Jobs: Career advisor/coach for changemakers, Entrepreneur
Interested in: X-risks (and new positive narratives), AI Safety, Improving Institutional Decision-making
Simon27
Karma: 44
Hi Joseph,
Thank you for explaining your situation. It sounds you could have an impact on the AI Safety space given your background and motivation. At Successif we support mid- and senior-career professionals to navigate such transitions. I encourage you to have a look at our website and see if this could be interesting for you. You can directly apply through the website.
Also we just released forum post, which gives more insights into common challenges faced by our advisees. Maybe you find some of your challenges reflected in there.
All the best,
Simon (Career Advisor @ Successif)
Hi İrem,
Thank you for your questions. The key question to ask yourself is in how far a for-profit role can best set you up for any future roles that you listed? Although for-profit can support you with building more financial stability, it could be that there is a more direct way to build the career capital for your desired role.
Have you looked at the 80k job board (https://jobs.80000hours.org/) and could you identify some roles that you find interesting? Try to also include non-profit roles at first and try to figure out in howfar they match your salary expectations.
If it turns out that for-profit is the only route for you to go at the moment, you can look for consulting, project/product management, communications, operations jobs that overlap with safe/responsible AI development. On the for-profit side there is also a whole industry emerging around supporting organizations understand policy implications, and ensuring compliance with upcoming AI regulations.
If you feel you are still at the beginning of your ecosystem research, it might help you to look into most recent developments on the policy side (e.g. EU AI Act) or and other outputs from leading organizations (papers, etc.). Ask yourself: What sparks my interest here and where do I see myself fitting in?
Maybe this post from yesterday is also intersting for you: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/D6ECZQMFcskpiGP7Q/ten-ai-safety-proj
Hope some of that is helpful!
All the best,
Simon (Career Advisor @ Successif)
Challenges from Career Transitions and What To Expect From Advising
Hi, thanks for your question.
A good way to start might be to think about the transferrable skills that you are applying in your current job, as well as those that motivate you (motivational skills) and that you are curious and excited to learn. Having no further context on the type of blue-collar work, I try to give some inspiration:
An electronics specialist working in an electronics factory, motivated to learn more about how to make AI-hardware safe; eventually transitioning into an organization that builds safe AI hardware
A mechanic who became passionate about climate change mitigation, using existing skills in engineering and upskilling more in the direction of clean energy technology; then landing a job in an organization that builds a more efficient type of heat exchanger
Maybe a next step could be to find people with similar specialisations in organizations that inspire you, and connect with them. The larger your network, the more likely you are to find your next opportunity through a friendly referral.
Really great work Moneer. Thinking this complex thing through from a systems lens is much needed, and I think should receive support from grantmakers who care about better oversight and transparency of the ongoings that are happening across the field. After all it would make work more effective while fostering better conversations between all actors!
I am curious how this will progress and look forward to any updates.
Thank you very much for this great article! It was very neat to read and the topic is highly relevant and in my opinion also way too neglected in the community.
At https://www.inoqo.com/ we aim to drive change in the food & beverage industry, which has one of the largest impacts on biodiversity loss. At first we seek to drive change at the level of the supply chain, by giving producers, brands and retailer insights on the impact they currently have and ways to improve. In the future we want to guide consumers based on simple metrics, labels and digital solutions, so they can make the product choices that have lowest impact on sustainability (where we factor in biodiversity, climate, social welfare, animal welfare and nutrition).
Note: Our website still reflects our consumer product, which is about engagement of the individual. As laid out above we recently switched to a business solution, as this seems to be the main bottleneck and the impact that we can cause short-term seems way higher there.
If you are interested in our project (collaborations in any kind of way), please reach out to me via PM.
Thanks again for the great initiative here!
Simon27′s Quick takes
Post EAG(x): Making the most out of your connections
Thanks for opening up a topic that is in my opinion neglected on an individual basis within the EA community. However, I could make wrong assumptions from a few data points that I have.
I made the observation that a lot of EAs are frequent flyers and wonder if the awareness that offsetting can not be taken as an excuse to choose the plane instead of the train, is high enough.
