Mechanical + electrical engineering graduate who likes research and whose goal is to maximize impact. To this end, I am currently deciding between two career paths:
Become a professor / researcher who spends their career identifying, tackling, and pivoting between neglected scientific problems that are not among 80,000 Hours’ main recommended paths (e.g., advanced manufacturing, alternative energy storage, cryptography, etc.).
Take a higher-paying career with decent work-life balance (say, ML engineer earning $400k / yr) and donate around $100k/year to support researchers working on cause areas that EA generally considers most important (e.g., biosecurity, AI policy, animal welfare).
Note: Though I want to tackle and pivot between neglected scientific problems through research, I’m not interested in the major EA cause areas at the moment, nor do I expect to be in the near future. Also, I would care a lot about WLB if I went the non-researcher route, so taking on a higher paying career would not be an option in that case.
Any resources or thoughts that one should keep in mind when comparing the two career paths?
One way I’ve tried to think about it is whether I could earn and donate enough to “replace” the impact I might have had as a researcher. After all, $100k / yr is probably enough to fund an additional PhD student, but there are other factors to consider (funded student may not become a professor / work on neglected problems for instance). More importantly, this way of thinking doesn’t seem quite right, since the funded researcher would not be a direct replacement for me—the tradeoff seems closer to:
Contributing directly to a potentially neglected but non-EA-priority field, versus
Helping fund one additional researcher working in a major EA cause area
TL;DR: If anybody has any resources or insights, would deeply appreciate hearing them.
It’s difficult to give helpful advice since I don’t know much about you. That said, I think you’re highly overestimating how much of a salary you could get if you went into the private sector. For instance, you mention wanting to work as a ML engineer, but I have to assume that it is an extremely competitive field right now. And, if you got a job in EE or ME, it seems like your salary would be far less than 400k a year.
Setting that aside, I think that one of the primary motivators for working on something for many years (i.e. getting a PhD) is that you genuinely believe that it’s the most important thing you could be doing with your life. This may not be the case for you, but, if it is, it would probably be worth spending a lot of time looking into what you really think are the most important topics you could be researching and pursuing those.
Additionally, if you’re really uncertain, I’d wait for a bit before committing to additional education since education is expensive.
It seems like a lot of EA stuff is much more talent constrained than money constrained, so research is probably a safer bet in terms of EV.
You could try advising with 80,000 Hours or Probably Good.
You might also benefit from really diving into 80,000 Hours site. I’m assuming you’ve already read their career guide, but their career profiles and other blog posts are also really helpful.
Hopefully that was helpful.
I’d focus on comparative advantage and replaceability.
If you’re unusually well-suited for research and can identify genuinely neglected problems, your direct contribution may be harder to replace than your donations. Funding is important, but another donor may be easier to find than a researcher with your specific skills and interests.
On the other hand, if the higher-paying career allows you to reliably donate substantial amounts over decades, the cumulative impact could be significant, especially in highly effective cause areas.
“Where am I less replaceable: as a researcher working on neglected problems, or as a donor contributing $100k/year?”
That counterfactual perspective may be more informative than comparing your impact to the cost of funding an additional PhD student.