish! Feel free to email me at stephen.wooten@super.mx - i'd love to chat!
It's a really interesting, impactful place to work. We work on everything from tracking illegal fishing, improving microweather meteorological modeling, applying GNNs to model air congestion, preventing aviation safety accidents, addressing inequity in criminal sentencing, and finding gaps in transparency and accountability for federal coronavirus aid.
I like that we have good work-life balance, get to use the latest tech, publish papers and open-source code, work on challenging and impactful problems, and have a strong commitment to working in the public interest making the world a safer place.
Many times companies that are trying to make a positive impact on the world can be miserable places to work. Many times there is this unsaid assumption that workers needs are secondary to the larger goal of helping the world (instead of increasing your salary, we could use that money to save even more babies). Also, people who think they are doing good for the world, will excuse bad behavior in themselves, since the good that they have done, so far outweighs the bad).
So I would recommend, going to a job that pays well and doesn't harm the world. Learn skills, make money, and do your own positive impact for the world on your own terms.
We've expanded our work beyond COVID to support these organizations addressing the critical needs of the public and bring the best technology has to offer to these problems. We've partnered with more than 230 government and nonprofit partners on 300+ projects, impacting more than 42 million people across 36 states and territories. As one example, we helped the city of Memphis and Shelby County distribute almost $14M in rental assistance (https://www.usdigitalresponse.org/case-studies/keeping-famil...) in a matter of weeks at very low cost.
One of the things I like about this work is that we are tied directly in with local experts who understand the problems very well, and we can bring the lens of understanding how modern tech can be helpful, rather than trying to lead with solutions.
In doing this work, we've discovered a number of common problems that have scalable solutions that we're working on in both access to benefits and election administration (e.g. our poll worker management tool - https://www.usdigitalresponse.org/projects/poll-worker-manag...) and are starting to scale our team to tackle these challenges.
In addition to our full time roles (https://us-digital-response.breezy.hr/), we are always looking for more volunteers to join projects (https://usdigitalresponse.org/volunteer).
I love working for a small college that is truly dedicated to educating the next generation. I find it very rewarding to know that my tasks and goals at work are not driven by profits and there are no overpaid executives sitting at the top of my org. There are no shareholders to answer to.
Yes, I am well aware that colleges still have bottom lines, still have 'customers', and are often run similarly to many businesses. I regularly see faculty and staff giving their all to the students. I've been here long enough to see students graduate and begin to make their own positive impact on the world.
There's always a trade-off... In exchange for not 'working to make a rich guy richer' and an almost unheard of balance between work & life, I accept lower pay than I'd make elsewhere. Without hesitation I can say that every member of our IT team could easily make more money working in the private sector.
I rarely work over the 37.5 hours per week expected of me, minus a few hours on the half-day Fridays we get during most of the summer. No org is perfect, but after nearly 20 years at this institution I'm still growing, learning, feeling appreciated, finding new ways to contribute, and am happier than I've ever been.
Sound good? We're currently searching for an experienced Network Engineer. https://jobs.reed.edu/positions/2022/network-engineer.html
| https://www.abine.com/ and https://joindeleteme.com/
WFH - full stack developers and other positions available.
We are a growing profitable company focused on better, easier, online privacy.
We make two products. Blur is a password manager foundation with privacy aliasing / tokenization built-in from the ground up to help people mask / control their PII credentials like email addresses, phone numbers, and credit cards. DeleteMe is a service for removing private information from many data broker sites that list and sell consumers personal profile data.
We're looking for strong talent across the board as we are growing over 100% y/y and expanding both B2C and B2B divisions. Leaders and mid-level people who are interested in making a difference in the fight for privacy are encouraged to apply. Developers, product managers, growth marketers etc. are encouraged to apply.
Please contact us at jobs at getabine dotcom. 1. no recruiters (please, really, please) 2. helpful if you can include both a full CV and desired comp range
thanks!
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.
Aside from donating time and money, the company's service is also seen as a fundamental piece of the global economy today. Providing a common baseline of financial data and price transparency of assets creates liquidity and helps keep asset prices low. It also allows smaller players to enter the financial services industry without needing to be in the "Old Boys' Club". It also helps developing countries and other emerging markets to list their sovereign debt and manage investors.
is there somewhere i can read more about this specifically?
