Hi everyone,
Many people in EA aren’t able to get as much career advice as they’d like, while at the same time, hundreds of EAs are happy to provide informal advice and mentoring within their career area.
Much of what we do in our one-on-one advice at 80,000 Hours is try to connect these two groups, but we’re not able to cover a significant number of people. At the same time, spaces like the EA careers discussion FB group don’t seem to have taken off as a place where people get concrete advice.
As an experiment, I thought we could try having an open career questions thread on the Forum.
By posting a reply here, anyone can post a question about their career, without having to make a top level post, and anyone on the forum can write an answer.
If it works well, we could do it each month or so.
To get things going, some of the 80,000 Hours team will be available from Monday onwards to write quick answers to topics they have views on (in an individual capacity rather than representing our official view), though our hope is that others will get involved.
For those with questions, I could imagine those ranging from high-level to practical:
- I’m trying to choose whether to focus on global health or climate change, how should I decide?
- I can either accept this job offer or go to graduate school, which seems best?
- Which skills should I focus on learning in my spare time?
- Where can I learn more about how to interview for jobs in policy?
I’m especially keen to see questions from people who haven’t posted much before.
The answers to your questions will probably be more useful if you can share a bit of background, though feel free to skip if it'll prevent you from asking at all! You can also skip if you're asking a very general question.
Here’s a short template to provide background – feel free to pick whichever parts seem most useful as context:
- Which 2-5 problem areas do you intend to focus on?
- What ideas for longer-term roles do you have?
- What do you see as your strengths & most valuable career capital?
- Some key facts on your experience / qualifications / achievements (or a link to your LinkedIn profile if you’re comfortable linking your name to the question).
- Any important personal constraints to keep in mind (e.g. tied to a certain location)
- What 2-5 next career moves are you considering? (i.e. specific jobs or educational opportunities you might take)
If you want to do a longer version, you could use our worksheet.
Just please bear in mind this will all be public on the internet for the long term. Don’t post things you wouldn’t want future employers to see, unless using an anonymous account. Even being frank about the pros and cons of different jobs can easily look bad.
As a reminder, we have more resources to help you write out and clarify your plan here.
For those responding to questions, bear in mind this thread might attract people who are newer to the forum, and careers can be a personal subject, so try to keep it friendly.
I’m looking forward to your questions and seeing how the thread unfolds!
Update 21 Dec: Thank you everyone for the questions and responses! The 80k team won't be able to post much more until Jan, but we'll try to respond after that.
Thank you for all your questions and comments! This thread has now been up a while and is getting unwieldy, so the 80,000 Hours team won't be posting further on it. Thank you to everyone who contributed answers - I think that's meant that everyone has received some answer to their question. Apologies that we didn't manage to personally reply to all of them.
I'm a third year college student at a top US university studying math and computer science. I'm struggling to decide between pursuing a PhD in AI safety research or working at a quant firm/E2G. A third wildcard career path would be a data-informed policy role where I could use my quantitative skills to help policymakers, but I've struggled to find roles like this that are both high impact and technically interesting (would love some help with this!).
I will be working at a quant trading firm (one of Citadel, Optiver, etc.) next summer as a software engineer and I currently work in an AI research lab at school, so I'm well set to pursue both career paths. It's a question of which path is higher impact and will be the most rewarding for me. I'll try to list out some pros and cons of the PhD and E2G routes (ignoring data-driven policy roles for now because haven't found one of those jobs).
Quant Firm E2G Pros:
- Potential for $1M+ donations within first 5-10 years
- Great work life balance (<50 hours/week for the company I will be working at), perks, location, job security (again, specific to my company), and all around work environment
- Guaranteed job offer; I've already passed
... (read more)(Background: Have worked in trading since late 2013, with one ~18 month gap. Have also spoken to >5 people facing a decision similar to this one over the years. This is a set of points I often end up making. I'm moderately confident about each statement below but wouldn't be surprised if one of them is wrong.)
I think both of these paths are very 'spiky', in the sense that I think the top 10% has many times more impact (either via donations or direct work) than the median. From a pure altruistic perspective, I think you mostly want to maximise the chance of spiking.
One of the best ways to maximise this is to be able to switch after you realise you aren't in that category; in trading I think you're likely to have a good sense of your appoximate path within 2-4 years, so in the likely even that you are not hitting the high end at that point you have an opportunity to switch, if your alternate allows you to switch (often but certainly not always the case). Similarly, I'd try to work out what flexibility you have on the AI PhD path; if you do in fact find the day-to-day frustrating and decide to quit in order to avoid burnout, what are your options? If you can switch either way... (read more)
Hey Anon,
I was in a similar situation to this with job offers from MIRI (research assistant) and a top quant trading firm (trading intern, with likely transition to full-time), four years ago.
I ended up taking the RA job, and not the internship. A few years later, I'm now a researcher at FHI, concurrently studying a stats PhD at Oxford.
I'm happy with what I decided, and I'd generally recommend people do the same, basically because I think there are enough multi-millionaire EAs to place talent at a large premium, relative to donations. Relative to you, I had a better background for trading, relative to academic AI - I played Poker and gambled successfully on political markets, but my education was in medicine and bioinformatics. So I think for someone like you, the case for a PhD would be stronger than for me.
