Would hiring non-EA programmers be better because the counterfactuals are lower? It doesn’t seem obvious to me that value-alignment of software engineers is as (or more) important as experience. On the other hand, it could build career capital for the EA developers (but their counterfactual job might be better for career capital, depending on what it is).
Value-alignment of the team is super important, so non-EA team members are risky, less motivated, and usually don’t work out.
Also EA engineers are going to stick around in the movement, so if you train them up and get to know them the community will benefit in the future, whereas non-EAs will go elsewhere.
Finally, because you have to pay the non-EAs more, I think much of the benefits get used up.
Consider:
Option 1: Hire a non-EA at $100k per year, who generates $200k of value → surplus of $100k. If they hadn’t worked for you, they would have donated $0.
OR
Option 2: Hire an EA at $50k per year, who generates $200k of value → surplus of $150k.
But, if they hadn’t worked for you, they would have earned $100k and donated $50k. So the net surplus is $150k - $50k = $100k.
Value-alignment of the team is super important, so non-EA team members are risky, less motivated, and usually don’t work out.
I thought this comment on Michael’s post was interesting. If it really is best practice for nonprofits to ignore how committed potential employees are and just hire on competence, it seems like we should take that pretty seriously.
BTW, it might be a mistake to conflate “value-aligned” with “currently thinks of themselves as an EA”. For example, if you advertise an EA job on a regular old job board, and make it clear that you want to hire someone who’s passionate about your cause area and you’re offering a below-market salary, it seems like anyone you found through that process would have at least some degree of value alignment (assuming that they could be making substantially more money working for a less altruistic employer).
Also EA engineers are going to stick around in the movement, so if you train them up and get to know them the community will benefit in the future, whereas non-EAs will go elsewhere.
I’d think that the opposite logic applies—EA engineers are likely to stick around in the movement regardless of whether you hire them, whereas non-EA engineers might choose to become more involved through their experience working for you.
It seems like the value of information is really high here. Feels like at least one of the 5 organizations you mention should experiment with hiring non-EA engineers, if the talent crunch really is as bad as you say. Unfortunately I’m not that excited about working for any of the 5 organizations you mention, but I’d be happy to help them interview engineers to get an idea of how competent they are. (I’ve got some experience doing this.)
Would hiring non-EA programmers be better because the counterfactuals are lower? It doesn’t seem obvious to me that value-alignment of software engineers is as (or more) important as experience. On the other hand, it could build career capital for the EA developers (but their counterfactual job might be better for career capital, depending on what it is).
Value-alignment of the team is super important, so non-EA team members are risky, less motivated, and usually don’t work out.
Also EA engineers are going to stick around in the movement, so if you train them up and get to know them the community will benefit in the future, whereas non-EAs will go elsewhere.
Finally, because you have to pay the non-EAs more, I think much of the benefits get used up.
Consider: Option 1: Hire a non-EA at $100k per year, who generates $200k of value → surplus of $100k. If they hadn’t worked for you, they would have donated $0.
OR
Option 2: Hire an EA at $50k per year, who generates $200k of value → surplus of $150k. But, if they hadn’t worked for you, they would have earned $100k and donated $50k. So the net surplus is $150k - $50k = $100k.
The surplus is the same in both cases.
I thought this comment on Michael’s post was interesting. If it really is best practice for nonprofits to ignore how committed potential employees are and just hire on competence, it seems like we should take that pretty seriously.
BTW, it might be a mistake to conflate “value-aligned” with “currently thinks of themselves as an EA”. For example, if you advertise an EA job on a regular old job board, and make it clear that you want to hire someone who’s passionate about your cause area and you’re offering a below-market salary, it seems like anyone you found through that process would have at least some degree of value alignment (assuming that they could be making substantially more money working for a less altruistic employer).
I’d think that the opposite logic applies—EA engineers are likely to stick around in the movement regardless of whether you hire them, whereas non-EA engineers might choose to become more involved through their experience working for you.
It seems like the value of information is really high here. Feels like at least one of the 5 organizations you mention should experiment with hiring non-EA engineers, if the talent crunch really is as bad as you say. Unfortunately I’m not that excited about working for any of the 5 organizations you mention, but I’d be happy to help them interview engineers to get an idea of how competent they are. (I’ve got some experience doing this.)