This was a fantastic read, thank you for putting it together! Have you seen many situations where it makes sense for someone later in their career to join the military? Almost every person I’ve met who served started relatively early in their career rather than joining later. Do you think there are negative potential career impacts for people who work in specific fields (e.g. tech)? While I’m in DC doing policy work now and military service is venerated by almost everyone, I think it was quite rare to meet someone when I worked in tech in SF that had served and I think there could be situations where people see military service as a downside (e.g., this person was willing to work for the “war machine”) rather than something heroic. Also, how concerned were you with getting assigned to do work that you would be uncomfortable with? I seriously considered serving at various points in my life and also have no problem with location (and actually would prefer to go to places I’d have a low chance of going as a civilian) but one of the main hangups for me is whether I could trust the recruiter when they talked about what job I’d have and that I’d end up having to do something either morally fraught or that wasn’t aligned with my career goals.
No, CSET did research showing that the chasm between Silicon Valley and DoD is not that significant. The perception is mainly based on the one Google/Project Maven issue that got a lot of press. The opportunities in tech national security (especially within the government—major opportunities) have greater upside than those few companies that might not want you on their team. Also legally there are protections for veterans and companies have legal incentives to hire vets. It is more a way to stand out than to scare people off.
There is always a risk that you’ll be in a position where you are working on a project or receive an order to do something that you’d rather not. But I’d say that risk is very low for doing things that are potentially harmful on a large scale, and you have opportunities to further reduce the risk based on your job, your unit, who you know who’s higher up, etc. If I had to guess, the very likely/100% upsides of joining are orders of magnitude higher. Even if you’re just thinking about the upsides of potentially being in a position to make a really important good decision (vs. the counterfactual other person in that situation), the upsides probably outweigh the downsides (but that is not the main reason from an EA perspective to join—it’s more the career capital).
Generally don’t trust a recruiter unless either you have to or you get them to talk with someone who has been in the military before and who can get another recruiter’s take on what the recruiter you are talking to is offering you.
Thanks! Sorry for the ignorance but for #4 then, how would you go about figuring out 1) what job you would be good at if you joined (and in which branch to try to join) and then 2) how to make sure that you actually were assigned to that job when you do join?
An unrelated q- is there any additional upside joining a new branch like Space Force?
Still useful to talk with a recruiter and ask specific questions, but they have their own priorities and are going to shuffle you into whatever slots they get the most points for. Looking at the websites of the military services which detail different jobs is helpful to get a baseline. But the most helpful thing will be talking to people who have done various jobs and been in various units. Your unit and the leadership are comparably important in the Guard/Reserves to the job you are doing. You can only figure that out by talking with people and finding a good unit.
There might be some new Space Force opportunities to build things out because they are so new, but there will be growing pains as well as they figure out how to actually add value without stepping on other branch’s toes. Generally your job, unit, and leadership are the most important regardless of the service, though there are various stereotypes over different services which may hold true in more situations than not (Molly gets at some of them above).
This was a fantastic read, thank you for putting it together! Have you seen many situations where it makes sense for someone later in their career to join the military? Almost every person I’ve met who served started relatively early in their career rather than joining later. Do you think there are negative potential career impacts for people who work in specific fields (e.g. tech)? While I’m in DC doing policy work now and military service is venerated by almost everyone, I think it was quite rare to meet someone when I worked in tech in SF that had served and I think there could be situations where people see military service as a downside (e.g., this person was willing to work for the “war machine”) rather than something heroic. Also, how concerned were you with getting assigned to do work that you would be uncomfortable with? I seriously considered serving at various points in my life and also have no problem with location (and actually would prefer to go to places I’d have a low chance of going as a civilian) but one of the main hangups for me is whether I could trust the recruiter when they talked about what job I’d have and that I’d end up having to do something either morally fraught or that wasn’t aligned with my career goals.
Yes, from an EA perspective definitely.
No, CSET did research showing that the chasm between Silicon Valley and DoD is not that significant. The perception is mainly based on the one Google/Project Maven issue that got a lot of press. The opportunities in tech national security (especially within the government—major opportunities) have greater upside than those few companies that might not want you on their team. Also legally there are protections for veterans and companies have legal incentives to hire vets. It is more a way to stand out than to scare people off.
There is always a risk that you’ll be in a position where you are working on a project or receive an order to do something that you’d rather not. But I’d say that risk is very low for doing things that are potentially harmful on a large scale, and you have opportunities to further reduce the risk based on your job, your unit, who you know who’s higher up, etc. If I had to guess, the very likely/100% upsides of joining are orders of magnitude higher. Even if you’re just thinking about the upsides of potentially being in a position to make a really important good decision (vs. the counterfactual other person in that situation), the upsides probably outweigh the downsides (but that is not the main reason from an EA perspective to join—it’s more the career capital).
Generally don’t trust a recruiter unless either you have to or you get them to talk with someone who has been in the military before and who can get another recruiter’s take on what the recruiter you are talking to is offering you.
Thanks! Sorry for the ignorance but for #4 then, how would you go about figuring out 1) what job you would be good at if you joined (and in which branch to try to join) and then 2) how to make sure that you actually were assigned to that job when you do join?
An unrelated q- is there any additional upside joining a new branch like Space Force?
Still useful to talk with a recruiter and ask specific questions, but they have their own priorities and are going to shuffle you into whatever slots they get the most points for. Looking at the websites of the military services which detail different jobs is helpful to get a baseline. But the most helpful thing will be talking to people who have done various jobs and been in various units. Your unit and the leadership are comparably important in the Guard/Reserves to the job you are doing. You can only figure that out by talking with people and finding a good unit.
There might be some new Space Force opportunities to build things out because they are so new, but there will be growing pains as well as they figure out how to actually add value without stepping on other branch’s toes. Generally your job, unit, and leadership are the most important regardless of the service, though there are various stereotypes over different services which may hold true in more situations than not (Molly gets at some of them above).