That said, I do think it depends a lot on personal factors - how deeply interested in AI (safety) are you? How highly-ranked exactly are the quant firm, and the PhD where you end up getting an offer? And so on...
I'd be happy to provide more detailed public or private comments.
Congratulations on the quant trading firm offer! It sounds like right now you’re in a great overall position, and that you’re thinking things through really sensibly. A few thoughts:
For examples of data drive policy roles, I wonder if you’d be interested in the type of research that the Center for Security and Emerging Technology does?
With regard to earning to give, I’m sorry to hear that it doesn’t feel high impact. Do you think that might be better once you have money to donate, and are spending time carefully thinking through where that could do the most good? Or perhaps if you spent quite a bit of time chatting to other people earning to give, and so had more of the sense of being in a community doing that? If you haven’t yet, I wonder if it’s worth your chatting to some other people who have been earning to give for a while about how they’ve found it. Likewise talking to someone who has been a software engineer for a longish while about how they’ve found it over time sounds like it could be useful.
On going into AI, I don’t know that I’d be worried about having negative effects if you don’t work in AI safety, because I’d expect if you didn’t go into AI safety ... (read more)
You should take the quant role imo. Optionality is valuable (though not infinitely so). Quant trading gives you vastly more optionality. If trading goes well but you leave the field after five years you will have still gained a large amount of experience and donated/saved a large amount of capital. It's not unrealistic to try for 500K donated and 500K+ saved in that timeframe, especially since firms think you are unusually talented. If you have five hundred thousand dollars, or more, saved you are no longer very constrained by finances. Five hundred thousand dollars is enough to stochastically save over a hundred lives. There are several high impact EA orgs with a budget of around a million dollars a year (Rethink Priorities comes to mind). If trading goes very well you could personally fund such an org.
How are you going to feel if you decide to do the PHD and after five years you decide that it was not the best path? You will have left approximately a million dollars and a huge amount of earning potential on the table. You could have been free to work for no compensation if you want. You would have been able to bankroll a medium sized project if you keep trading.
There are a lot of ways to massively regret turning down the quant job. It is plausible that the situation is so dire that you need to drop other paths and work on AI safety right now. But you need to be confident in a very detailed world model to justify giving up so much optionality. There are a lot of theories on how to do the most good. Stay upstream.
AI PhDs tend to be very well-compensated after graduating, so I don't think personal financial constraints should be a big concern on that path.
More generally, skill in AI is going to be upstream of basically everything pretty soon; purely in terms of skill optionality, this seems much more valuable than being a quant.
So there are a few different sources of optionality from a PhD:
- Academic credentials
- Technical skills
- Research skills
Software engineer at a quant firm plausibly builds more general technical skills, but I expect many SWEs there work on infrastructure that has little to do with AI. I also don't have a good sense for how fast quant firms are switching over to deep learning - I assume they're on the leading edge, but maybe not all of them, or maybe they value interpretability too much to switch fully.
But I also think PhDs are pretty valuable for learning how to do innovative research at the frontiers of knowledge, and for the credentials. So it seems like one important question is: what's the optionality for? If it's for potentially switching to a different academic field, then PhD seems better. If it's for leading a research organisation, same. Going into policy work, same. If it's for founding a startup, harder to tell; depends on whether it's an AI startup I guess.
Whereas I have more trouble picturing how a few years at a quant firm is helpful in switching to a different field, apart from the cash buffer. And I also had the impression that engineers at these places are usu... (read more)
That makes sense, thanks for the extra colour on PhDs.
I've heard variants on this a few times, so you aren't alone. To give some extra colour on what I think you're gaining from working at quant firms: Most of these firms still have a very start-up-like culture. That means that you get significant personal responsibility and significant personal choice about what you work on, within a generally supportive culture. In general this is valuable, but it means there isn't one universal answer to this question. Still, some candidate skills I think you'll get the opportunity to develop should you so choose.
(This list is illustrative based on my own experience, rather than exhaustive. Some of the above will apply to the PhD as well, it's not intended as a comparison)
I want to first say thanks for making this thread! This has helped me set a deadline for myself to write down my thoughts and ask for some feedback. As described below, I’d love some feedback about my career plans, and also this draft post of notes about what it could mean to be an expert in AI hardware, which I wrote up while working on these plans.
For a little background on me, I’m currently a grad student working near the area of quantum computing hardware and I’m on track to get my PhD in summer 2022. I think my strengths are laboratory work in experimental physics. I find that I enjoy leadership roles, though I find it hard to gauge if I actually am skilled at these roles. (For more background see my resume). I’m also planning to do an internship in summer 2021. I’m hoping to figure out what could be particularly good uses of my time for the internship and my first couple roles after grad school. I currently have no constraints on location.
I think I am pretty cause neutral, but given my skill set some of the areas I’ve thought about focusing on are:
- AI Hardware
- AI Policy
- AI Technical research
- Earning to give (and continuing to work on my personal cause prioritization)
- Atomically Pr
... (read more)This is a fantastic career plan! And thank you very much for your article on being an expert in hardware, that seemed like a really useful synthesis, and I imagine will be really valuable for others considering working in this area.
I don't have much to add because it seems like you're thinking all this through really carefully and have done a lot of research. A few thoughts:
- Application processes seem to me to have a lot of noise in them. So I wouldn't take a single rejection from AAAS as much evidence at all about you not being suited for policy.
