Orthogonal Impact: Finding High-Leverage Good in Unlikely Careers

Please note that this post was largely written by a large language model (GPT o1 pro). I have disclosed the prompts that went into generating this piece at the end of the article.

TL;DR: Don’t just seek “do-good” roles that already reward altruistic outcomes—focus on finding positions or tasks outside standard career incentives, where your effort to improve the world won’t be duplicated by someone else. These often-overlooked “orthogonal” opportunities (in politics, corporations, academia, etc.) can yield outsized impact precisely because they aren’t formally recognized or measured. By incorporating this mindset into both current roles and future career planning, you can discover powerful ways to do good that most people miss.

Introduction

A core principle of Effective Altruism (EA) is to direct our efforts and resources toward the greatest good we can achieve. Often, this involves choosing career paths that explicitly reward people for “doing good”—for instance, roles in public health, philanthropy, or organizations whose missions are closely aligned with altruistic aims. However, we may be missing out on enormous potential by not also considering orthogonal opportunities for impact—those that fall outside the scope of traditional career incentives.

In many fields, the standard markers of career success (like sales targets, promotion metrics, or getting votes in political roles) don’t capture all the ways that one can meaningfully improve the world. When “doing good” isn’t part of the job description or evaluation, these high-leverage opportunities can be neglected. This post explores:

1. How to recognize these overlooked niches within your current role, and
2. How to factor these orthogonal opportunities into your career planning—so you can choose careers that maximize your positive impact, even if that impact isn’t officially measured or rewarded.

Why Focus on Orthogonal Opportunities for Impact?

1. They’re Neglected
   Where there’s no performance bonus or public accolade attached, people often don’t pursue socially beneficial actions. If a role already incentivizes altruistic outcomes—like a nonprofit fundraiser measured on donations—it’s likely that someone is motivated to do the job well. But when “green procurement,” “data transparency,” or “under-the-radar policy reforms” aren’t on anyone’s radar, those benefits might be lost unless a particularly impact-driven person steps in.
2. They Offer Unique Upsides
   Because standard incentive structures overlook them, these pathways can be under-explored relative to their social value. For instance, passing a low-profile policy to reduce local pollution may not help a politician get re-elected—but it might save many lives.
3. Less Competition, Greater Influence
   High-impact, “mission-oriented” roles—like certain positions at big-name nonprofits—often attract throngs of talented applicants. By contrast, positions with strong potential for orthogonal impact may not draw as much socially motivated talent, giving you more latitude to push for ambitious changes.
4. Potential for Rewiring Systems from Within
   People in roles that don’t typically measure “doing good” often have surprising leeway to champion new initiatives. When you’re “under the radar,” you can embed structural reforms—such as supply-chain standards or ethical data practices—that ripple across entire industries or communities.

Considering Orthogonal Impact in Your Career Choices

1. Look Beyond Mission-aligned Companies
   It’s easy to assume that working for a charity, think tank, or social-impact startup is the surest route to doing good. But big corporations, government agencies, and other less obviously altruistic institutions can house enormous hidden opportunities—especially if they hold significant power over budgets, legislation, or technology.
2. Identify Roles with ‘High Discretionary Power’
   When choosing a career, consider not only how the role is officially measured (KPIs, goals, or typical responsibilities) but also the unclaimed levers you might access. Examples include:
   • Corporate Procurement: Can you decide which suppliers or materials are chosen? That alone can alter labor practices, reduce emissions, or raise quality standards.
   • Legislative Staff / Policy Analyst: Although your formal performance might be measured by how well you serve your boss or party, you might wield considerable influence over legislative details.
   • Technical Roles in Large Organizations: Many large tech or finance firms grant engineers, data scientists, or product managers broad autonomy. Even small design choices can have an outsized social impact (e.g., adding stronger security protections or ethical data usage defaults).
3. Map Out Where Others Aren’t Looking
   If a field is already saturated with do-gooders or structured to reward prosocial behavior, your marginal impact may be lower. Conversely, if you sense that nobody is focusing on sustainability, consumer safety, or labor standards in a particular sector, there’s likely a massive gap you could fill.
4. Weigh Personal Fit, Values, and Credibility
   While “orthogonal” impact is a powerful concept, ensure you can credibly occupy the role (or acquire the required skills quickly). You might also want a baseline level of personal interest so that you can stay motivated in a job whose official rewards don’t align with impact.

Defining “Orthogonal Opportunities” in Practice

By “orthogonal,” we mean activities or initiatives you can undertake within your role—or the sphere of professional influence it provides—that aren’t tied to how your performance is typically measured. In other words, these are actions that:

• Do not directly affect your performance review or promotion prospects,
• Are not mandated by your supervisor, colleagues, or organizational culture,
• Lie off the beaten path of “natural incentives” in your field.

Examples include:

• A tech engineer who quietly implements robust accessibility features in an app—features the company isn’t explicitly tracking or monetizing.
• A public relations professional who uses media connections to amplify awareness of effective charities, even when the firm is only measured on client satisfaction.
• A university administrator who promotes open data practices, despite the institution primarily valuing high-volume, paywalled publications.

Why Avoid Areas Where Impact is Already Incentivized?