I've seen & heard that percentage figure internally, especially as it's increased over the past decade. But I can't seem to find it in 10minutes of searching public documents.
We're hiring here: https://activatedinsights.com/jobs/software-engineer-remote/
We are about to share a couple more positions in ~a month. A developer, a sales position, and a math question designer. Feel free to email me jeremy@mathanex.com
Similarly, I just left Element, which is doing really compelling work around decentralized encrypted communication (Matrix chat protocol). Absolutely necessary for free society. https://element.io/careers
https://www.saildrone.com/careers
Our many and varied missions include measuring CO2 in the ocean for global climate science, and patrolling marine protected areas to prevent illegal fishing.
Previously I worked at findhelp [2]. I loved the mission, helping people locate community resources, but leadership was really focused on chasing money rather than focusing on user experience. Occasionally customers asked us to do things that would actively hamper the ability of people in marginalized groups to find programs aimed at helping them, and we usually obliged. I know a few people that have moved over to their chief competitor Unite Us [3] and they seem happier there.
[1] https://jobs.lever.co/aledade?lever-via=4Oe9-BZLKF
We work with providers in value based care arrangements[1] so helping providers and patients is the same thing that increases revenue for us. We're a small team so everyone definitely sees and feels the impact of their work.
You can check out our jobs page[2] or reach out for more info (even if there's not an open position that's a great match at the moment).
[0] https://picasso.md [1] https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Ass... [2] https://apply.workable.com/picassomd/
Our product has helped millions of people gain access to clean and affordable energy for their household or microbusiness. We've also expanded our platform to support other impactful consumer products, such as smartphones.
We have U.S. and East African teams. We're still a small, less than 100 people, but we support customers in Africa, Asia, South, and North America. Recently, I've been helping our customers in Sierra Leone handle a currency redenomination by the country's central bank.
One last thing; my team is looking for a full-stack senior software engineer. Here's the job description: https://jobs.lever.co/angaza/8e4f159d-4085-4766-a813-0657eb5.... Good luck with your job search! There are a lot of great social impact companies out there.
You could, if you believe that oil companies deserve a better score than Tesla.
They certainly have problems. Tesla and oil companies have material and process (environmental) risks. Tesla also has the risks associated with poor societal and governance stances.
So back to my original comment - you'll have to look into the companies themselves because their "benefits" are debatable, including Tesla's.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/18/why-tesla-was-kicked-out-of-...
Edit: wow getting a lot of hate without any reply. I guess just because I'm critical of Tesla?
I get that casinos, cigarette companies, Google, and Facebook (and others) appear to be in a different category. But my point is that those are the exceptions, not the rule.
I guess we'd need access to data about how individual users vote, but it could be anonymized.
Our product is used in commercial and industrial food kitchens to make them run more efficiently. We help everyone from mom-and-pop shops to factories. Our customers use our apps to calculate production costs, reduce waste, calculate nutrition, find suppliers, and order ingredients. The last few months have been particularly busy for us because of inflation and rising food prices. We hope to help as many food SMB's make it through the recession.
Our plan is to be in every business kitchen in the world so our core features are available for free and the subscription price is affordable to all. I18n is one of our biggest considerations because our users are all over the world and majority speaks languages other than English.
We bootstrapped ourselves to 100,000+ kitchens so our customers aren't worried about us folding because we can't raise the next round of funding.
Link in bio.
At scale, we provide a reliable food supply chain at a fraction of the resources to traditional agriculture and we are looking to expand into new types of crops like strawberries and other budding fruits.
We are hiring a ton in our NYC office (hybrid/onsite): feel free to message me at colin@boweryfarming.com
And yes we're profitable, demand is going up because of the push for electrification everywhere and we are hiring very aggressively. Roles have geographic designation, but can pretty much be from anywhere
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.
It's a for-real media tech brand with a mission to incubate and spread good ideas. I love it. Find the TED jobs page -- we're hiring people in NYC and remote.
Internally, employees are driven by ecological reasons, but also by taking care of each other : non violent communication and kindness are very important values we put into action every day, it's been quite transformative to me.