- There are a range of other policy options you might consider for testing this route, such as the Mirzayan Fellowship, which has the benefit of being just 12 weeks. Lots more eg Tech Congress and PMF described in this document.
- My impression is that it's easier to move from more to less technical roles than the reverse, which may point in favour of working for a year or two in industry before doing years in policy (although as a counter to that, some things like PMF are only an option up to ~2 years out of your degree)
- AI Impacts might be another organisation to have on your radar for maybe doing a short project with to test non-t
... (read more)What's a good rule of thumb for letting go of your Plan A?
Over the past three years, I have submitted 60 applications and 200+ requests for volunteering to get a job working for an MP. I was convinced that British politics was a strong option for me: I was extremely intrinsically motivated, and it remains a strong match for my skills.
Even the additional paid experience I eventually got in 2018 for a few months has had no impact on my ability to get an interview; of the job applications, I received just one interview, which I failed. Of the requests for volunteering, I got two offers of a work experience placement and managed to do one of them.
I have conflicting feelings about this lack of success. During this time, I have had phases of doubting my personal fit (modest background, few political contacts), convincing myself it's a bad option, and wanting to give up. But I then get a sudden surge of optimism: to try again, submit another application, pad my CV, until rejection slaps me back down. I feel it is too important to give up on, it's a strong match for my skills, and it seems strong for information value and career capital.
Thoughts welcome! Thank you.
First of all, you have shown an impressive amount of stamina! Well done.
My guess is that if you want to pursue this path, you should focus on getting more political contacts, for example get involved in party politics. I know a lot of people who worked for MPs (albeit in a different country) who got these roles via party political work.
How harmful is a fragmented resume? People seem to believe this isn't much of a problem for early-career professionals, but I'm 30, and my longest tenure was for two and a half years (recently shorter). I like to leave for new and interesting opportunities when I find them, but I'm starting to wonder whether I should avoid good opportunities for the sake of appearing more reliable as a potential employee.
I think it depends a lot on industry. In the world of startups frequently changing jobs doesn't seem that unusual at all. In finance, on the other hand, I would be very suspicious of someone who moved from one hedge fund to another every two years.
It also depends a bit on the role. A recent graduate who joins an investment bank as an analyst is basically expected to leave after two years; but if a Director leaves after two years that is a sign that something was wrong. Working as a teacher for two years and then quitting looks bad, unless it was Teach for America, in which case it is perfectly normal.
I'm a first-year machine learning PhD student, and I'm wondering how best to spend my PhD to prepare for policy positions (as a US citizen, I'm especially looking at programs like TechCongress and AAAS). What skills should I develop, and what can I do to develop them? What topic areas should I become an expert in? Should I learn about subjects broadly or just zero in on my PhD topic? I'm also wondering how much overlap there is between work that would best improve my resume for policy and work that would increase my chances of landing in academia. Roughly, there's a spectrum of how to allocate my PhD resources with the following two extremes: on one, I can try to pursue traditional academic success at all costs (publish a lot, network heavily with academics); on the other, use the PhD funding to subsidize my work in other areas (e.g. policy research) and just do the bare minimum required to graduate by thesis.
More on my background/situation. My current PhD topic is fairness. I'm not particularly interested in value alignment or X-risk AI problems; I also don't feel like I'm well-equipped to research those topics. I'm in a UK program and so my PhD is quite a bit shorter, and I will ... (read more)
I'm 36, live in the UK and I'm paid pretty well for my location as a software engineer specialising in testing (SDET), I'm in fintech at the moment but have tried other domains. I went to fintech because I worked in a healthcare company and although I enjoyed it, a lot of it felt like the same s***, so I figured I may as well get paid a slight premium and increase my earning to give.
Nearly ten years ago I discovered financial independence, I was working in London, my then-girlfriend (now wife) got sick and had to move home from university. I wasn't in love with my job so tried to get home quickly as well and as I was going to give up the route to riches I was previously going to take, I ended up googling and discovered MMM etc. This also trashed my most effective earning to give model as contracting for banks at the time was particularly lucrative.
I took another job in tech but a slight sidestep in role, around this time I also read Cal Newport's So Good They Cannot Ignore You and used that as my work ethos. Chase learning, gain skills, make bank. It did kind of work, I'm well paid but the passion and enjoyment he claimed would develop, well it hasn't for me.
This has somewhat... (read more)
I notice that the thread has gotten long and a lot of people's questions are being buried (one thing I intensely dislike about upvote-style forums is that it isn't trivial to scroll down to the end of the thread and see what's new ("Oh, but you can sort by new if you want to," one replies, and, sure, I guess, but unless everyone else with good opinions does too that doesn't exactly solve the problem, now does it?)). The buried questions don't seem less important than the ones posted first, and I wish I was competent to give expert advice apropos them/had a way to direct the community's gaze to them.
I have a question of my own--regarding changing my undergraduate major--but I'll wait for the January thread to ask it.
Do people have online courses to recommend?
I have ~2 months off and am considering intro courses in stats and probability, game theory, or data science. I'm open to other recommendations, of course!
This might be too elementary for you, but in college I benefited from Model Thinking by Scott Page. It's a breezy introduction to a long list of popular models used in the social and empirical sciences, and I think plausibly had a small effect on my general perspective of trying to see the world in terms of many simple models (vs eg "model-free" intuitions, or a single grand overarching model).
