Thanks for writing this, this is definitely something that I have heard before in EA groups that I have been part of.
I don’t know your situation but I think that EA is probably, particularly in need of value-aligned mid/senior people in quite a few areas.
I don’t work at 80k but my sense is that they have chosen to work with early-stage people as they have more flexibility in career direction and more malleable views. Crucially, I don’t think that 80k chose this demographic because young and inexperienced people are likely to have a comparative advantage in most roles over mid/late career people, they are just excited about influencing young people’s trajectories.
As I don’t know your background I don’t have much of a sense of what high impact roles could be a great fit for you, but when I meet people who are mid-career + are very value-aligned + are happy to move into a different job and are proactive enough to write a forum post (or engage with the community in other ways) I am generally pretty optimistic about them finding a high impact role somewhere (in or outside an EA org). Or if you don’t want to move you might be able to advise/mentor younger people informally or through WANBAM or add a lot of value in another way. Maybe some patience and resilience are required here and I totally understand if you don’t have the energy (I’ve certainly felt like this before).
If I were in your situation I think that I would try to speak to a few mid/late career people doing work that you admire and pick their brain on roles that might be a good fit for you (if you haven’t already done lots of this). You could also try and attend an EAG or EAGx. If you don’t want to move to a different role it looks like Giving What We Can want to invest quite a lot in building their community so I’m hopeful that there will be more support/resources for E2Gers soon.
OK, me back! As for the part about 80k objectives, it’s hard for me to tell. I haven’t done enough research to have an opinion on that matter. But I guess, influencing anyone with EA values gives a lot of positive returns.
“what high-impact roles could be a great fit for you”
- That’s the thing, I don’t fit any of them. I’m a ux/ui designer (I’ll post my links on the bottom) and after 2 years of (let’s call it) research I realized two things:
In those few companies or orgs that ever posted offers for uxd, UX is not necessarily as impactful or even important. It just needs to be as good as to not let “things fall apart”. So, not much impact on the cause area there.
Earning to give makes much more sense. I can still do what I love and am good at, but it comes with this pressure to overexcell myself to give more in near future.
In regards to mentoring others, that’s complicated too. How can I advise others if I can’t even move on with my own goals that I defined so clearly for myself? That’s rhetorical of course. I struggle with impostor syndrome a lot and I’ve been looking for a job more actively since November (I want to move up and upskill). Being declined over and over again doesn’t help with the syndrome. But I’m not saying “no”, only “not now”.
I’ve done some brainstorming with senior IT people, but I’m not very good at cold emailing them, so I haven’t had as many insights as I wish to.
EAG/x—I am signing up for 5 events this year, this is a great way of meeting people smarter than me and in every age!
Thanks for writing this, this is definitely something that I have heard before in EA groups that I have been part of.
I don’t know your situation but I think that EA is probably, particularly in need of value-aligned mid/senior people in quite a few areas.
I don’t work at 80k but my sense is that they have chosen to work with early-stage people as they have more flexibility in career direction and more malleable views. Crucially, I don’t think that 80k chose this demographic because young and inexperienced people are likely to have a comparative advantage in most roles over mid/late career people, they are just excited about influencing young people’s trajectories.
As I don’t know your background I don’t have much of a sense of what high impact roles could be a great fit for you, but when I meet people who are mid-career + are very value-aligned + are happy to move into a different job and are proactive enough to write a forum post (or engage with the community in other ways) I am generally pretty optimistic about them finding a high impact role somewhere (in or outside an EA org). Or if you don’t want to move you might be able to advise/mentor younger people informally or through WANBAM or add a lot of value in another way. Maybe some patience and resilience are required here and I totally understand if you don’t have the energy (I’ve certainly felt like this before).
If I were in your situation I think that I would try to speak to a few mid/late career people doing work that you admire and pick their brain on roles that might be a good fit for you (if you haven’t already done lots of this). You could also try and attend an EAG or EAGx. If you don’t want to move to a different role it looks like Giving What We Can want to invest quite a lot in building their community so I’m hopeful that there will be more support/resources for E2Gers soon.
OK, me back! As for the part about 80k objectives, it’s hard for me to tell. I haven’t done enough research to have an opinion on that matter. But I guess, influencing anyone with EA values gives a lot of positive returns.
- That’s the thing, I don’t fit any of them. I’m a ux/ui designer (I’ll post my links on the bottom) and after 2 years of (let’s call it) research I realized two things:
In those few companies or orgs that ever posted offers for uxd, UX is not necessarily as impactful or even important. It just needs to be as good as to not let “things fall apart”. So, not much impact on the cause area there.
Earning to give makes much more sense. I can still do what I love and am good at, but it comes with this pressure to overexcell myself to give more in near future.
In regards to mentoring others, that’s complicated too. How can I advise others if I can’t even move on with my own goals that I defined so clearly for myself? That’s rhetorical of course. I struggle with impostor syndrome a lot and I’ve been looking for a job more actively since November (I want to move up and upskill). Being declined over and over again doesn’t help with the syndrome. But I’m not saying “no”, only “not now”.
I’ve done some brainstorming with senior IT people, but I’m not very good at cold emailing them, so I haven’t had as many insights as I wish to.
EAG/x—I am signing up for 5 events this year, this is a great way of meeting people smarter than me and in every age!
Thank you a lot @calebp!
Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martynatomaszewska/ - feel free to connect.
https://eahub.org/profile/martyna/ - let me know if it’s available, if not I’ll make it public.
Thank you so much for that, I’ll get back with my response in a few h if you don’t mind.