from Hacker News

Ask HN: What would make you want to work for a non-profit as an engineer?

by francamps on 1/18/17, 6:51 AM with 37 comments

• by dfansteel on 1/18/17, 1:52 PM

  I've worked for non-profits before and have loved the experience. A couple of things stand out for me:

  1) Remote Work & Flex Schedule - Quality of life is a major concern. Working in startups 100 hour weeks have happened. It's kind of a rush actually. But everyone needs to take some time off that. Allowing people the opportunity to work from wherever they want, whenever they want makes all the difference. A common miss of non-profit managers is adopting the idea that you need to be on the job from 9-5 and be seen being productive. Don't treat your devs like they're cashiers.

  2) Community Engagement - Mid-sized companies and startups tend to be wildly jealous about their employees time, often requiring employees to work in a vacuum. Let your devs publish open source software that's derivative of your core business. Support their desire to establish development blogs. Encourage their extra curricular activities. I've often taken second jobs teaching software development just because I enjoy it. A lot of for profit companies don't like that.

  3) Intrinsic Benefits - Be willing to hire off platform. Look for people interested in expanding their skill set. The mobile developer looking to learn web development. The web developer looking to learn API development. The boot camp graduate looking for their first job in the field. Find people who can figure out how to do the job. Have the practical experience make up for the lost direct income.

• by jasonkester on 1/18/17, 11:17 AM

  While it's always nice to know your work benefits the world in general, the market is the market, so you'll need to pay for labor whether your company intends to make a profit or not.

  So yeah, we're all happy to help. But please strike that sentence about not wanting to pay a market rate.

• by sharemywin on 1/18/17, 1:25 PM

  Might want to consider remote.

  Being in one of the top 20 most expensive cities in the world probably doesn't help.

  http://www.businessinsider.com/the-19-most-expensive-cities-...

• by phaus on 1/18/17, 7:24 AM

  Not a software engineer, but my perspective might be useful.

  My current job contributes positively to society, but I would love to have a job like this. Long ago, I joined the military because I naively thought we could help put a stop to human rights abuses around the world (too young and stupid at the time to realize we were only going to make things worse). So, this would be something of a dream job for me. I would even do it for a compensation package that's slightly below market rate. However, I couldn't justify either to myself or my family, financially crippling the rest of my life by taking a job significantly below market rate with little or no benefits. If I could do it all over gain, if I were young and single I would much rather have spent my military years working for an organization like yours. However, I have too many responsibilities at this point.

  On a positive note, I think if you found a way to establish some kind of a part-time volunteer effort, many people would be willing to help for free. It might be difficult to manage, but I think it could work. I'd even be interested in volunteering at least a few hours a week (although my coding skills are approximately at the level of an intern.)

• by cguess on 1/18/17, 5:42 PM

  As a software engineer who has done a lot of non-profit work, try and engage your engineers with the community of other "do gooders" out there. Take them to the conferences and include them in the meetings that talk about the policy of the organization, future plans and the like. If they're working for you, it's probably because they care about the cause too.

• by lithos on 1/18/17, 11:54 AM

  Right now I'm actually taking a pretty decent pay cut of what I could be getting. The things that got me:

  Very flexible hours for normal work periods (could choose to not wake up to an alarm 3 weeks out of 4)

  Relaxed interviewing process. (Though a lot of the testing for electrical, mechanical, fluid, and trouble shooting theory actually works. Haven't seen the same for IT stuff). got to actually see my bosses quickly in the process. And got to see what gear I would be working on before they knew I was sure.

  Still get a lot of data center experience without the idiocy of working for the big three Or IT first company.

  Got to work in a department of the company that was a profit generating part of the company (instead of costs generation). This affect everything for how a company interacts with an employee.

• by NetStrikeForce on 1/20/17, 12:26 PM

  Maybe you need to approach the problem differently: Your problem is not hiring people, your problem is getting your projects done.

  How open are your processes? Can I go somewhere on the Internet and access your data? Do you have a public list of your projects on a place like GitHub so I can contribute? Have you considered a bounty for those less attractive tasks?

  I think you can attract the best talent, but you don't need it full time, so why hire anyone? Make it easy to contribute, make it socially rewarding and maybe even throw some money at it.

  Or maybe I'm just completely wrong - but I hope you can give these ideas at least a quick thought! :)

• by reallymental on 1/18/17, 11:08 AM

  As a (relatively young) software engineer who freelances as well, I personally like what you have to offer.