Hi all
I'm wondering if folks have suggestions for what EA organizations and / or roles could best leverage the skill set of management consultants? There are quite a few of us interested in EA and it's a job with relatively high churn (plenty of folks open to opportunities!), but I'm not sure there's much of a "pipeline" from consulting to EA today.
Back in the day - when I was already planning to enter the industry - an 80,000 Hours quiz result suggested management consulting, and I've been doing the job which I've generally enjoyed for the last 5+ years. I've been earning to give, but would like to explore potential for direct work - just not sure where my experience / skills could best translate.
Here's my LinkedIn page and I'm happy to share a resume with detailed experience if useful. But, in short, I went to a top US university (no grad degree), jumped to a top management consulting firm, and have worked across most major industries (energy, healthcare, finance, retail, private equity, etc.) across a range of for-profit organizations.
For those at roughly my tenure who leave consulting for the private sector, the most likely next step is "middle management" (e.... (read more)
I'll throw myself out there!
I've always thought of myself as most likely a Earn to give type person, but I'm looking at starting college in the next year or so and I realized that I'm not a bad candidate for some really important sounding colleges. (I.E. I imagine Oxford is a long shot, but it's not unimaginable.)
EA seems to be talent constrained in a lot of ways, so if I get into a good college. Should I go direct work? And if so, what degree is most applicable?
Of note: I'm not turned off by the relative hardness of the degree to earn. So stick me in whatever hellish degree program turns out the best people for the job!
Previous experience:
2 years college with bad grades (I didn't like it)
6 years naval nuclear experience as a reactor operator.
Hi there! I am a freshman undergraduate finishing my first semester of college at a local US state university. I’m majoring in economics and statistics. Although I’m not sure what career path I’ll take just yet, I can see myself doing global priorities research or AI policy research down the line. I could also see myself working for the US federal government or at a think tank. I am considering data science as another option because of the career capital and the flexibility to work at many different places. The long-term plan is work on a top global issue,... (read more)
I think this is a really hard question, and the right answer to it likely depends to a very significant degree on precisely what you’re likely to want to do professionally in the near and medium-term. I recently graduated from a top U.S. university, and my sense is that the two most significant benefits I reaped from where I went to school were:
I’m not sure how to we... (read more)
I'm considering pursuing an earning-to-give path and would appreciate if anyone has any advice.
My short bio is:
One obvious path is to go to a more established economics consultancy that pays well e.g. one... (read more)
I am 28 years old and starting a joint MPP-MBA at a top U.S. school in the fall. I will be graduating with no debt thanks to financial aid and scholarships, and I don't intend to waste my time in finance or consulting (earning to give doesn't quite suit me).
I was in part motivated to pursue the joint degree by the EA movement and 8000hours.org's problem profile on "improving institutional decision making." Although I am interested in working in social and public sector consulting (specifically firms like Behavioral Insights Team). I'm curious what ot... (read more)
If you're in your mid-twenties, and making solid progress on a professional career path that may (or may not) give you the potential to have some positive impact later on in your career, should you stick on that path or jump off and try to start something new that may enable you to have an impact sooner?
I'm 27 years old and about to become a barrister in the UK, having studied physics, chemistry and philosophy at a very good university before converting to law. I am not interested in big money commercial law, but am going into employment law/human rights/p... (read more)
This was popular, but I'm not sure how useful people found it, and it took a lot of time. I hoped it might become an ongoing feature, but I couldn't find someone able to and willing to run it on an ongoing basis.
I'm a senior in college and recently accepted an offer to be a quant trader. I feel unprepared and was wondering what skills are the most important to be successful, and which resources I can use to learn these. For background, I am an Econ major with little coding skills. Should I dedicate more time to studying financial markets or practicing coding, and if coding, which languages should I target?
(I'm a trader at a NY-based quant firm, and work on education and training for new traders, among other things.)
I'm nearly certain that your hiring manager (or anyone involved in hiring you) would be happy to receive literally this question from you, and would have advice specifically tailored to the firm you're joining.
The firm has very a strong interest in your success (likely more so than anyone you've interacted with in college), and they've already already committed to spending substantial resources to helping you prepare for a successful career as a trader. Answering questions like this one (even before you've "officially" started) is literally (part of) someone's job.
(I'm declining to answer the actual question not to be unfriendly, but because I think the folks at your future employer will have more accurate answers than I can give.)
I just wanted to thank you for starting this thread Ben. I have recently been thinking about how useful it would be to have a more casual EA space to discuss how to have an impact in you career than the options we currently have, and this thread seems like a great step in that direction.
Hey there, new to the forum!
I'm leaving highschool next year here and am wondering about what to study at uni to have a higher impact. For context, I live (and would like to stay for the foreseeing future) near Zurich Switzerland. I highly enjoy math and physics (though anything that's quite analytical is pretty fun) , but also program a bit in my free time for fun. As such, I wanted to study mathematics and perhaps go into mathematical physics, but I am aware it is not as impactful as is perhaps possible. AI risk seems like a very interesting topic, but m... (read more)
Hey, great that you're thinking about this at this stage.
