Ask HN: Will being an engineer at a nonprofit reduce your longterm earnings? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Will being an engineer at a nonprofit reduce your longterm earnings?

14 pointsBenjaminTodd9 comments

Suppose you're a junior engineer at a large tech firm.

If you go to take a technical role at a nonprofit for several years with a much lower salary, then want to go back to a big tech firm, will your salary be reduced compared to what it would have been if you'd stayed in the big tech firm? If yes, by how much?

For the sake of argument, assume your skill development at the nonprofit is equally good. What I'm interested in is whether there's a loss of earnings due to bad signalling, or because if you have a low salary at the nonprofit it'll be harder to negotiate a high salary when you go back.

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You're at far, far, far more risk for missing the years of professional development than you are for experiencing any signaling risk at negotiation, at least as of October 2015. Most non-profits have, by the standards of AmaGooFaceSoft, boring technical problems where 5 years of doing them is worth less than 2~4 weeks at their firms.

Though, that said: there's no guarantees that when you have the conversation in April 2019 that you'll be in the best hiring market for your interest in the history of ever, which is approximately where we are right now.

Point taken. The type of nonprofit I'm thinking about is the type that might go through YC though e.g. Watsi. How much would that change things?

Also, how about if you're product manager at the nonprofit (e.g. with a budget and doing some hiring) vs. just an engineer at a big firm?

To clarify the last point, you're saying the hiring market for junior engineers is especially great right now, so it might make sense to lock in the money while you can?

I'm saying that given that the current market is totally on fire, you don't really have to worry too much about your negotiating position because the rising tide will lift your boat, even if it has a hole or two in it.

I don't necessarily know if I'd recommend "making hay while the sun shines" as a career strategy -- it would depend on your circumstances, values, etc.

> Most non-profits have, by the standards of AmaGooFaceSoft, boring technical problems where 5 years of doing them is worth less than 2~4 weeks at their firms.

Hm, depends on the non-profit. I believe that working in the Mozilla Foundation for example, for a couple of years even with lower salary will have a positive impact in one's resume.

I'm an engineer who has worked at non-profits for several years and have maintained top skills. The answer is- your long term earnings will absolutely be reduced, though not for the already cited reasons.

Essential books to read before going into the non-profit space:

* With Charity For All - Ken Stern

* Doing Good Better - Bill MacAskill

Also, read SSIR, it has the best coverage of emerging trends in the non-profit space:

http://ssir.org/

The short answer is- if income is important to you, marginally to significantly more important than impact, DO NOT work for a non-profit. If impact is of marginal to secondary importance, then contribute money and time in accordance with the emerging analytics that Bill MacAskill talks about.

If impact is most important, and income is not, then by all means work for a non-profit, but remember that mission comes first, second, third and fourth.

There are very, very few non-profits that are using technology in any of the ways that resemble tech-focused big shops or startups, because at this stage there are very, very few non-profits whose funding streams are dependent on specific details of technology deployment.

There are (to my eyes) huge opportunities for technical innovations like data analytics, APIification, and many others to transform the non-profit space, but these transformations will be years in the making. The space moves very, very slowly.

So, at a non-profit, you may maintain skills, and you can often be paid a fairly equivalent salary, but all sorts of other income, practice, and leadership opportunities will pass you by.

* bonus

* equity

* quantitative management

* developing for the customer

* etc

Once you have more of your life-course settled, with life partners and kids and living situation and so forth- by all means go work for a non-profit.

I DO NOT recommend it for junior engineers.

Thanks! So to summarise, you'll end up with lower earnings because your skills and network won't improve as fast as they would at a for-profit?

Well, not exactly. You can maintain individual skills and can build any kind of network you want while working in a non-profit.

It's that you're in a domain with other people who are not focused on making money. That's not really about your network, which mostly means people you don't work with on a daily basis. It's about the people you do work with and the opportunities and choices that emerge from those daily interactions.

You will not find people in a non-profit focused primarily or even secondarily on making money. In fact, many people deliberately sacrifice earnings to align with the mission of a non-profit.

Non-profits are also structurally unable to participate in many of the vehicles that enhance earnings for employees in for-profits, like profit-sharing, equity, tax-related benefits (non-profits don't pay any taxes), and so forth.

When you're young, you might be "really good" at football and baseball, enough to have the opportunity to pursue one or the other professionally. Nearly everyone in that situation has to choose one or the other, and being a professional football player will necessarily mean you are not a professional baseball player (Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders aside). Non-profit vs for-profit is a similar choice when it comes to earnings.

At the end of the day, an accumulation of decisions, some of which you would make but many of which would be made around you, that all entail sacrificing opportunities for making money, will mean you will likely wind up with lower earnings.

> it'll be harder to negotiate a high salary when you go back.

You might also consider, several years from-- as your career evolves, the types of roles you'll be interested in post nonprofit stint, may well change.

Areas to explore: How might this gig stretch you professionally? Do you see any potential to leverage this experience into something bigger, better?

Depends on the scale of the problems the non profit is solving and it's overall impact.

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