Thanks for the AMA! My question has already been asked to some extent, but I wanted to phrase it a different way which gets closer to the circumstances people earning to give in software engineering might face.
Suppose that there was a dire need for people trained as quants doing direct work for some important EA cause area, or at least correlated enough that you would be close to as productive doing the direct work as quant work (controlling for who your colleagues are, difficulty of problem etc).
My question is, what is the minimum salary you would need to be offered for the direct work where you feel like the switch would be worth it?
Additionally, how would you navigate the trade-offs if the direct work was something high risk like founding a startup or non-profit?
I think my if-the-stars-align minimum is probably around £45k these days. But then it starts going up once there are suboptimal circumstances like the ones you mention. In practice I might expect it to land at 125% to 250% of that figure depending how the non-salary aspects of the job look.
I’m curious about the motivation of the question; FWIW my figure here is a complicated function of my expenses, anticipated flexibility on those expenses, past savings, future plans, etc. in a way that I wouldn’t treat it as much of a guide to what anyone else would or should say.
Thanks for the AMA! My question has already been asked to some extent, but I wanted to phrase it a different way which gets closer to the circumstances people earning to give in software engineering might face.
Suppose that there was a dire need for people trained as quants doing direct work for some important EA cause area, or at least correlated enough that you would be close to as productive doing the direct work as quant work (controlling for who your colleagues are, difficulty of problem etc).
My question is, what is the minimum salary you would need to be offered for the direct work where you feel like the switch would be worth it?
Additionally, how would you navigate the trade-offs if the direct work was something high risk like founding a startup or non-profit?
I think my if-the-stars-align minimum is probably around £45k these days. But then it starts going up once there are suboptimal circumstances like the ones you mention. In practice I might expect it to land at 125% to 250% of that figure depending how the non-salary aspects of the job look.
I’m curious about the motivation of the question; FWIW my figure here is a complicated function of my expenses, anticipated flexibility on those expenses, past savings, future plans, etc. in a way that I wouldn’t treat it as much of a guide to what anyone else would or should say.