I hope that people with more experience in e.g. AI risk work will chime in, but here are a few quick thoughts from someone who did a bachelor's and master's in maths, has done research related to existential risk, and now does project management for an organization doing such research.
- I think either of maths, physics, or computer science can in principle be very solid degree choices. I could easily see it being the case that the decisive factor for you could be which you feel most interested in right now, or which universities you can get into for these different disciplines.
- Picking up the last point, I think the choice of university could easily be more important than the choice of subject. You say you want to stay near Zurich, but perhaps there are different universities you could reach from there (e.g. I think Zurich itself has at least two?). On the other hand, don't sweat it. I think that especially in quantitative subjects and at the undergraduate level, university prestige is less important, and at least in the German-speaking area there aren't actually huge differences in the quality of education that are correlated w
... (read more)Hi there. I'm a marketing strategist based in Australia with some career capital built from working with the US teams for tech clients like Google, Cisco and LinkedIn. I'm now considering a career change to work more in policy or research, either with regard to emerging technologies or security and international relations. A couple of questions I've been wrestling with:
a) At 31 years old, would I be better off focusing on working at an impactful organisation using the marketing/outreach skills I have rather than going into policy/research? What is the EA c... (read more)
Hi, many thanks for the opportunity to contribute.
I am very much in the earn to give camp.
My approach has been to get myself and my family financially sound before I start to give. This means I will give more in the long run as I am not paying interest on any debt.
I will be giving to the highest impact charity [whatever EA suggests at the time], this helps me free my mind to concentrate on earning as I don't have to spend time on the decision.
I am fortunate in finally being financially sound as we purchase our first family hom... (read more)
I am a young college grad from the U.S. with a background in working with children and in domestic violence/mental health fields. As a result of my own personal experiences and traumas, I am compelled to go into public interest law or social work.
My strengths are working with children or adults one-on-one. I feel guilty and concerned about this; I worry my skills are not conducive to truly helping the greater good. Further, if I become a public interest attorney or a social worker, how much impact is that truly going to have? At this point, I am pretty sur... (read more)
no suggestions, just a few thoughts:
Hello! So happy to find out about this. My story: I just turned 33. I have a licentiate degree in Psychology (5 years), a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience and currently on a Masters degree program in Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development. I love doing research, data science and statistics, though the only experience I have in these topics is the one from my PhD. Right after that, triggered by the loss of my partner, I decided to go sailing for some years to get to learn about unique communities living in nature. That was followed by maternity, and... (read more)
Hi Ana,
It's great to hear you are so passionate about learning and doing research! My best guess would be that you should focus on getting some real world job experience for a year or so. While you may not have as much statistical knowledge yet as you might want, I suspect it is better for you to learn them in a supportive 'real work' environment than on your own. Given that you have a PhD and soon two Master's (impressive!) I expect employers will trust they can train you up in the skills you need, so you don't have to learn them outside of a job first.
Something employers will often want to see is some evidence that you can solve their problems outside of a research/academic context. I expect it will be a lot easier for you to find a role you are really passionate about once you have some job experience, even if that means doing something that is not your dream job yet in the meantime.
Good luck!
Hi everyone! Like many others, I'm interested in exploring whether I'd be a good fit for an EA-connected org and would appreciate any help towards an answer.
I'm 35, finished a top physics PhD program in 2014 and have been freelancing as a data scientist since then. Most of my clients have been in finance and health, but about 10% of my work has been in international development. I've largely been a generalist, emphasizing fast and accurate-enough solutions to diverse problems.
(1) Are there any career paths outside of the 'researcher' (research analyst, pos... (read more)
How can I leverage a tech sales background for EA? I'm early in my career (age 25) and going to be located in Texas for at least the next 1-2 years. Long-term I think institutional decision making, geopolitics and clean energy are core issues for me, and I would like to get involved in politics/policy. I only have a BA in Economics and Philosophy from an unremarkable (unless you care about football) state school.
I wonder how important it might be to go back to school for either law school or research (MA/PhD) as a possible next move. I'm not particularly excited about the idea of not having substantial income for 3-6 years.
Hey; I work in US politics (in Data Analytics for the Democratic Party). Would love to chat if you think it would be useful for you.
Great initiative!
> If it works well, we could do it each month or so.
Are you planning to do this again? If so, when? I think it would be great if you did.
If you don't have time, let us know too, then other EA career coaches / mentors could take over (such as CEA community building grantees like me, EA coaches, WANBAM mentors etc.). Maybe those folks would join anyway if you coordinate the date with us beforehand. I do think it would be much better with your contributions, though.
