Thanks for writing this! A couple of random thoughts:
EA is fortunate to have a lot of software engineers (and money), and Iâm glad you are thinking about how to use this resource
That being said, I donât see a ton of projects where the most immediate bottleneck is software engineering. In most of the project you list, it seems like thereâs substantial product management work needed before software engineering becomes the bottleneck
(I donât think this is unique to EA. Most successful tech companies have pretty basic software, and the success comes more from product insights.)
My impression is that there are more concrete software engineering projects in bio security and farmed animal welfare than in AI safety or EA meta; possibly itâs worth including some of those in your document.
If you disagree with me about (2) I would be really interested to discuss â I talk to a lot of software engineers, and it would be awesome to have things that I can point them to.
I donât see a ton of projects where the most immediate bottleneck is software engineering. In most of the project you list, it seems like thereâs substantial product management work needed before software engineering becomes the bottleneck
It seems like we might just be disagreeing on terminology?
My main interest is in advancing software projects (I called them âEngineering Effortsâ, but this encompasses many skills), but I care much less about the specific order in which people are hired.
That said, I donât feel like I really understand you. Itâs hard for me to imagine hiring a bunch of product managers before hiring a bunch of engineers. Iâve never seen that happen.
I have seen âtech founderâ types with both skills kickstart things (like new tech companies, of course!). I imagine that weâd really want people with these skills in the early days. Senior people (or, hacker types who are young, but can still do everything solo) who can pioneer new areas.
Tech research labs and similar are good examples; they have found some sorts of talent who seem particularly good at doing innovation.
If you think that our existing software infrastructure is particularly bottlenecked on traditional product management skills, thatâs good to know, and I wouldnât at all argue with hiring more product managers at this stage to help.
If you disagree with me about (2) I would be really interested to discuss â I talk to a lot of software engineers, and it would be awesome to have things that I can point them to.
Itâs difficult for me to imagine exactly who these people are. I think some âsoftware engineersâ are capable and interested to do the product work themselves, and some arenât. If they are, that could be optimal, as they wouldnât need much oversight or someone to work with them. I think this is true for a minority of people, and these people also often have high opportunity costs (the sort of person also interested in just founding a company)
For those reading this, the types that are good for âin-EA software entrepreneurshipâ are usually the types who: - Have built a few exciting/âinteresting projects themselves or with one colleague or so. - Understands EA a bit. - Often enjoys hackathons, or other very self-directed work. - Can do some basic UI/âUX work. - Full-stack, or focussed on mobile apps only.
Every so often there are hobby tech projects that launch here on the EA Forum, those are the sorts of âEA Entrepreneurshipâ Iâm thinking of.
I would be interested in unleashing a few people like these as âinternal entrepreneursâ or similar in EA.
EA funds sometimes gives out grants for people like this, and I could see us doing more of that.
Every so often there are hobby tech projects that launch here on the EA Forum, those are the sorts of âEA Entrepreneurshipâ Iâm thinking of.
Cool, Iâm not sure we really disagree â the thing I want to flag is that these projects generally seem to fail not because of software engineering but because of some non-technical thing (e.g. they are not actually solving an important problem).
these projects generally seem to fail not because of software engineering but because of some non-technical thing
Agreed, though this seems mainly for getting them off the ground (making sure you find an important problem). Software startups also have this problem; and thereâs a lot of discussion & best practices about the right kinds of people & teams for software startups.
Agreed. I think it would be cool for someone to create an âengineering agendaâ that entrepreneurial software developers could take ideas from and start working on, analogous to e.g. this post from Michael.
(I think this would be one level of detail more specific than your project ideas listed in OP. E.g. instead of âbetter data managementâ itâs something like âorganization X wants data Y displayed in way Z.â Possibly you are planning this for later posts in this sequence already?)
I think it would be cool for someone to create an âengineering agendaâ that entrepreneurial software developers could take ideas from and start working on, analogous
I think my hunch is that this is almost like asking for an âentrepreneur agendaâ. There are really a ton of options.
Iâm happy to see people list all the ideas they can come up with.
I imagine âagendasâ would be easier to rigorously organize if you limit yourself to a more specific area. (So, Iâd want to see many âresearch agendasâ :) )
Possibly you are planning this for later posts in this sequence already
My main area is forecasting and evaluation. (A la QURY). The plan is to spend time writing up my thoughts on it and then use that to describe an agenda of some kind. This is more cause-specific than skill-specific, but maybe 2/â3rds of the work would be for software engineering.
I think it would be cool for someone to create an âengineering agendaâ that entrepreneurial software developers could take ideas from and start working on, analogous to e.g. this post from Michael.
