
Ask HN: Finding ethical work - anon58987656553
I&#x27;m looking for advice on finding work as an experienced web developer in small or mid-sized companies or non-profits focused in ethical areas such as education, healthcare, or clean energy. I&#x27;ll refer to such an organization here as a &quot;QO&quot;, for Qualified Organization. I don&#x27;t mean to offend anyone working for non-QOs.<p>I have credible education, work experience and open source participation. I&#x27;m not working now, and my situation is stable so I can take some time to look. I don&#x27;t need much money, just enough to afford a small apartment, basic necessities, some savings, and small luxuries. I&#x27;m willing to relocate to certain U.S. cities or work remotely.<p>I&#x27;ve gotten some positive response but no offers or paid work. I&#x27;ve applied to over fifty places in the past six months, not all of them QOs, which is more than nothing but I feel like that number should be in the hundreds. I don&#x27;t want to stay where I am now so local networking would not be very helpful. My main job sites are http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.idealist.org, https:&#x2F;&#x2F;whoishiring.io (WIH), and the monthly HN hiring posts. I know that WIH aggregates from HN but I like going through the HN posts anyway. Idealist is focused on QOs but not technical work. WIH and HN are focused on technical work but not QOs. The signal-to-noise ratio on Indeed is low and I rarely look there, and I assume it&#x27;s the same for other big job sites like Dice.<p>I&#x27;m open to freelancing. I would be fine with making sites for truly charitable QOs for free or token payment. Is there a site that connects developers to QOs to do this sort of work? I also eventually need work that will pay enough to live on.<p>Any advice appreciated. I&#x27;ve left out specific information so the discussion is generally useful and less blatantly about hiring me personally, but I can add an email address to my profile if anyone wants to talk about specific work or just wants to chat privately.
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jstewartmobile
If you look _really_ closely, a lot of what we do today (even things that
_seem_ ethical) is highly unethical.

After pondering this for months, the only thing I'm coming up with is dropping
out and going full-Amish.

~~~
anon58987656553
I agree that most things are both good and bad, especially in the modern
interconnected world.

There are three ways that a person can live: live and work normally, live and
work dedicated to some purpose, or withdraw from society. In religious terms
these groups correspond to the laity, the clergy, and hermits, but secular
society can divide this way too. These groups depend on each other, and each
of them can do good, and I think it's a mistake to say one is absolutely
better or worse than the others.

Nevertheless some people are better suited to one group over the others. If
you think one group is better for you, then you should move into it. That
doesn't mean the people in the other groups are doing things wrong though,
they're just doing things differently from you.

Suppose you're a person with the skills to work at Google for a lot of money.
Google is ethically complicated, but they do some good things for sure. You
could work for them, make a lot of money, live moderately, pay your taxes,
take care of a family, and donate to charity.

You could also work for much less money for some organization that only does
good. You're definitely making things better at work, but you have less of
your own resources to put toward taxes, family, and charity, and you're
consuming the taxes and charity that the first person paid.

Or, you could withdraw almost entirely from society, live some place extremely
cheap, do some freelance technical work for a few hours a week or maybe become
a short-order cook at a truck stop. You're not really making things better on
any large scale, but you're not making things worse either, and at least you
aren't consuming resources. You're also free to write or make art that
inspires and leads the first person to donate and the second person to work
under their market value.

All of these are good options, you just need to find the one that is the best
fit for you.

~~~
jstewartmobile
For the hypothetical Google route, the thing about most (successful)
businesses is that if you're making a dollar, they're at least making two. If
Google is "ethically complicated," it is unlikely that your personal charity
will offset their "complication".

With do-goodering, changes in perspective and nth-order effects can turn that
into a brimming cup of regret overnight.

If you just want to live small and and have a positive impact, how about
working in a library? They've got those everywhere.

~~~
anon58987656553
I don't think it's true that if a company is successful then you will make
them two dollars for every dollar you get. I think many large companies are
profitable due to rent-seeking or externalizing costs, and the marginal gain
from the N-thousandth employee is negative, but they can't lay off employees
or even stop hiring because of legal or political reasons. If you get a job
with one of these companies, then you are wasting their money, which is a good
thing to do against an evil company.

Noam Chomsky has been repeatedly asked whether capitalism is a good thing
after all because the average quality of life has improved under it. His reply
is that average quality of life improved under slavery too, but that's not a
justification for slavery. You can see him discuss this at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6QAqU2KpaY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6QAqU2KpaY).

You and I are having the reverse conversation, which is whether it's better to
participate in a harmful system for the sake of making any progress, or better
to opt out entirely. Actually, because humanity is currently headed off a
cliff due to climate change and the worldwide rise of authoritarian
governments, the choice is between participating in the harmful system or
allowing large-scale catastrophe.

I agree that libraries fit the criteria I laid out, but I guess that like
other do-good organizations, they are poorly funded and have a glut of trained
specialists and willing volunteers. It's a sign of our dysfunctional times
that the more directly helpful an organization or job is, the less well funded
it will be.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Even lame old IBM is making $244,447 in _profit_ per employee according to
this BI article: [http://www.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-revenue-
pe...](http://www.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-revenue-per-
employee-2015-10/#12-ibm-244447-per-employee-1)

If we safely assume that IBM has a lot of unproductive admin staff who are
collecting paychecks to surf Facebook all day, a competent and motivated
developer is actually bringing a lot more than $244,447 in additional profits
to the table.

That, and most "QOs" I've encountered are fronts/whitewash/greenwash/etc for
larger and more malevolent concerns.

Without a major streak of luck, I think living small and setting a good
example is the best any of us can reliably do.