I'm a UK civil servant working in the Covid-19 Vaccines Taskforce Strategy team where I have worked on selecting the vaccines in the UK's portfolio, writing papers and reports on their clinical and manufacturing progress and securing funding for important studies. I do not have a scientific background so this has meant working closely with expert advisors and picking up technical knowledge quickly. I have 2 years' experience in policy in the civil service and one year prior to that in strategy consulting. My current role is a good fit for me and I have had... (read more)
A little late to the part but maybe I can still get some insight. I’m 27 and have been working for humanitarian programs in the Middle East since graduating with a BA in international economics from a good school. While I’m working in the non-profit sector, and super fortunate to have had the roles I’ve had at such a young age, the nature of the conflict/disaster work doesn’t feel EA effective and I want to take the skills I’ve gained and move on to something new and more impactful. I’ve gained a lot of knowledge of the international humanitarian world,... (read more)
Hi, I posted this question on the subreddit recently ( https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/ju4ok5/request_for_career_transition_thoughts_advice/ ), but would like to see if there are any fresh perspectives here:
Quick profile of me: I’m a 31-year-old British translator (working languages French, German and Spanish, plus beginner’s Mandarin) working for a language learning app. Have been interested in EA for ~8 years but always been daunted by the prospects of changing careers and not sure what I would be best suited to. I quite enjoy m... (read more)
Hello,
I currently work in the US (U.S. Citizen) for a large biotech product company called Thermofisher Scientific. I do lab services as a contractor for another biotech company which involves shipping/receiving samples for researchers, managing inventories, preparing and delivering media for researchers, and monitoring and coordinating maintenance and repairs of equipment. I have been working at the position for two years now and plan to stay in the company for at least another three years so that my 401K becomes fully vested.
In terms of maximizing posi... (read more)
Any thoughts for trying out jobs post-university?
I'm a 23 year old software engineer at a large tech company working out of NYC. I've thought of the following ways to try out jobs:
- Rotational programs - Some tech companies offer programs where you can rotate roles every 6 months, like this one. But I've pretty much applied to all of them.
- Full-time jobs - I could work full-time as a PM, UX Designer, university researcher etc. but this would probably require a 1-2yr commitment per job
- Startup cofounder - As a cofounder I'd gain exposure to a lot of
... (read more)I'm trying to choose between doubling down on skills in software engineering or branching out with the goal of working on AI safety longer term. I get the impression that a lot of people are in a similar position.
For me, my undergrad was an unusual mix of things but included Maths, Music (!) and Computer Science. I got good grades and I think there's a reasonable chance of my getting into a university like Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial to study a Masters and perhaps subsequently a PhD in Computer Science/AI.
Currently I'm paid well and developing a fair amo... (read more)
I'm in my early 20s with an undergraduate degree in Linguistics . I picked that as my major because for a brief period I thought I wanted to be an actual academic linguist--but as I learned more about the field and that part of academia, I realized it didn't appeal to me, and on top of that it has low impact. I enjoyed the STEM related parts of Linguistics the most in college (neurolinguistics, mathematical linguistics, computational, etc.), but my training in those areas was haphazard and not at the level I'd need to get a job in those fields. My instinct... (read more)
I'm yet another person who pivoted from having a linguistics degree to doing software development as a job - a relatively common path. (In between I tried to be a musician.) The transition was relatively easy: I did a 4-month bootcamp (Makers, London) in 2019. I think it's much easier to go the bootcamp route than the self-teaching route (assuming the bootcamp is good quality), because it's full-time, focuses on practical skills, and is verifiable by employers. (Also, they had a careers coach, and a money-back-if-you-don't-get-a-job guarantee, both of which helped.) It was much easier to be accepted onto a bootcamp than I originally assumed (I thought I'd have to spend months to years preparing for it, but that was totally wrong - just had to complete an online course).
Hi there - I'm currently doing my Masters in psychology at St Andrews and I'm starting to apply to PhD-positions this month. My current research topic is on rational decision-making. I want to, if possible, do a project in psychology that could have an impact on some of the goals of EA and the 80k team. Does anybody know any psychologists at the moment who are focusing their research in areas that could be influential in this area, or are there any research areas in general that you suggest I might look into?
I'm particularly interested in something that's cross-disciplinary - philosophy; behavioural economics; neuroscience are all good candidates.
Hi there, new forum member here! I read through some of the thread here and gt inspired to post something myself. I’m not sure if it’s open or if people are answering but I thought I might as well post.
I’m currently a medical student (first term) and I’m going to drop out in the coming weeks and start fresh on a new degree this autumn.
I’m considering studying Engineering Mathematics at KTH or Chalmers, which is a 3 year Bachelor’s degree with a focus on maths (almost 50% of the program) and programming (almost 20% of the program), with some add... (read more)
Overview:
I'm currently an early career, high income earner (tech company, non-engineering role) with a lot of interest in EA / long-termism and policy in general (my first job was in financial stability policy at a central bank). Currently my involvement in EA has been just through earning to give / evangelism to others within the companies I've worked for.
I'm trying to figure out next steps in my career, and in particular looking for ways to try out career avenues that do good more directly (through volunteering or - if I were to make a bigger leap ... (read more)
It's been great to see and read through this thread. Any thoughts on my own situation would be especially appreciated.
I'm in my final year of PPE at Oxford with a focus on the more technical/quantitative parts of economics. I consider myself quite entrepreneurial and have for some time wanted to do something in that vein - broadly considered, to include e.g. charity entrepreneurship.
After reading a book over the summer that challenged my perspectives, I am considering a broader range of issues and careers than before (brain dump from then here: https://for... (read more)
EA Careers in Germany
Hi everyone,
I just finished my master in business administration and engineering at a top university in Germany. I like to think about myself to have an entrepreneurial mindset, and to be good at data analytics and programming. In the long run however, I’d prefer to transition to more managing roles instead of doing engineering tasks.
I‘ve been reading the career guide by 80k for a couple of years now over and over again, but have gotten more confused what to do the closer I get to applying for a job (which is the very... (read more)
This is not only relevant to my career, but I asked a couple of questions here about the impact of UK civil service careers.