As an early career software developer whoâd love to take on an EA-related project for skill building purposes, Iâd be great to have a resource like this available.
My impression is that there are more concrete software engineering projects in bio security and farmed animal welfare than in AI safety or EA meta; possibly itâs worth including some of those in your document.
I could easily see this being the case, Iâm just not in these fields, so have far fewer ideas. If anyone else reading this has any, do post!
Thanks for writing this! A couple of random thoughts:
EA is fortunate to have a lot of software engineers (and money), and Iâm glad you are thinking about how to use this resource
That being said, I donât see a ton of projects where the most immediate bottleneck is software engineering. In most of the project you list, it seems like thereâs substantial product management work needed before software engineering becomes the bottleneck
(I donât think this is unique to EA. Most successful tech companies have pretty basic software, and the success comes more from product insights.)
My impression is that there are more concrete software engineering projects in bio security and farmed animal welfare than in AI safety or EA meta; possibly itâs worth including some of those in your document.
If you disagree with me about (2) I would be really interested to discuss â I talk to a lot of software engineers, and it would be awesome to have things that I can point them to.
It seems like we might just be disagreeing on terminology?
My main interest is in advancing software projects (I called them âEngineering Effortsâ, but this encompasses many skills), but I care much less about the specific order in which people are hired.
That said, I donât feel like I really understand you. Itâs hard for me to imagine hiring a bunch of product managers before hiring a bunch of engineers. Iâve never seen that happen.
I have seen âtech founderâ types with both skills kickstart things (like new tech companies, of course!). I imagine that weâd really want people with these skills in the early days. Senior people (or, hacker types who are young, but can still do everything solo) who can pioneer new areas.
Tech research labs and similar are good examples; they have found some sorts of talent who seem particularly good at doing innovation.
If you think that our existing software infrastructure is particularly bottlenecked on traditional product management skills, thatâs good to know, and I wouldnât at all argue with hiring more product managers at this stage to help.
Itâs difficult for me to imagine exactly who these people are. I think some âsoftware engineersâ are capable and interested to do the product work themselves, and some arenât. If they are, that could be optimal, as they wouldnât need much oversight or someone to work with them. I think this is true for a minority of people, and these people also often have high opportunity costs (the sort of person also interested in just founding a company)
For those reading this, the types that are good for âin-EA software entrepreneurshipâ are usually the types who:
- Have built a few exciting/âinteresting projects themselves or with one colleague or so.
- Understands EA a bit.
- Often enjoys hackathons, or other very self-directed work.
- Can do some basic UI/âUX work.
- Full-stack, or focussed on mobile apps only.
Every so often there are hobby tech projects that launch here on the EA Forum, those are the sorts of âEA Entrepreneurshipâ Iâm thinking of.
I would be interested in unleashing a few people like these as âinternal entrepreneursâ or similar in EA.
EA funds sometimes gives out grants for people like this, and I could see us doing more of that.
Cool, Iâm not sure we really disagree â the thing I want to flag is that these projects generally seem to fail not because of software engineering but because of some non-technical thing (e.g. they are not actually solving an important problem).
Noted!
Agreed, though this seems mainly for getting them off the ground (making sure you find an important problem). Software startups also have this problem; and thereâs a lot of discussion & best practices about the right kinds of people & teams for software startups.
Agreed. I think it would be cool for someone to create an âengineering agendaâ that entrepreneurial software developers could take ideas from and start working on, analogous to e.g. this post from Michael.
(I think this would be one level of detail more specific than your project ideas listed in OP. E.g. instead of âbetter data managementâ itâs something like âorganization X wants data Y displayed in way Z.â Possibly you are planning this for later posts in this sequence already?)
I think my hunch is that this is almost like asking for an âentrepreneur agendaâ. There are really a ton of options.
Iâm happy to see people list all the ideas they can come up with.
I imagine âagendasâ would be easier to rigorously organize if you limit yourself to a more specific area. (So, Iâd want to see many âresearch agendasâ :) )
My main area is forecasting and evaluation. (A la QURY). The plan is to spend time writing up my thoughts on it and then use that to describe an agenda of some kind. This is more cause-specific than skill-specific, but maybe 2/â3rds of the work would be for software engineering.
As an early career software developer whoâd love to take on an EA-related project for skill building purposes, Iâd be great to have a resource like this available.
Dumb question â what part of the post does this refer to?
Apologies, that line was referring to something from an earlier draft of this post. Iâve removed it from my comment.
I could easily see this being the case, Iâm just not in these fields, so have far fewer ideas. If anyone else reading this has any, do post!