  Needless to say YMMV but keeping that aside, if the wage you're offering is liveable for London (around £28,000-32,000 before taxes) and your work hours are reasonable enough for the person to freelance (outside work hours for any surplus £'s)... he/she who shares your passion would leap at your opportunity.

  The most weighted variable in that case, would be the level of expertise you're seeking.

  Good Luck!

  (I also noticed that --Osmium-- has a point with PhD's being good candidates, but again, most of them leave academia in search of greater pay. But please dont let that deter you, as almost equally they are attracted to making an impact with their work.)

• by aynsof on 1/18/17, 11:17 AM

  I did exactly this a few years back. I took a pay cut to around 30% of my previous salary to work for a health care sector non-profit. The main attractions were flexible work hours (including some work from home), being fed up with working for evil corporations, and the prospect of working with the two really smart people I met in my interview.

  I think if you could offer a realistic shot at helping the community combined with a positive culture, you might be able to pull some talented engineers from more lucrative industries. Good luck!

• by mrmondo on 1/18/17, 11:59 AM

  I'm ops lead at a non-profit. I took _huge_ pay cut when I moved from the private / government sector to NFP space but I'll tell you what - it was worth every dollar. You can't put a price on happiness, freedom and the value of the visibility of the impact to communities and disadvantaged / at risk people from them work you do. Do a good job with a real impact and work with (not for) an organisation that genuinely strives to make an impact and is transparent and you'll earn respect.

• by 1_listerine_pls on 1/18/17, 2:11 PM

  - remote volunteer jobs (for fresh international US CS grads).

  I have a work permit in the US but I am not interested in getting a full-time job. In order not to lose the permit I need to do remote volunteering job 20h/week at a non-profit. So, I was considering contributing to Mozilla but they don't provide any proof you are doing volunteer work with them.

• by Taylor_OD on 1/18/17, 3:24 PM

  I'm interested in working for a non profit in the future and I expect to take a pay cut. I justify it by thinking of the good the org will be doing and other benefits likes more PTO, remote work, flexible schedule.

  My ideal is working for a non profit in a developing country and being able to live there. Even a modest salary would go a lot further.

• by rwhitman on 1/18/17, 8:27 PM

  Personally I would love to work with non-profits right now, regardless of pay implications. Recent macro events have really awoken my desire to do good in the course of my work. I'd like to think there are others with a similar outlook right now, but maybe I'm an outlier in this industry...

• by gnocchi on 1/18/17, 11:04 AM

  I'd be happy to discuss, feel free to contact me. My contact detail is on my profile.

  Other than that I think as phaus just said, the fact to contribute positively to society is a big argument. If your company can't deliver on cash advantage, maybe remote work and social event shoudl be push forward.

• by roystonvassey on 1/19/17, 10:10 AM

  OP, I don't think you should go out of your way to convince anyone. Engineers who are keen to try something different will do so, irrespective of your coaxing/positioning.

  Just post on the jobs thread once you are ready to hire and I think you should be good.

• by JamesBarney on 1/18/17, 6:49 PM

  I would suggest offering part-time work. Any time someone on hacker news posts about working a 24-32hr week there are always plenty of people begging the poster to tell them how they did it.

  Also all the things all developer wants in a job like flexibility, autonomy etc...

• by noshbrinken on 1/19/17, 7:36 PM

  Sponsoring visa's for foreign devs would be a huge incentive, I think. Many people would like to live/work in a foreign country but find it hard/impossible to do so without an employer sponsoring their visa.

• by debacle on 1/18/17, 2:56 PM

  When I was at a non-profit ~10 years ago, the salaries were ~30% below market, but employees regularly had 8+ weeks of vacation time. I think after 5 years there I had built up 5 weeks a year, and employees topped out at ~55 days of vacation a year.

• by seattle_spring on 1/19/17, 7:24 PM

  > but we can't pay anywhere near what tech companies pay or offer benefits like they do

  Why not? CEOs of non-profits often make competitive wages. Why shouldn't the worker bees?

• by downlode on 1/19/17, 3:00 PM

  I do front-end development and I'd be interested to chat with you about this. Please contact me via my profile if you're interested.

• by _throwaway2017_ on 1/18/17, 1:34 PM

  Shouldn't any charity be based on ethics, part of which is paying honest competitive market salary? Underpaying idealistic developers is a form of abuse.