Hello,
I am 23 years old and a German engineer student and currently located at the lake of Constance in Germany. I have a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and mechatronics, and I am currently doing my master’s degree in Mechatronics since September 2020.
Earlier this year I found out about effective altruism through a news article and started reading the key articles about effective altruism and the career guide from 80,000hours. I always wanted to do something good with my career, so in the beginning of my studies I wanted to focus mo... (read more)
Hi Ben! Really appreciate all your engagement with the EA community here on the Forum. Don't mean to overstep on your time, but I've written up some thoughts about a career path to improve existential safety that 80,000 Hours reviewed back in 2016 (nuclear weapons security) and I would be very interested in any feedback from you or others on the 80,000 Hours team! Here's the link :)
My question is: as a worker experiencing job churn, what’s the point when I should consider whether I ought to more deeply change my career path?
This job churn extends pre-Covid (though it has continued now as well).
The issue is: I have several examples where a coworker of a similar background & skillset got a long-term position, while my contract wasn’t renewed (the longest job was 2 years). I enjoyed my time at each of these places, and didn’t cause any issues from what I can tell. I seemed to do my work well.
Since your best bet to ... (read more)
Hello everyone, I'm rather new to this space but I'm finding the ideas of the EA memeplex very fascinating! I'll probably be starting college in one of the more "hard" physics-based engineering field (electrical, mechanical, chemical) sometime next year.
I just wanted to ask for ideas about research / development of which actual technologies would:
- Be very helpful for directly adressing EA related problems
- So nothing general purpose such as new materials
- Not accidentally contribute to making the problems worse
- So nothing that might become dangerous in the
... (read more)Hi everyone,
Firstly, thanks to 80,000 hours for your inspiring work!
I'm writing to seek some advice on making a career change.
Currently, I'm a teacher of English as a foreign language and while I enjoy learning about and working with people of others cultures, sharing knowledge and helping students I feel I need a greater intellectual challenge, to develop new profesional skills and I feel that my efforts are not as fruitful as I'd like.
I'm considering returning to study after 8 years and doing a post-grad. My educatiom background is a BA in Hispanic Studi... (read more)
Going off of Will's question earlier, I would like to know if you have any advice on exploring various career paths if I have already finished my undergraduate education.
I graduated this year from a top US school and am currently a Software Engineer at a top investment bank in the US. While the work/life balance has been pretty good, and I have been able to help my family financially, I am not sure if I would like to stay a Software Engineer in the long term. I suppose I enjoy working on hands-on + big picture problems more, but please feel fr... (read more)
Does anyone have thoughts about networking-to-find-referrals compared to applying-for-jobs-without-a-contact as strategies for EA job seekers?
In general I have had much worse luck with just-applying in the nonprofit sector as compared to the corporate one. I could imagine this being amplified in EA because of the large number of applicants, or moderately better because of some stated commitments to transparency and considering a wide range of backgrounds.
Thanks!
Hello, I am a final-year European languages student at a top 15 UK university. I am particularly interested in ethical AI and global governance. At the moment, the most likely career path is consulting at a global professional services firm – I hope that through this I will be able to learn more about how to make technological innovation more democratic and equitable.
I plan to get involved in policy on a voluntary basis. Within the next 5 years I would love to do a masters degree in technology ethics or international relations, but the top UK masters... (read more)
Hi All!
I'm Navika and I'm currently 20 years old and am in my Freshman year of college in America (currently undecided)
I always thought I wanted to be an engineer, but recently felt that my skills aren't purely technical. I found an assignment in college is exactly what I want to do:
-Address a global challenge
-Create a profile of the problem - who it impacts, who are the stakeholders, does each group have conflicting needs etc.
-Design a solution - state intent, delineate observations and concepts one is building upon,
-Iterate on the... (read more)
Hi All!
I'm Navika and I'm currently 20 years old and am in my Freshman year of college in America (currently undecided)
I always thought I wanted to be an engineer, but recently felt that my skills aren't purely technical. I found an assignment in college is exactly what I want to do:
-Address a global challenge
-Create a profile of the problem - who it impacts, who are the stakeholders, does each group have conflicting needs etc.
-Design a solution - state intent, delineate observations and concepts one is building upon,
-Iterate on the... (read more)
Hi all,
I've jumped career paths a few times since graduating from a top US undergrad program (major: economics) with average grades. I did management consulting for 1.5 years (didn't like it), data analysis at a small-ish tech company for 1.5 years (liked it but got laid off when the company restructured), and for the past few years have been pursuing a moonshot career in comedy while holding a minimally taxing day job (executive assistant).
I've now decided to quit comedy and am considering grad school. Since I enjoyed my time as a data analyst, I th... (read more)
Following, as I'm also a linguist about to post a question!
How can I leverage a tech sales background for EA? I'm early in my career (age 25) and going to be located in Texas for at least the next 1-2 years. Long-term I think institutional decision making, geopolitics and clean energy are core issues for me, and I would like to get involved in politics/policy. I only have a BA in Economics and Philosophy from an unremarkable (unless you care about football) state school.
I wonder how important it might be to go back to school for either law school or research (MA/PhD) as a possible next move. I'm not particularly excited about the idea of not having substantial income for 3-6 years.
