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.
Hello! I am a math BS, CS MS w/ 8 years experience, am in Fintech doing AI and deep learning (not as a quant, but close), so hopefully I can shed some light for you :) To cut to the chase, I'd strongly consider the quant trading firm option, largely just because you have a great offer and shouldn't overlook that. (especially if you think the work-life balance will be good! That is a major downside to many trading jobs)
First, you can get 1000 opinions about a phD, but my personal opinion is to skip it. It does help lend some credibility, but sacrificing 5 years of career progression and salary is just such a high cost. I work with a lot of PhDs and I hold my own just fine.
Second, I've been donating 10% of my income for about 5 years now, and it ABSOLUTELY DOES feel good. Especially if you are like me and like looking at numbers and can let go of not "seeing" the impact first hand. I have a family member who did peace corp, and I feel just as strong connection to my impact as they do. I had the same hesitations you did, but I ultimately realized my desire to "feel" like I was doing good was more tied to a desire to "show off" on linked in that I was doing good based on my employer or title. Most friends and family don't know I E2G, and I'm fine with that. I'm still doing a hell of a lot of good, and I sleep fine at night.
Third (not about PhD, but regarding quant vs policy), ask yourself: if you pick wrong, which switch will be easier. Few trade shops will hire someone with a non-technical policy background, even in AI. Many AI policy jobs would love to hire a highly technical person who has inside knowledge on how the financial industry works.
Finally, don't underestimate the intellectual stimulation of a quant job. To an outsider, I stare at a stock market activity and python code all day. But I find it incredibly thought provoking. Our company has "journal clubs" and I find time to read ML articles and books. Obviously if you truly hate coding, then avoid it. But I still code daily, and it's not nearly as "draining" as I expected. Don't forget AI is hot stuff in fintech right now, so the two topics are not mutually exclusive.
Good luck!!