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

24 points by francamps 9 years ago | 37 comments

I am the tech lead at a London-based non-profit agency in human rights abuse, conflicts and the effects of war. We are producing complex visual tools for analysis and documentation of high-profile cases. I am personally really excited and happy to be working for the agency. The team is growing and I am looking to hire devs in the next few months, but we can't pay anywhere near what tech companies pay or offer benefits like they do. I can offer the team enthusiasm and the reality of what we are accomplishing (which is why I'm there).

How can I convince talented engineers that this kind of work is important and worth doing?

dfansteel 9 years ago |

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.

karmajunkie 9 years ago | |

All of these are great points of advice. I would add that remote work is not simply about quality of life—its also about broadening your pool of candidates from those who live near you to those who are living, full stop. If it costs too much to hire developers near you, go where cheaper developers are (but have someone on your team, if not you yourself, who is able to filter good developers from the merely adequate.)

francamps 9 years ago | |

Thanks a lot, these are really great suggestions to look into. I think 1 (the flex schedule part at least) and 3 are already there, but I hadn't thought about highlighting them as properties of the job that people might be interested in. And we need to consider remote work more seriously.

I've been planning to encourage 2 more in the tech side of things, considering it is already happening in relation to the social impact of our work, which we do share and communicate. I think sharing more of what we do technically would be great.

Thanks a lot, great advice.

ffggvv 9 years ago | | |

What's the name of the non-profit? So maybe people from here could apply.

partisan 9 years ago | |

I've considered such a role in the past and for all of these reasons. Good recap.

jasonkester 9 years ago |

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.

francamps 9 years ago | |

> But please strike that sentence about not wanting to pay a market rate.

I don't think I said or implied that, but if I did I wasn't accurate. Given the funding, grant-based model we have, we can't really pay for-profit tech market salaries without jeopardizing our whole mission. You can argue that then our model isn't right, and that's fine. I have a different opinion, but I understand what you mean.

That said, if you know of a funding structure that would let us do research work without worrying about profitability but rather on urgency and impact, I would love to learn about that.

karmajunkie 9 years ago | |

I didn't read a sentence about not wanting to pay a market rate. I read that they were not able to pay a market rate, and yet there is still a need for the work. If that doesn't speak to you, I don't blame you, but its disingenuous to make out like its merely a choice as to whether they have the funds available.

jasonkester 9 years ago | | |

A non-profit has a budget for hiring, just as a scrappy startup has a budget for hiring, just as Facebook has a budget for hiring. The first two may try to spin a story about how they need to spread that budget farther because of $narrative, but really all they're doing is trying to pay you less money for your work.

Notice how they're not "not able" to pay market rate for things like power, rent, office furniture, and phone service to the building. Those things are only different from developer talent in that they are not willing to negotiate their rate down because of a story.

Developers should take a page from their book.

roystonvassey 9 years ago | |

The 'market' isn't a homogeneous entity that has a single objective. There are enough folks who are motivated by other factors than just the paycheck.

As someone who has worked in non-profits, startups and corporations, the experience of working with non-profits, for me, was great because of the people and the nuanced challenges they work to solve. It was the happiest phase of my life/career so far.

sharemywin 9 years ago |

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-...

phaus 9 years ago |

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.)

cguess 9 years ago |

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.

lithos 9 years ago |

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.

NetStrikeForce 9 years ago |

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! :)

reallymental 9 years ago |

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.)

francamps 9 years ago | |

Thank you! We are paying a liveable wage for London and are pretty flexible on many fronts, and the satisfaction and passion for the work we do covers the rest of it (at least for me).

I am confident there are people who find the combination reasonable and think similarly, so hopefully we'll be able work that out.

aynsof 9 years ago |

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!

mrmondo 9 years ago |

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.

StavrosK 9 years ago | |

Did you mean "communities", or are Communists really that hard up in the states?

mrmondo 9 years ago | | |

Hahaha I most definitely meant communities, thank you for pointing that out! Damn autocorrect...

rwhitman 9 years ago | |

Any advice for someone looking to work in the NFP space?

1_listerine_pls 9 years ago |

- 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.

AlwaysRock 9 years ago |

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.

rwhitman 9 years ago |

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...

pug_compiler 9 years ago | |

I feel much the same; in part I'm starting to feel like that because what I'd hoped would be a great tool for breaking down barriers and communication just seems to have accelerated our consumption and been coopted for things like ads and propoganda.

Part of the problem I think is some/a lot of people (that might otherwise entertain a more ethical career choice) have mortgages/family and don't have the luxury to take a pay hit to work for a NPO.

gnocchi 9 years ago |

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.

roystonvassey 9 years ago |

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.

JamesBarney 9 years ago |

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...

noshbrinken 9 years ago |

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.

debacle 9 years ago |

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.

seattle_spring 9 years ago |

> 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?

downlode 9 years ago |

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.

_throwaway2017_ 9 years ago |

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.