Software engineering comprises the entire range of activities used to design and develop software.
Software engineering as a career
80,000 Hours’ in-depth profile rates software engineering a “sometimes recommended” career.[1] The profile finds that a software engineer’s most promising path to impact involves doing direct work on AI safety or in highly impactful organizations, and that the value of this work is likely higher than via earning to give. A career in software engineering can also be a good way to gain career capital.
Further reading
Hilton, Benjamin (2022) Software engineering, 80,000 Hours, February 4.
Jones, Andy (2021) AI safety needs great engineers, AI Alignment Forum, November 23.
Related entries
artificial intelligence | data science | engineering | public interest technology | SparkWave
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Hilton, Benjamin (2022) Software engineering, 80,000 Hours, February 4.
I think there was a discussion about how often we should include org tags in Related entries, and I can’t remember what was said, so maybe SparkWave should be excluded.