1. Someone Else Will Do It Anyway
   If a job is explicitly designed around “doing good,” then someone with a genuine interest in that mission (or at least a requirement to fulfill it) will likely occupy the role. The marginal difference you provide, relative to the next best candidate, might be small.
2. Highly Competitive Fields
   Positions that boast clear moral benefits—e.g., philanthropic grantmaking, animal advocacy—tend to attract a surplus of altruistically motivated talent. If you’re the 50th qualified person vying for that post, you might do more good elsewhere.
3. Opportunity Cost
   If you don’t pursue an orthogonal opportunity in an industry where no one else is championing a specific social cause, it’s possible nobody will. The cost of your absence in these neglected areas could be substantial.

Examples of Orthogonal Opportunities

1. Corporate Roles
   • In-house Policy Advocacy: Proposing corporate giving initiatives or pushing for more responsible financial products.
   • Ethical Supply Chain Choices: Even if you’re in a mundane procurement or logistics job, shifting suppliers toward higher labor or environmental standards can have enormous social returns.
2. Public Sector and Politics
   • Low-Profile Legislation: Championing vital but unglamorous laws like local lead abatement, data transparency, or open meeting acts.
   • Staff/Committee Influence: Adding detailed language to bills that protects vulnerable populations, fosters accountability, or opens data sets to the public.
3. Academia and Research
   • Evidence Translation: Serving as an informal advisor to nonprofits or policymaking bodies, effectively transporting cutting-edge findings into real-world applications.
   • Open Data and Methods: Encouraging your institution to value open-access publishing or data-sharing, even when citation counts rule academic promotions.
4. Entrepreneurship
   • Founding Principles: Embedding a 5-10% equity pledge to high-impact charities if the startup takes off.
   • B2B Partnerships: Steering a new product toward customers who solve pressing social problems, thus aligning market growth with social welfare improvements.

Strategies to Overcome Pitfalls

1. Organizational Resistance
   • Pitfall: Your boss or colleagues may see orthogonal projects as distractions.
   • Strategy: Frame these initiatives as beneficial for the organization’s innovation, reputation, or resilience. Seek allies in leadership who value corporate responsibility or long-term thinking.
2. Difficulty Measuring Impact
   • Pitfall: Without standard metrics, you might be unsure if you’re making a real difference.
   • Strategy: Define your own metrics and track outcomes (e.g., improved policy language, supply-chain certifications) to sustain motivation and show value to potential allies.
3. Lack of Recognition
   • Pitfall: You won’t get a bonus or a pat on the back for results that aren’t measured.
   • Strategy: Document your successes and share them with personal or professional networks (including EA communities) that value social impact. This track record might help you pivot into other high-impact roles later.
4. Balancing Career Advancement
   • Pitfall: Devoting too much time to orthogonal projects might slow your promotions or salary growth.
   • Strategy: Commit a manageable fraction of your bandwidth (say 10–20% of your work time) to these projects, ensuring you still fulfill core responsibilities and maintain credibility.

Incorporating Orthogonal Opportunities into Career Planning

1. Assess Your Field’s Incentives
   If an industry’s main performance metrics already reward altruistic outcomes, you may be less needed there. Conversely, if the sector is large, powerful, and has minimal social-good incentives, you might find huge, untapped potential.
2. Look for Roles with Flexibility or Power Over Policy
   When evaluating job postings, consider: “What decisions will I be empowered to make, or strongly influence, that could lead to social good?” Sometimes middle or senior managerial roles, government positions, or specialized technical roles offer more slack for innovative projects.
3. Interview for Alignment—Both Ways
   Ask prospective employers about their openness to new initiatives, corporate responsibility, or social impact efforts. Gauge whether they’re likely to resist or embrace your ideas. Meanwhile, showcase that you can help meet their goals while quietly embedding broader social benefits.
4. Network to Find Hidden Niches
   Connect with professionals already in similar roles who have found ways to create social impact. Ask them what barriers they overcame, what pitfalls to avoid, and where they see further scope for improvement.

Conclusion

A key insight of the Effective Altruism movement is marginal impact. Rather than just seeking positions that advertise a do-good mission, consider whether someone else would step in if you didn’t. If that role already heavily incentivizes altruistic outcomes, it might not be as high-impact on the margin. But if there’s a position—maybe in a big tech firm, a government office, or a traditional industry—where no one else is thinking about social-good externalities, that’s your chance to effect massive positive change.

As you navigate both your current job and future career decisions, be on the lookout for these hidden or underexploited avenues. By actively seeking opportunities that are orthogonal to standard career incentives, you may be able to do more good than you ever imagined—precisely because few others are trying.

Discussion Questions

• Have you identified any “orthogonal” opportunities for good in your own workplace or industry, or when planning your career path?
• Which sectors or roles seem especially ripe for these overlooked levers of impact?
• How can we, as a community, better share resources and experiences to encourage EAs to tap these hidden opportunities in career choices?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and stories in the comments!

Prompts used:
"Could you please draft an Effective Altruism Forum post about how there is likely the opportunity to create an outsize impact by looking for areas where the opportunity to do good is orthogonal to the typical measurements of job performance (politics, for instance, please think of other examples). Please put a lot of thought into the implications of this and create a thoughtful post."

"Could you revise, with more of a mind for looking for areas in which there are opportunities for impact that are orthogonal to career incentives and potentially avoiding areas in which career incentives are aligned with impact (because these are likely to result in doing good regardless of the motivations of the occupier of the position)"

"You seem to be considering looking for orthogonal opportunities for impact within the career that someone already has. People should also consider this when they are looking for careers to enter, potentially. Could you please revise accordingly?"