I’m a user experience designer, trying to make the best of my skills and competencies. I work closely with EA Poland, have been working on EA hub and now I’m looking for another volunteer project.
martyna
Karma: 174
Hi Kaleem, any news on the results? Or when can we expect them?
Sent! I sure hope I got the requirements right :D
Noted! Thank you!
Awesome! And where could I get the conference logo? It should be on the T-shirt, right? :)
Thanks a lot for all the answers!
Hi, Are there any requirements for the design, please? Should it include the EA logo? Any specific quote? Use of branding? Area of printing? Will the shirt be gray, black, and/or white? “EAGxBoston 1-3 April 2022” tag should be added?
I’m so sorry for this delay, but this week was ultra mad, and your questions demand more brainpower than I have left after those few days. :3 I’ll make sure to answer this weekend, asap.
I hear you! This is a far larger group of EA’s than I initially thought. Encouraging and worrying at the same time. Worrying because of possibly missed potential.
Adjusted. Thank you!
We’re in touch! :)
No worries, thank you so much for the tip. I have not expected to receive so many hints, it’s a bit intimidating, but I’m very grateful. :)
Thank you so much! They have nothing for me atm, but I’m adding them to my watchlist.
I do, but it’s too embarrassing to write it in public ;). I have a few that would make me happy too, less embarrassing because a bit more realistic. ;D. I’m a movie maniac, wouldn’t mind at all working on streaming services or educational entertainment, or on so-called FUI’s. I have a wicked fixation on learning new circumstances of HMI: infotainments are currently on my radar. AR/VR anything! Cyber security, web3, democratizing access to services, and privacy-owning tools—sign me up.
I still want to follow the money, for the actual relevant reasons like ETG, but I make choices now based on totally different criteria, ones that make me better at what I do.
The magic pill question is a challenge! Already deleted a few answers. Need to do value assessment here. :D
Thanks for your support Bingo, this sounds great!
I wrote some context in this reply and in a few others, but in general:
I’m a User Experience Designer
42 this year
Fully mobile, able to relocate anywhere in the world
I made some very bad decisions in the past in regards to my career, because I never had the smallest support or anyone as a mentor. Took a flat mortgage. Struggle to survive 2008 depression in Poland—companies were either fireing or bankrupting and I end up working for 6 months for free until I was let go. Got into money problems with a mortgage and spiking inflation. Migrated to the Czech Republic. Followed the money to get rid of financial dependencies and never be unemployed or hungry again. Paid off the mortgage, get rid of the flat, joined EA, started to rethink my career. Started to build up savings that I’m learning to invest and multiply. Signed up for GWWC pledge.
Because I followed the money mainly, I end up in companies that do not understand the value of design, and applying for the ones that do is really hard. I invest in my growth privately, I have some plan, ideas, and goals, but I never know if I’m betting on the right card to get me where I want to be.
In terms of EA, unless something really dramatic will happen to push me off, I plan to donate the majority of my life savings. I’m ok with ETG/ETS by now, it actually gives me the freedom to choose a career path unrelated to EA but corresponding with my interests.
That’s my life in a pill!
I hear you. We all struggle. Young people have it so much harder to enter the job market after graduation., it makes sense to me still, 80k makes sense. But it just shouldn’t stop there.
I have the same observations for A) and B). I’m a self-taught UX designer, my masters only loosely correspond to what I do. It’s intimidating to see offers for senior positions asking for 7-8 years of experience in the field, while UX studies have only begun to appear in Unis in Poland like maybe a decade ago…
Thank you so much! I’ll reach out to Lotte next week, seems like we will have a lot to discuss!
Human-robot-interaction is something I never considered, but it sounds very interesting. HMI is basically the ground for my work, but it is applied very widely, from physical design (elevators, printers, cars) to SW design, and I’m in the second sector atm. But boy, do I dream to get to the first one.
Do you know of any companies that are hiring HRI designers?
Oh, this is great, I’m loving so many points, we have similar struggles indeed.
I can certainly imagine looking back at my career and feeling like it was safe and relatively pleasant but never really challenging and never really made a difference. And I would like to make a difference.
I went through all stages of grief with my occupation. I struggled with burnout for 7 years. I passionately started to hate a job I loved so much in the beginning. The reason was projects and the sector, maybe similarly like in your case.
In my case I think the trigger was when I was asked to design a mobile app for a burger restaurant, with the goal to tune up “up-sales”, to generate more revenue for the franchise. I was a vegetarian at that time, thinking of going vegan (which I also am already). That’s what I identify as the beginning of my burnout and prelude to depression.
Like, why can’t you just play it safe and continue with your high earning career and donate a ton more money and feel good about that? Why put your stability at risk to chase a vision of doing direct good?
That’s the exact reason why I outline the story of my burnout. The guilt. It cost me a few years of total inactivity, which wasn’t a big deal because at that time I was focusing on very ineffective volunteering (helping animal shelters). But if I’m to go through it now—with my current mindset and need of maximizing my impact—I’m certain this could be much harder and more dangerous for me. And the movement needs well-functioning members, right?