I first learned about effective altruism about three years ago, when I went into software engineering through a coding boot camp to go into social entrepreneurship. My software engineering career has gone better than I expected so far. I have worked as a software engineer for nearly 3 years, and I am starting at a FAANG company soon.
My question is, I initially went into tech for the opportunity to create a social enterprise, but, given my current situation, it may make more sense to earn to give. I am interested in health tech specifically, and... (read more)
Hello,
I currently work in the US (U.S. Citizen) for a large biotech product company called Thermofisher Scientific. I do lab services as a contractor for another biotech company which involves shipping/receiving samples for researchers, managing inventories, preparing and delivering media for researchers, and monitoring and coordinating maintenance and repairs of equipment. I have been working at the position for two years now and plan to stay in the company for at least another three years so that my 401K becomes fully vested.
In terms of maximizing posi... (read more)
Background: I'm 29 years old and I have 5 years of experience in a tech company. The benefits and pay there were amazing, and they were working for the greater good. I would have stayed if I had a choice but I was laid off due to covid. I now have two job offers.
One company is an internationally recognised corporate company that matches my previous pay (6 figures) + benefits (wellness $, 13th month bonus, dental/vision/physical therapy/psychotherapy insurance). The role focuses on analysing consumerism behaviour in the media sector and providing reco... (read more)
I am currently a software engineer and have been out of school for 1.5 years. I want to eventually work on AI safety as a researcher. So to achieve this I plan to get into a grad school first.
My grades aren't stellar and I lack research experience. This is due to my youthful immaturity back in college. Since college, I am spending significant time learning about the AI safety field (reading papers, writing articles, experiments with code etc.)
What else can I do to best improve my profile as a grad school applicant?
Hello,
About Me: I am the author of a new book about Consciousness. It details a new theory of Consciousness and intended to solve the mind-body problem and the meta-problem of consciousness. My book could be found here - https://thepertinentpress.co.uk/pooja-soni
Academically I do not have a degree as I dropped out of a course in engineering after completing two out of 4 years.
The Problem: I have been rejected by universities when I applied for Masters in Philosophy and also when I applied for 'Phd by publication' (using my book as a thesis) because I... (read more)
Climbing that software career ladder, huh? 🚀 Leading and architecting is a whole new game. One trick I've learned is gently nudging collaboration – small wins first. But yeah, remote work can be tricky. And speaking of understanding roles, just like how devs have diverse roles, discover the duties that a phlebotomist can expect – it's an eye-opener. Let's keep sharing wisdom and navigating the ever-changing tech landscape together! 💻🌟
Hey, thanks for sharing this open career questions thread! It's awesome to see a community where people can freely seek advice and guidance on their career journeys. I recently stumbled upon some amazing training programs that I thought might be helpful to fellow forum members, especially in improving presentation skills. Let's face it, having strong presentation skills can be a game-changer in various professional settings. It can boost your confidence, enhance your communication abilities, and open doors to new opportunities.
What are the most feasible or related EA career options to consider for a person who has spent their career so far doing sales and business development, mostly for software products and services?
Here are some ideas from the forum:
These are doubts I have been accumulating, I started writing the list of questions and it's huge. Sorry. Please feel free to answer only one or just link a resource.
Background:
23. Signal processing engineer. In prestigious AI master in Paris. I have published and worked with AI applied to energy.
Summary:
despair for not being able to make a significant difference, intensely considering the idea of starting companies that change the world (vs PhD), worried about how to find interested and capable people outside developed countries, looking for a tutor.... (read more)
Hello! So happy to find out about this. My story: I just turned 33. I have a licentiate degree in Psychology (5 years), a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience and currently on a Masters degree program in Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development. I love doing research, data science and statistics, though the only experience I have in these topics is the one from my PhD. Right after that, triggered by the loss of my partner, I decided to go sailing for some years to get to learn about unique communities living in nature. That was followed by maternity, and... (read more)
Hi everyone,
Thanks for the inspiration 80,000 hours!
I'm currently a teacher of English as a foreign language and while I enjoy working with and learning about people of different cultures, imparting knowledge and the element of doing something meaningful, I feel I need a greater intellectual challenge and a job that allows me to make a difference on a larger scale.
My education background is in humanities /arts ( BA in Hispanic studies).
I'm drawn now to post-graduate study, after 8 years of working, and think that International Development could be an effe... (read more)
I'm a 3rd year undergraduate double majoring in electrical engineering and economics at University of California Davis. I have a 3.7 University of California Davis GPA. After looking through EA articles, I've decided to get a PhD in economics after graduation so I can be a development economist for an influential think tank or global development organization. I do need to continue living in the United States, although plenty of travel is fine.
Is there any preparation I should be doing for a career in development economics without going into academia beyond the standard career advice for getting into an economics PhD program?
What are some good schools for development economics?
Hi! Thanks for this new way to get career advice.
I'd greatly appreciate ideas for where my skill set could be most useful.
My dream job would be some sort of research role at the intersection of philosophy, math, computer science, and religious studies. Lately, I've been curious about the risks of demographic shift toward religious fundamentalists.
What steps could I take toward a role like this? Where can I find EAs interested in the future religious landscape? Has there already been discussion in EA circles about the demographic shift toward fundamentalism... (read more)
(removed for privacy + inappropriateness)