Hope you'll find a job that you'll enjoy!
In these environments, it seemed everybody was respected. The most diverse company will be the one that has the greatest variety of employees, including diversity of religion, politics, skin color, sexuality, etc.
To find the company with positive social impact, find one that walks the walk, not just talks the talk.
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.
By which I mean: Not just the usual, utterly incompetent wannabe recruiter types -- but blatantly fake operators which seem bent on either: (1) sucking up as many resumes as they can to sell to other recruiters; and/or (2) asking up front for personal identifiers (such as DOB and SSN) for, well, whatever nefarious purpose they may have in mind.
Is this deliberate negligence of scam operators -- and it seems very difficult to believe that senior management of Indeed is not aware of this problem, and of the approximate dimensions of if -- an expression of your "values"? Does it have "positive social impact"?
Please do clarify.
We're always looking for more engineers. Shoot us a message if you're interested!
In my career, I've been fortunate to work for a variety of companies that have obvious and direct positive social impact. I don't want to start a flame war here, but my last ten years have been in FANG, which I've found to dramatically magnify my ability to have a positive social impact.
But they don't pay well (when they pay). Not a popular option for the HN crowd.
That's why they will often take just about anyone. Good place to upskill.
I work for free, for NPOs (I won't go into detail in public, but it's no secret), but I'm pretty much "retired" (Quotes, because I actually get more done, than I ever did, when making a paycheck). I have learned a tremendous amount, working for free (still am learning -every day).
Or, for the stage the war is now entering, consider instead cranking out M777 howitzers with BAE Systems, either in Barrow-in-Furness, UK (parts), or in Hattiesburg, MS (assembly).
I'm joking, but only half. There's a point in here about non-"social-impact" companies sometimes doing important and worthwhile things.
We're not currently hiring, but once our first human data comes in, we will be looking to scale up our team quite a bit! If that's something you're interested in, drop me a line, email is in my bio.
We build software that runs real-time machine learning models at scale, deep in the financial 'rails' that move money around, and we license it to banks and other financial institutions.
A surprisingly large number of my colleagues are here because of similar reasons - we like making a positive societal contribution.
We're hiring!
Small businesses making lives better for locals can be meaningful.
It will be an epic journey from the 39k students we've covered in Kenya today to 600m who deserve it (3x every year).
We are hiring remote US-based software engineers: https://hustle.applytojob.com/apply
Beyond bringing in new donations, the nonprofits receive more money per dollar, and it scales. It is truly a three-sided marketplace that benefits all parties
looking for something "positive" without principled and reasoned motivation to prefer any particular outcome is a great way to get yourself taken advantage of, or to make yourself a cog in a machine that takes advantage of others
do you know how you want to change the world? if so, go work on it. if you're not sure how to achieve a well defined objective, then read, study, try things, and talk to people until you have a better idea. if your objective is vague, think about it until it's not
if you want something "positive" but don't really know what, the first step is emphatically not to go join somebody else's movement, the first step is to determine precisely what positive means to you, then reason from first principles how to get there
The company is very social/environmental-impact conscious, and has an incredible culture.
I've worked for the Federal Government, thinking it would provide some "good work", and I personally found that to be pretty off putting. Most of the people I interacted with were bureaucrats obsessed with defending and expanding the little bit of power they had, with very little interest in serving the public. However there were a high number of people who were seriously committed to changing the world. So if you want to meet some of these people government work can open some other doors (just bewared it might leave you ultimately disenchanted).
The best place I've found for doing "good" work is the odd, small team doing research at a university. I say this a someone who has a lot of frustrations with academia as well, but there are small pockets of people doing cool research to make the world better that need technical skill to help (academia is much better on the non-tenure faculty/staff side). This can be anything from biologists working to cure cancer to academic libraries building tools for students/the world. This is the most likely chance you have to be in a room filled with smart people all seriously interested in doing work for the benefit of the world. I have long hoped to find the right team to one day land on, but that will have to wait until later in my career because...
