Tech Jobs for SJWs

June 24, 2019 5:26 PM

I'm a backend web developer at a corporate job for a not-super-ethical company. I want to move my career in the direction of, well...doing something good for the world. Is that even possible? Where do I start?

I'm only a couple years into my career. I know I am very lucky, but I am feeling increasingly unfulfilled bordering on guilty working at a corporate job. My company is not like, Amazon level evil but I do feel it is at odds with my values...and I feel the same about like 99% of the job openings in my field. I'm left-wing, socialist, involved in climate activism, disturbed by "surveillance capitalism."

Can I code to make the world a better place or is that just a pipe dream? What steps can I take, like learning new skills or languages, can help me make that happen? I honestly would happily take a pay cut if it meant doing something I cared about, but I'm just overwhelmed and don't know where to start. All suggestions welcome.

posted by noxperpetua to Technology (33 answers total)

You could go work for a nonprofit whose mission is compatible with your values.
posted by rachelpapers at 5:28 PM on June 24, 2019 [5 favorites]

Non-profits tend to pay extremely poorly. When I've looked at this calculus before, I've always come to the conclusion of working somewhere that pays as much as possible while still being tolerable to work at and then paying a significant part of your salary to a non-profit that you feel makes the world a better place. Given the vast pay difference between non-profits in tech and profits in tech, the money you make is significantly more valuable than the time you could spend at the non-profit.

Also, don't forget that your money doesn't "disappear" when you spend it. Presumably, you spend your salary on valuable goods and services. If you direct that to places/people you care about, you can both improve their lives (by buying products/services from them) and improve your life.
posted by saeculorum at 5:34 PM on June 24, 2019 [5 favorites]

Along with non-profits, I would start looking amongst green companies and Certified B Corporations. Not all of the companies in these categories will fit with one's ethos. (Kickstarter, for instance, is listed as a certified B Corp but is currently fighting as hard as it can to stop its employees from unionizing.) But you may find something that clicks that you weren't considering before.
posted by greenland at 5:42 PM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

Look into civic tech and data or AI for good. Probably right up your alley. I worked a tech job in these areas that checked all of your boxes (worked on products like a tool to mitigate the racial bias of decision making algos). I was paid fairly well, too
posted by shaademaan at 5:45 PM on June 24, 2019 [8 favorites]

80,000 Hours might be a good resource.

"You have 80,000 hours in your career. How can you best use them to help solve the world’s most pressing problems?"
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 5:57 PM on June 24, 2019 [5 favorites]

I honestly would happily take a pay cut if it meant doing something I cared about, but I'm just overwhelmed and don't know where to start.

Yes you can code to make the world a better place.

I'm not a back-end web developer but I do work in tech, and I did take quite a pay cut to work for a non-profit, after many years in the corporate world. I have no regrets. TBH if you have some corporate experience, and can cope with the pay cut, you're probably in with a good chance of landing a job. I'd say the first step is just updating your CV, and modifying your job-search terms/approach.

I think we just recruited a new web dev, incidentally.
posted by pompomtom at 6:02 PM on June 24, 2019

Larger nonprofits will have web developers and database managers and so forth, and in larger cities the pay can actually be decent. Check idealist.org for job listings, even if just to see what's out there.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:05 PM on June 24, 2019 [3 favorites]

I hesitate to suggest this, given that I assume you're in the US, but another thing to consider is the public sector.
posted by quaking fajita at 6:12 PM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

You definitely can. One example: we need better software for the grid to run on 100% renewable electricity. You could work for one of the startups working on that problem.
posted by pinochiette at 6:22 PM on June 24, 2019

You could look at your local university or community college. It’s actually really easy to change from writing code for the man to writing code for the people: thanks for considering this!
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:30 PM on June 24, 2019 [10 favorites]

Hi, I did this and am so happy with my current job. Here's the public interest tech jobs board. Feel free to PM me.
posted by the_blizz at 8:14 PM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the advice so far! Just to clarify, I actually live in Canada. Public sector is definitely an option.
posted by noxperpetua at 8:28 PM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

Yes, you absolutely can. For various reasons, I don't want to ever work in the non-profit sector ever again (or, let's say, I'll consider it for the right place and ask some very pointed questions about office culture, pay, and work-life balance expectations), but I work for a start-up that is involved in smart water monitoring. If all goes well with us, there will be quite a lot less pollution going into waterways in the next few years.

I heartily second looking in to B-Corps; they pay decently, avoid a lot of the toxicity of nonprofits, but generally are working the make the world a better place.

Idealist is ok for job hunting, but I've had better luck going to general job sites and sifting through the companies there. They're out there, I promise. You can do this!
posted by kalimac at 8:31 PM on June 24, 2019 [3 favorites]

Ah, just read your update -- I'm not sure if B-Corps made it across the border, or if you'd be better off looking for something like a quango. (Not quite the same thing, not really the same thing at all, but it covered a roughly similar need when I was working in the UK.)
posted by kalimac at 8:33 PM on June 24, 2019

I work with data for provincial healthcare and I'm super happy with where I landed despite knowing people who make a lot more money at private companies. Some things are frustrating, like not being super cutting edge with certain technologies-- but those are things that are also benefits. Nobody's rushing to get this or that out the door just to make cash, and we obviously need to take data privacy very seriously which I also like. Also the benefits (and pension!) in the public sector largely make up for the salary discrepancy for me, personally.
posted by thebots at 8:53 PM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

I've always come to the conclusion of working somewhere that pays as much as possible while still being tolerable to work at and then paying a significant part of your salary to a non-profit that you feel makes the world a better place.

