I first learned about effective altruism about three years ago, when I went into software engineering through a coding boot camp to go into social entrepreneurship. My software engineering career has gone better than I expected so far. I have worked as a software engineer for nearly 3 years, and I am starting at a FAANG company soon.
My question is, I initially went into tech for the opportunity to create a social enterprise, but, given my current situation, it may make more sense to earn to give. I am interested in health tech specifically, and I have been taking pre-medical classes over the last year in case I decide to apply to medical school or bioinformatics program.
I know that in general, 80000 hours does not usually recommend medical careers, but, I am thinking I would be able to use my skills in tech with medicine to work in health tech policy or in a health tech social enterprise. I also have been drawn to medicine since college and would love the opportunity to do clinical work with patients (which only a career in medicine offers). I worked at non-profits abroad for a year and was really impressed both with medical social enterprises and the work the CDC was doing.
I am planning on spending at least 18 months or so working at FAANG, but I want to prepare myself for my long term plans afterwards. What does the forum think of the following options?
Stay at FAANG long-term to earn to give
Apply for a joint MD/MS in bioinformatics in 2-3 years
Apply for software engineering positions at health tech based companies in 2-3 years
Apply to tech entrepreneurship accelerators in 2-3 years and start a health tech social enterprise or non-profit
wow, impressive to go from coding bootcamp to FAANG in that period of time! Did you get a degree or any relevant experience beforehand? What tech stack do you work in and how did you manage that trajectory?
I would certainly give FAANG a try to see if you like it, as you mention it unlocks an impressive earning to give model. I’d make a shortlist of health tech based companies you’re interested in and begin networking now, I imagine you could worst case help out in some way to help with testing the field out while proving competence.
Option 4, you need a strong idea you need to get out in the world first.
For option 2 I’m bias as I know some bioinformatics PhDs who I work with in tech, seems it didn’t work out for them as a path. Again I think you need clearer ideas here in terms of what you want to do and ensure it REQUIRES the MD/MS in bioinformatics.
In short, option 1 is the easiest to rule out as you’re going to be working there. I wouldn’t worry about long-term yet and just focus if you enjoy the work in the present
A bit of an out-there suggestion but what about combining parts of 1, 3, and 4? I’m imagining a health tech social enterprise like initiative from within a FAANG company that interfaces with health policy/academics. The main advantage would be from the scale of compute and people who know how to use that infrastructure coming together with the people understand the biggest problems in the field well (who are usually not working in the FAANG company). My inspiration for this is the Google Earth Engine (GEE) team, which was pioneered by one individual, but is closely integrating/interfacing with researchers and industry professionals in remote sensing and helping them solve problems that could not have been so easily solved before. I think if it wasn’t for the individual who founded GEE, so many great projects would not have been possible. I think this would be challenging (you’d be carving out an untrodden path) but have a high impact ceiling in the tails.
I first learned about effective altruism about three years ago, when I went into software engineering through a coding boot camp to go into social entrepreneurship. My software engineering career has gone better than I expected so far. I have worked as a software engineer for nearly 3 years, and I am starting at a FAANG company soon.
My question is, I initially went into tech for the opportunity to create a social enterprise, but, given my current situation, it may make more sense to earn to give. I am interested in health tech specifically, and I have been taking pre-medical classes over the last year in case I decide to apply to medical school or bioinformatics program.
I know that in general, 80000 hours does not usually recommend medical careers, but, I am thinking I would be able to use my skills in tech with medicine to work in health tech policy or in a health tech social enterprise. I also have been drawn to medicine since college and would love the opportunity to do clinical work with patients (which only a career in medicine offers). I worked at non-profits abroad for a year and was really impressed both with medical social enterprises and the work the CDC was doing.
I am planning on spending at least 18 months or so working at FAANG, but I want to prepare myself for my long term plans afterwards. What does the forum think of the following options?
Stay at FAANG long-term to earn to give
Apply for a joint MD/MS in bioinformatics in 2-3 years
Apply for software engineering positions at health tech based companies in 2-3 years
Apply to tech entrepreneurship accelerators in 2-3 years and start a health tech social enterprise or non-profit
Thanks so much!
wow, impressive to go from coding bootcamp to FAANG in that period of time! Did you get a degree or any relevant experience beforehand? What tech stack do you work in and how did you manage that trajectory?
I would certainly give FAANG a try to see if you like it, as you mention it unlocks an impressive earning to give model. I’d make a shortlist of health tech based companies you’re interested in and begin networking now, I imagine you could worst case help out in some way to help with testing the field out while proving competence.
Option 4, you need a strong idea you need to get out in the world first.
For option 2 I’m bias as I know some bioinformatics PhDs who I work with in tech, seems it didn’t work out for them as a path. Again I think you need clearer ideas here in terms of what you want to do and ensure it REQUIRES the MD/MS in bioinformatics.
In short, option 1 is the easiest to rule out as you’re going to be working there. I wouldn’t worry about long-term yet and just focus if you enjoy the work in the present
A bit of an out-there suggestion but what about combining parts of 1, 3, and 4? I’m imagining a health tech social enterprise like initiative from within a FAANG company that interfaces with health policy/academics. The main advantage would be from the scale of compute and people who know how to use that infrastructure coming together with the people understand the biggest problems in the field well (who are usually not working in the FAANG company). My inspiration for this is the Google Earth Engine (GEE) team, which was pioneered by one individual, but is closely integrating/interfacing with researchers and industry professionals in remote sensing and helping them solve problems that could not have been so easily solved before. I think if it wasn’t for the individual who founded GEE, so many great projects would not have been possible. I think this would be challenging (you’d be carving out an untrodden path) but have a high impact ceiling in the tails.