One major, major catch: expected to severely cut your comp. Salary information is public for both publicly funded universities and the federal government. Go look up what software engineers make at these places and you'll see sub-100k salaries are far more common than not. 15 years ago the gap wasn't as big (and the recession might send us back to that world), but today you have to really, really not care about comp.
I used to do meaningful work for universities, I had a lot of fun interacting with students and brainstorming with clever people not driven by any profit motive. Unfortunately the gap in pay became too much. I make more than 5 times what I used to back then, but do miss waking up in the morning as asking "what's the best thing I can do for the world with my time today?"
As employer, they are mostly remote
Disclaimer: I work for Upwork, this is my own genuine comment though
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.
See code for all and code for america.
We get users who write in thanking us for our work every day, so I feel very good about the positive impact we've had (made the apps free for 3mm+ people during the lockdowns in 2020, all apps free for students & teachers forever, etc).
And we're hiring! https://www.downdogapp.com/jobs
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.
Fintech:
Forage (https://www.joinforage.com), building Stripe for EBT, i.e. food stamps
Nearside (https://www.nearside.com), banking for small businesses
KeeperTax (https://www.keepertax.com), tax savings for independent contractors
Bio/Pharma/Healthcare:
Q Bio (https://q.bio), creating a more data-driven approach to health
Reverie Labs (https://www.reverielabs.com), accelerating drug development with ML
PathAI (https://www.pathai.com), increasing diagnosis accuracy
Benchling (https://www.benchling.com), cloud for biotech R&D
Mental Health:
Alma (https://helloalma.com), providing easier access to therapy
Headway (https://headway.co), same as Alma
Juniper (https://www.juniperplatform.com), workflow tools for autism providers
Real Estate:
Orchard (https://orchard.com), buy your next home before you sell
Ribbon (https://www.ribbonhome.com), cash offers to improve home access
Hardware:
Sofar Ocean (https://www.sofarocean.com), collecting ocean data
Climate:
Watershed (https://watershed.com), platform for enterprises to reduce carbon emissions
Sweep (https://www.sweep.net)
Pachama (https://pachama.com)
Defense (if you believe that Western influence is positive impact):
Anduril (https://www.anduril.com), building high-tech defense products and reducing gov waste
Palantir (https://www.palantir.com), building data products for government
We have a principal role open on the team right now but may be able to accommodate others. We essentially make a programming language and the gameplay elements on top. The principal role is on the language side but we could potentially make more roles on the gameplay side. Email me (tyler@recroom.com) if you are interested. I've attached a description of the role below.
---- ROLE DESCRIPTION ----
Principal Software Engineer - Programming Language Architecture
Rec Room is a fun and welcoming community where people from all walks of life come together to play, chat, hang out, learn, build, and explore millions of experiences. Circuits is our-in game programming language that brings these experiences to life: it is a game for building games. Children and adults alike use Circuits as a fun and educational programming tool or a pleasant and productive way to unwind after work hours. By using Circuits, many creators learn programming for the first time and gain lifelong skills used for hobbies, college decisions, or even work opportunities.
As a principal software engineer focusing on programming language architecture, you will own key-components of Circuits and work with a team of world-class engineers to build gameplay, compilers, and interpreters. To move the needle on what's possible: you must work with designers to balance modern language capabilities with a focus on usability for all creators, novice or advanced. Join Rec Room and help improve the lives of millions in our community by picking up programming for the first time or building and sharing with friends.
We are looking for:
Proficient in multiple programming languages: Our client code is written in C#, but an understanding of type-safe, functional, and scripting languages is necessary to drive technical discussions. C, C++, Rust, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Lisp are great examples.
Experienced with full-stack programming language development*: Circuits is a key differentiator for Rec Room. It includes a VM, type system, compiler, runtime environment, debugger, and IDE that work across PC, phones, VR and all major consoles. An understanding of language development is necessary to ensure that Circuits retains usability and high-performance while working across existing and future platforms.
Experienced with video game development: 5+ years experience building games on any platform with complex behavior and live updates. Circuits is built, compiled and executed within the game. So an understanding of the performance requirements, design considerations, and execution model of games ensures that Circuits is a cohesive part of the overall game-play experience.
Comfortable working in a fast-paced, autonomous, and ambiguous environment: At Rec Room we bias towards action.
