How can I convince talented engineers that this kind of work is important and worth doing?
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.
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.
So yeah, we're all happy to help. 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.
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.
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.
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-...
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.)
Seconded. You [the OP] don't give numbers in your post, but I would jump at a job like this. Having lived in London for several years, whatever wage you're offering would have to be at least liveable, but I (personally) would happily accept significantly less than a big tech company knowing that the work was important and impactful in a very real sense, and suspect many other people would also. Honestly, if I were still in London, I would love to apply for this: "complex visual tools for analysis" sounds just like my sort of thing.
To make this advice more actionable: perhaps you're best looking for academics/PhDs with programming experience, since they tend to be both more idealistic and accustomed to lower pay (this is a little cynical but sadly true, having come from this background myself). There is huge variability in programming ability amongst PhDs however (again, speaking from first-hand experience), but on the plus side many will have the other skills you need (knowing how to effectively distill and visualise complex information is often at the very heart of a good science PhD).
The challenge we could have is more on looking for usability and frontend expertise, considering the type of tools we want to build, and these are not necessarily in the programming skillset you grow during a PhD (generally more about data analysis / engineering, but of course it depends on the line of work).
Anyways, thanks for the suggesting though.
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.
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! :)
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.)
I am confident there are people who find the combination reasonable and think similarly, so hopefully we'll be able work that out.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Just post on the jobs thread once you are ready to hire and I think you should be good.
Also all the things all developer wants in a job like flexibility, autonomy etc...
Why not? CEOs of non-profits often make competitive wages. Why shouldn't the worker bees?