~~~
anon58987656553
The article you linked is about revenue, not profits, but that doesn't really
matter for the argument.

I don't think you can divide $X revenue by N employees and say that therefore
there must be some employee pulling in at least $X/N revenue, or at least say
that in a way that matters. Imagine a hypothetical tech startup with $1
billion revenue and 10 employees. Is one developer there necessarily bringing
in at least $100 million? Would you hire that developer for $50 million and
consider it a deal? What if most of that $1 billion came from a single
government contract with a serious conflict of interest?

Anyway I think that working for a large organization at a big salary and
coming out morally ahead is theoretically possible but very difficult. I don't
think I'm cut out for it, myself.

~~~
Mz
I will suggest you figure out what you think makes a net positive contribution
to the world and go do that. Go create that thing.

------
taprun
There are sites that focus on both, for instance...
[https://www.nten.org/jobs/](https://www.nten.org/jobs/)

~~~
cauterized
Nten is great.

One thing to understand about nonprofits is that although most now recognize
that they now need tech, they (rightly) do not generally consider it part of
their core mission.

Thus instead of keeping someone on staff, they outsource technical work to
agencies. (Just as they outsource other important but non-core functions, such
as developing, printing, and sending all that snail mail spam they send every
winter.) There are even a few agencies that specialize in tech work for
nonprofits. Other organizations use services that offer a hosted CMS and
fundraising database and other tools in a single package along with high-touch
customer service. Small nonprofits may hire freelancers to manage their
website for a few hours per month, and try to run their own email campaigns.

Larger organizations will often have someone in house whose job is to plan and
manage their digital presence and campaigns. That person is generally a tech-
savvy layperson. Their job is mostly to communicate between internal
stakeholders and the external providers.

Other organizations may be data-heavy. They may have a DBA/analyst on staff to
handle data management and reporting.

A very small subset of nonprofits see technology as core to their mission.
These are probably the ones you're looking for. Just keep in mind that many of
these are relatively new kids on the block, so to speak. Few of them have the
resources to hire more than one or two technologists, thus those people are of
necessity very broad generalists.

A subset of well-funded major institutions have decided that data or
technology is part of their core mission or need internal tooling beyond
classic IT desktop and network provisioning. Institutions of higher education
come to mind. So does the NYPL, which has all sorts of fun digital
initiatives.

Another possibility you might consider would be government sector work. There
are hundreds of federal agencies that need everything from websites to data
management to payroll systems, and a few doing fun things with open data.
There are also state and local agencies - from transit to child welfare
agencies - that need similar things on a smaller scale; some of which are
doing very good things, and whose efficiency you might help improve.

~~~
anon58987656553
Your analysis of small non-profits matches my experience both searching and
applying. I'll add that even the tech agencies that serve these non-profits
want people with a specific set of relatively old skills, as HN would think of
them, that are still really well-known. Wordpress and Drupal are popular. I
guess this is doubly true for the non-profits themselves, which have more
specific needs and less flexibility.

Some government work is fine. I'm avoiding any federal work under the incoming
political leadership, but that's a complex situation and reasonable people can
disagree. Most state or city government work is fine with me, but I want to
relocate and I assume these places aren't interested in hiring remotely.
Moving to a large state capital might be a good idea if I decide to move
without something lined up.

My technical background is a little scattered, so while I'm a good developer
in a general way, I'm unlikely to be the first choice if an organization needs
a specialist in any specific thing. I suppose anyone hiring me remotely needs
to either be confident in their ability to assess general technical aptitude,
or large enough that they can afford to be wrong, neither of which correspond
well to the places where I'm applying.

~~~
cauterized
Being a generalist will likely serve you well applying to small agencies and
organizations. You may have more trouble with larger agencies/orgs and
government due to the way their hiring processes work. Unless there are one or
two things you'd be willing to focus on for a couple years and can tailor your
resume to.

Good on you for pursuing this, and good luck!