Rather than meticulous planning with an avalanche of meetings we build things when in doubt. As a top engineer you will execute with a high degree of trust and autonomy to cut through our most challenging technical puzzles.
Lifelong learners: Our top engineers across the company keep up with cutting edge articles, papers, and books. As a member of this group you will be expected to learn, improve and help others improve.
*You don't have to match all of the skills above to apply!*
Bonus points:
Experienced with writing unit tests: Circuits is the most heavily tested component of the Rec Room codebase. All major language features are covered with tests such that developers have immediate feedback when they introduce an error.
Experienced with multiplayer networking: Rec Room is an online-only game with a peer-to-peer networking model. Significant architectural thought is allocated to keeping networking simple across the organization. Circuits itself must keep its data structures consistent across all clients in an experience while it is being actively edited to ensure creators run the same thing.
Familiar with data-oriented design: Foundational components of the Rec Room codebase use a data-oriented design. This provides performance benefits out of the gate with future benefits anticipated by taking advantage of Unity's Data-Oriented Technology Stack.
Familiar with type system implementations: Type systems make it easier to write error-free code but have an intrusive nature. An understanding of type systems is necessary to balance correctness with the impact on developer experience. A contributor to an open source language: Whether you have a toy language for personal use or you own the Rust language server, we love to see real world experience.
Company info to know:
Rec Room offers generous medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children. We also support your retirement benefits with a company match. Rec room values work-life balance and provides unlimited paid time off. We work hard to ensure Rec Room is a fun and friendly place for people from all walks of life.
Rec Room provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.
You can find a list of global openings at: https://jobs.lever.co/octoenergy
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I went through a similar journey after feeling incredibly guilty and unhappy working for a company that helped others extract even more oil and gas from the planet. It completely changed my outlook on what I wanted from a job, and made me determined to refocus my career toward things that have a tangible benefit on society and the planet. I could spend the rest of my life working on stuff, or I could spend it on things that actually matter.
It turns out that there are surprisingly few companies around that not only do something "good", but also deliver on that with tangible results.
Renewable energy is a fantastic area to be involved in right now, we're just at the start of a monumental shift toward not only more renewable generation (eg. wind farms), but also the surrounding technology, infrastructure and policy that's required to make it happen in a reliable and cost-effective way (eg. batteries, EVs, smart energy grids, change in consumer behaviours).
I've been working at Octopus Energy since January doing visualisation (eg. 3D graphics, dataviz), who are involved in nearly every aspect of the transition to a modern and clean energy system around the world. They started in the UK but are now spread across many other countries (eg. Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, US and others).
What I love about the Octopus Energy Group is that there's something for everyone. Want to work with electric vehicles? Check out Octopus Electric Vehicles [3]. Want to work on the core software that is already in production, enabling the transition to smarter energy systems? Check out Kraken Technologies [4] and Kraken Flex [5]. Want to be involved with the physical assets of a smart and clean energy system? Check out Octopus Energy Generation [6]. And there's plenty more.
It's the first time in 10 years (since working at Mozilla) that I've felt part of a shared mission for good. It's both fulfilling and highly addictive. And it also helps that the Octopus ethos is to treat people like adults, so the trust and work-life balance is fantastic. We're all here to work together towards the same goal, and it genuinely feels that way.
Long story short, there's something for everyone and I've never been happier. Come join us!
[1] https://octopus.energy [2] https://octopusenergy.group [3] https://octopusenergy.group/octopus-electric-vehicles [4] https://kraken.tech/ [5] https://octopusenergy.group/kraken-flex [6] https://octopusenergy.group/octopus-energy-generation
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!
is there any user control over this? otherwise, this is an totalitarian's dream come true. i'd suggest thinking about this capability a little more in relation to "positive impact".
Sensitive data that is collected from participants that users interact with are typically governed by policies set by Institutional Review Boards or Ministries of Health.
People know they are voluntarily filling out a form and for whom. It just doesn’t go to a server immediately due to lack of signal.
How is this any worse than voluntarily filling out a printed form on paper and putting it into a mailbox to get picked up later? A practice that has been socially accepted for decades?