My husband often repeats—“Just squeeze any penny at your current job, and do side sanity projects on a side”—and it’s really wrong approach. I tried that for years, even now involved with EA, and it’s not doing me the favour. I still struggle with depression, not as severe as in past, but still disturbing. It needs to go. I have about 8 years to optimize my path, I don’t have time for breakdowns.
The bottom line is there is no selfishness in addressing your needs, especially when you feel the urge to do so much more good.
1. In the AAC training
What is ACC training?
2. All of the jobs I’ve seen listed at non-profits pay pretty poorly. Does it really make sense to take a 70% pay cut?
In my specific case, it wouldn’t, but like I wrote in the post—I stop fantasizing about getting into an impactful EA job. I recently got an offer with a cut of 25%, but the possibility of some upskilling, that could potentially give me back this 25% salary and more in the future. The thing is, the upskill was not of about 25% (subjectively of course), rather a 5-10%. I declined. I’m able to take cuts, but the return (even hypothetic) needs to balance the cut because I’m dead serious about ETG and ETS commitment.
3. Some of the top all time forum posts are about how difficult and painful it can be to get an EA
Agree. I got declined by one of EA related startups and it was much more painful than any other declination.
4. If I can really be 20x more productive then average then I really am awesome and should be using my skills directly.
Yes and no, in my very subjective opinion. For example (and it’s only a hypothesis for the sake of explanation) - in my case, it doesn’t make sense to make give directly page more intuitive, because the donors are people so well aligned with EA values that a slightly less intuitive interface will not make them back out from donating. But. It makes sense for me to do a usability study on the website of Effective Altruism Poland because the main purpose of this website is to recruit so far unrelated people and incept them with the EA framework.
Will your productivity skills be used in the most optimal way in those organizations? If you are to optimize the server performance, will it be a better contribution than a donation from 70% higher salary? Or are you able to influence the speed of research done on healthcare/alternative protein 20 times? I’m shooting blanks, I’m just trying to make a point here.
5. The company I work for does not particularly align with my values.
Can you pivot to different industries taking your position, salary, and skills unchanged? That’s what I’m trying to do.
I work for a pharmaceutical company. It’s much more rewarding and meaningful than doing burger apps, but. I have never worked in a field that I feel passionate about, and until my discussion with EA mentor about 3 years ago, I never even allowed myself to have passions or dreams. I’m done with that. It might not be possible, but I want to “have fun” and earn big before I turn 50. Because I have philanthropic goals and I need to be a well-functioning person to meet them, and that means to care more about my mental health and allow myself to have ambitions. The healthy dose of egoism.
6. I think this is all good truth-seeking activity, but it does get quite confusing, so couldn’t the thing I’m donating to turn out to be ineffective after people take a harder look in a few years? Would direct action give me more certainty that what I’m doing is moving things in the right direction?
Depends. The whole idea of helping neglected causes until they are will stop being as neglected as other ones on the list resonate with me strongly. That’s why I trust in GiveWell and Animal Charity Evaluators. But it’s much easier to change your donation flow than to change a career dedicated to cause.
8. There is so much funding in EA from Open Phil and likely a bunch more coming soon that it just dwarfs anything that my family could donate, which is somewhat disheartening.
True. But they can’s solve all the problems with those donations. If they could, we wouldn’t have EA and cause areas. Potentially every few bucks is a life of a person that can be saved. We might not see it, but it makes a difference for that person.
9. I don’t think I’m going to work more than another 10 or so years, so I do feel some pressure to decide soon if I’m going to make a change.
Same.
It’s long for me too, but I just want to highlight one last thing. This kind of support we can give to each other, it doesn’t cost a penny to give subjective advice, especially on the philosophical ground. It might help a tiny bit to clear things up in the head. But there is a much harder level to address: how to literary get from point A to B. That’s when solid counseling should step in:helping to create a plan/strategy
connect with people who are already there where we want to be
determine the gaps and misalignments we should work on to be successful in getting the job
provide mentoring/sponsorship (professional, not financial)
create framework to better address the needs of mid/senior-level members with their specific circumstances
establish pay-it-forward networking, so the people who have been given guidelines could onboard others too and help with their transition
I keep on thinking about your comment today. Any chance you could outline your situation, struggle or view on the subject of 40kh? It could actually add a lot of value to hear the perspective or specific situation from others.
I outlined mine in one of the first responses. At first I though it’s meaningless in general topic discussion, but now I think that those specific circumstances are making the case.
Please share if you will.
Joined, but truth be told, I don’t have high hopes. From my experience, most of SW-related groups/slacks/discords are rather related to AI, high-impact startups, or ngo projects. I haven’t met any uxd’s there yet. But thank you!
Can you recommend some affordable places to stay in nearby event venue?
Is there any slack where we could connect with other attendees?