E.g. within mainland Europe train connections are meanwhile quite good and I would do everything by train or bus that is <500km one way. The only problem is that the train often costs more than going by plane and you have to account for ~3h more (also considering the time you spend around the airport). However, personally I have experienced the slow mode of travelling and avoiding the hustle & bustle at the airport as very positive + you have WiFi in the train/bus and can do work. Therefore, I can do work more efficiently staying on the ground.
What are your thoughts on this? Can you provide me another perspective on the situation? Thanks!
Hey, brilliant idea. I’d love to join the Slack as well. I am an entrepreneur and thinking about trying out to become a content synthesizer and would love to combine this with the most impactful topics. Please add Purpose.foundry@gmail.com Thank you!
Thank you for the great post. I haven’t tried or started coaching actively yet, however can sense through the current leadership position in the startup I co-founded that I gain a lot of motivation and energy by helping other people to solve problems on their own, instead of solving them for them.
I would like to shift more towards active coaching in the next year, pot. starting with some clients within my own company. However, I can see large benefits being connected to a network of other coaches who have slightly different niches and skill sets, as one can do cross-referrals (as stated already, getting first clients can be tedious) - referring a client to another coach who is more able to help that client is probably one of the most transparent, honest and effective things one can do.
These considerations make me think whether there is something like an EA Coaching Slack where all existing coaches can exchange thoughts, refer clients and help others get started?
Who are you?
Hi, my name is Simon. I am a physicist, research engineer and data scientist (actually this is rather the transition I went through or am currently undergoing). ATM I am leaving applied photovoltaics research to follow the project of building an app that supports people to purchase more sustainable, socially responsible and healthier products (blog post of our CEO). We are currently validating our idea and assessing the feasibility, so I am always open for new adventures (take a look at the “I’d like to talk about” section).
People can talk to me about:
Renewable energies (esp. photovoltaics & nuclear fusion)
Nuclear security: I am not an expert in this, but might be able to answer/assess some questions from a technical point of view)
Climate Change
Sustainability
Data Science (Python & R) & Scientific modelling / simulations
General physics, research and conceptual engineering questions
Productivity & Self-management
Hobbies:
Music: esp. piano, singing
Sports: Body weight exercises, Mountainbiking, Tennis, Yoga
Travelling
I’d like to talk about:
Global priorities research & futurology (consider to dive into this professionally, so am open for any job offers globally)
Using Machine Learning & Data Science to tackle the most pressing problems. Most decision-making processes rely on previous evidence and could benefit from data-driven approaches. If anyvia data-driven approaches, so am open for any job offers globally)
AI in general: if you know a specific area where I could have a large impact with my skill set, I am very happy to receive any recommendations
Alternative economic systems / System change: Except for unconditional basic income I don’t have a lot of knowledge on alternatives that are somewhat likely to work, but really would love to learn more and start to communicate this ideas in my cultural environment.
How to get in touch: s.haberfellner (at) gmx.net (very happy to communicate on other channels after first contact).
Stay safe! :-)
Hi,
thank you for providing details about your situation and the questions asked.
Especially at the beginning of your career journey it can be valuable to build career capital towards high-impact AI Safety roles. You might also want to look at training programs / fellowships that you can find here, and apply to those that fit your background.
I will provide you with some more resources that could be insightful in terms of how to transition into the AIS Research space:
ML Safety Research Advice—GabeM
Levelling Up in AI Safety Research Engineering
How to pursue a career in technical AI alignment (Charlie Rogers-Smith)
AGI safety career advice (Richard Ngo)
Tips for Empirical Alignment Research (Ethan Perez)
2025 Engineering Reading List (Latent Space)
AI Safety Research Gaps (2025)
Some questions for you:
Do you already have more concrete ideas where your skills and motivation could have an impact on the AI Safety (research) space?
How technical (e.g. coding) vs. high-level (e.g. technical project management) do you want to be?
What did you most enjoy during your studies or past jobs? How could those underlying skills be translated into impactful work?
Hope this is a good starting point.
All the best,
Simon (Career Advisor @ Successif)