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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Software Developers: How to have Impact? [WIP], published by Yonatan Cale on June 19, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This post has sections so that you can skip the parts that don't interest you! Specifically, consider skipping the introduction straight to the TL;DR. This post is Work In Progress You can suggest changes to it directly in this Google Doc. Can Software Developers Have Impact? Yes Why do I think so? (is this still in doubt?) EA orgs need software developers Developers are really useful for lots of things: They get high salaries, which indicates there is a lot of demand even given their high supply. As a “worst case” (which is a pretty great case), you could probably earn lots of money, donate some of it, and have a profession that I personally consider really fun. The 2 main things that determine your impact are.. Working on an important problem Using a good approach to that problem A relatively easy way to get “full points” on these is to pick your favorite top cause, and work at an EA (or an EA vetted) org that is working on that cause. Most of the article will discuss how to get to that situation. Other good paths also exist; I want to mention one of them: Entrepreneurship It could be a great path (1, 2, 3) but it’s out of scope for this post. Is working directly more impactful than earning to give? This is easily testable: Ask the org that you’re considering applying to “would you prefer hiring me, or getting [as much as I’d donate]”? I predict If the org wants to hire you, they’d prefer that over getting 5x as much as you’d donate, and they’d be all “OMG YES!” about it. But why guess what is easily testable? If my prediction is wrong If the EA org would prefer donations, then some of the sections here (like “which org?”) won’t be relevant for you, but others (like “how to build skill?”) still will. Skipping sections is encouraged! How to have a lot of impact? 3 plans The rest of the post is split into plans, and the intent is that you try the top plans first, and if they don’t work, go to the next plans Plan A: Apply to EA aligned orgs Plan B: Work in the industry: build skills and make money Plan C: Learn programming, write a CV, and get your first job Also see: Preparing for an AI Safety job at Anthropic or Redwood Plan A: Apply to EA aligned orgs Here are some very common questions: Q: Which org? There are lots of options and I’m not sure which are the best / which would accept me A: Orgs from the 80,000 hour job board Here. A: Apply first, filter later It’s a common mistake for EA devs to first filter the list of orgs for a long time, and only then apply, without knowing if those orgs will accept them. I recommend first applying, and then filtering based on where you are accepted. A: Apply to your top choices first If there are a few orgs that are so good that you’re not sure which one you’d choose if you were accepted even after thinking about it for 2 minutes (not 2 weeks!) : Start by applying to all of those. If they don’t accept you, go to your next choices. Q: Am I wasting the org’s time if I apply even though I am [not qualified / applying to other places] NO! This is a big problem in the EA dev community: Many devs don’t apply because they are worried about wasting the org’s time, please be part of the solution! You can, however, be transparent about the situation, for example: “Hey, I’m applying even though I have less years of experience than your job ad requires. I’m writing this because I don’t want to waste your time, feel free to not interview me if you don’t want to” “Hey, FYI I’m applying to a few other EA orgs as well, so it could be that I’ll end up going to one of those. Would you like to interview me anyway?” I said both these things myself. Q: If I don’t pass, when can I reapply? This will often be written in the job ...