I personally disagree! And yay for considering this, noxperpetua!

A) As an employee, you are worth much more than your salary to your employer (otherwise it would make no financial sense to hire you), so as a whole, much more value is going to an employer than as donations to a non-profit.

B) On a systematic level, if everyone follows the same process, there will be a consistent lack of resources going to non-profits, b corps, and the public sector.

C) In addition, normalizing unethical high-paying jobs that are justified by donations, is money laundering through ethics.

D) Historically, change within industries has happened through collective organizing, not through donations. If the tech industry is to change.. those who work within tech can vote through refusing to work at unethical tech companies.

E) It feels SO GOOD to work at a place that aligns with your sense of ethics and justice. It’s a huge morale and productivity boost.

As for actual advice, search for social entrepreneurs in your city. Here in NYC, there’s a lot of tech and social justice overlap - maybe something like Data and Society exists in your region, or you might find people working where you are through them!
posted by suedehead at 9:02 PM on June 24, 2019 [11 favorites]

Also, it might be helpful to read this: What can a technologist do about climate change?
posted by suedehead at 9:08 PM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

See the replies to this tweet: Folks working in SF/Bay Area tech: what are some companies you could feel ethically *good* working for?
posted by caek at 9:40 PM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

Would you consider working as a consultant at a company that specializes in the kinds of database and website software that non profits tend to use?
posted by oneear at 10:29 PM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

I don't have additional resources beyond what's been mentioned, just want to add that I did approximately what you're thinking of and am so happy to have done so.
posted by orangejenny at 2:35 AM on June 25, 2019

You might want to consider working in the accessibility space, it is growing by leaps and bounds, and could use people who are aware of it as more than just a buzzword. It does genuinely improve people‘s lives, I say this as someone who works in the field as a disabled person.
posted by Alensin at 3:51 AM on June 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

You could be the leader of a passion project in your workplace, connecting resources like programmer time, money, and even other volunteers to the cause.

I've seen people do this and even make it part of their job description.

Here are some resources for volunteering or getting engaged with some communities:
Code for Canada
CodeAcross
CivicTech.ca
posted by jander03 at 5:34 AM on June 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

This might be too US-centric, but check out NTEN . It's a community of tech workers in the nonprofit space, and they have a job board that could give you an idea of what kind of positions might be out there. I went to their conference and it was really great.
posted by sonmi at 6:00 AM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

I have a twenty year career in non-profit and public sector tech in Minnesota. Most of it has been underpaid, but no where near poverty wages. In general, tech jobs are among the highest paid in orgs like this. Today, I work in higher ed and make a hair over $100k USD. So yeah, you can do it, you leave money on the table, but it's important to me, so I've committed to it.
posted by advicepig at 7:56 AM on June 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Nthing looking at non-profits - while I don't make as much as I did when I worked for Big Evil Corp, I'm fine (I can manage a mortgage payment and take a vacation once a year) on what I make now with much higher job satisfaction. It's a good switch; you will be happier with less money in my experience and that of those around me. Public sector in Canada is potentially another good option depending on municipal/provincial politics.
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 10:01 AM on June 25, 2019

Check out the Canadian Digital Service. I have been seriously thinking about moving to Canada if I can work for them.
posted by rockindata at 11:33 AM on June 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

It's front-end and you'd need a work visa but we're hiring...
posted by freya_lamb at 12:09 PM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

I like to meet people and learn what they do. Think of the people who you most admire and ask them about what kind of technology challenges they face. This might lead you on a path towards putting your skills to do good work.
posted by rebent at 12:57 PM on June 25, 2019

I suggest incrementally starting with a company doing less harm, and then keep moving to more and more ethical companies.
posted by evilmonk at 12:59 PM on June 25, 2019

Hey, I’m in tech and also feel deep concern about the options available to me. Here’s a suggestion from left field: the book Winners Take All. It scrutinizes “for good” industries like Silicon Valley, impact investing, B-corps etc and shows how impossible it is for them to actually make a difference when motivated by the bottom line.

Reading this made me shift from thinking about my employer as my major source of impact to focusing on politics (where the author argues should be where change originates).
posted by estlin at 1:49 PM on June 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Can I code to make the world a better place or is that just a pipe dream?

Yes you can. Myself, I had a chance to work on the "Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS)" when I was with Microsoft.

So yes, arguably an "evil company", but an initiative that was trying to correct some of the wrong in the world. The internal argument for building CETS for free and giving it away (including sometimes even the actual server hardware to run it, as well as all dependent/required software) was... "we (Microsoft) helped make the internet easier to use, we bear some responsibility for that".

These days I would look at Ashton Kutcher's Thorn organization. (Sigh - well, a year ago they had openings in their careers section looking for programming (and even cyber security) skillsets, nothing at-the-moment unfortunately).
posted by jkaczor at 7:45 AM on June 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

Seeing your update, feel free to memail me about getting into / working for the Canadian federal public service. I can also speak more about CDS, the organization mentioned by rockindata.
posted by quaking fajita at 4:16 AM on June 27, 2019

Late to the party, but I didn't see anyone mention the Tech Jobs for Good newsletter. Not sure if the Canada thing will be an issue, but something you could check out :)
posted by theRussian at 7:52 AM on July 6, 2019