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Honestly, I think the most effective thing to do is find an organization doing social good, who is hiring programmers, and go work for them. There are plenty of

Honestly, I think the most effective thing to do is find an organization doing social good, who is hiring programmers, and go work for them. There are plenty of non-profits and governments that do a ton of good, and employ developers to work on their web sites and infrastructures. A good friend of mine is a developer for the ACLU, for example. There are also organizations like Code for America that do open source work with local governments. Since those projects are open source, you could probably volunteer your time and contribute to those. Or simply volunteer in a non-developer capacity! :) Doing actual social good -- helping people in ways that will actually solve their problems, understanding the consequences of changing their lives -- requires a ton of context and communication. I think it's very, very difficult to do so without either dedicating most of your time to that cause, or working closely with an organization that is already doing so. (E.g., volunteering for a food bank is a lot more effective than just picking up food and distributing it on your own.)

simplicitea 9y ago
Thank you for the Code for America recommendation, checking them out now
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of Code for America, has been making the rounds lately. Good conversations on both the Econtalk podcast [0] (which I know is an HN favorite) and the Long Now Foundation [1]. Procurement sounds absolutely awful at the federal level; she makes a compelling case for how needed modern software design and development processes are in providing effective and cost efficient government services. [0]http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/05/jennifer_pahlka.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/05/jennifer_pahlka.htm... [1]http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/feb/01/fixing-government-bottom-and-outside/ http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/feb/01/fixing-government-b...
- oddlyaromatic 9y ago
  Through the Code For Atlanta group I was able start a project with MARTA to make some things better about paratransit customers' access to up to date ETA info for their rides, which is currently a pain point for many customers. The code for America idea is awesome and stuff really does happen!
  - astrange 9y ago
    MARTA seems like they could use some hardware donations - for years the "next train" screens were broken and the announcement speakers on the station platforms were totally unintelligible. Maybe a better use of time would be starting a guerrilla group that fixes their stuff without asking?
scelerat 9y ago
I agree with this comment. A friend of mine is a programmer taking a year off of work to volunteer for a refugee aid organization to analyze and improve their databases. It's important work, not necessarily sexy, but helps these organizations do their work. In the end he's likely to emerge a better programmer along with a body of domain knowledge. It helps to actually be passionate about the field.
- vijayr 9y ago
  can you share the organization name?
wchest 9y ago
This. There are many incredible organizations doing great work in the code for good space, and not solely in the non-profit or government sectors. I’ll second the reference to Code for America. I have a colleague who did their fellowship and learned a ton while working with some great local governmental agencies. They’ve also recently launched a job board to curate high impact mission-driven jobs and jobs with local government entities: https://jobs.codeforamerica.org/ https://jobs.codeforamerica.org/. I’d also encourage looking at B-Corps: https://www.bcorporation.net/ https://www.bcorporation.net/. These are for-profit companies that include positive social impact alongside profit as determinants of success. I work at TechChange, which is a B-Corp. If education and capacity development are your passions, we at TechChange are building a SaaS learning platform that empowers organizations around the world to make their training more effective. We are working hard to push the limits of traditional online learning and are looking for talented folks to help us achieve this goal: https://www.techchange.org/careers/ https://www.techchange.org/careers/.
- daguar 9y ago
  Hi! I lead engineering on Code for America's work building services improving the social safety net, so happy to answer any questions. I'd also mention that we're hiring directly for teams at CfA building large-scale services serving the most vulnerable Americans. My team works on radically improving access to the food stamp program, a massive anti-poverty program, but one with only about 65% of eligible Californians enrolled — we've found a lot of that gap is because the process is really difficult. If you apply in California, this is the online experience — 200+ questions, 50+ screens, a lot of confusion: http://citizenonboard.com/snap/ca/#2 http://citizenonboard.com/snap/ca/#2 So we operate a much easier online application which is mobile-first (~50% of search traffic for "food stamps") and which takes on average 8 minutes to complete — you can try it out at https://demo.getcalfresh.org/ https://demo.getcalfresh.org/ And we're hiring: - Senior Engineer (Ruby/Rails, TDD, pairing): https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=502640 https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=502640 - Product Manager: https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=652829 https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=652829 We also have a superb team working on safety and justice, namely with the goal of safely reducing incarceration. For example. They operate services that: - Make it much easier for people to clear their records when the law allows (invaluable for re-entry and getting jobs) - Allow case & probation workers to text with folks in the justice system and help them do the pre-trial diversion things that keep them out of jail/prison and help them with resources They're also hiring for a Senior Engineer role: https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=525208 https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=525208 Happy to answer any questions about these!

simplicitea 9y ago

Thank you for the Code for America recommendation, checking them out now

germinalphrase 9y ago
Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of Code for America, has been making the rounds lately. Good conversations on both the Econtalk podcast [0] (which I know is an HN favorite) and the Long Now Foundation [1]. Procurement sounds absolutely awful at the federal level; she makes a compelling case for how needed modern software design and development processes are in providing effective and cost efficient government services. [0]http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/05/jennifer_pahlka.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/05/jennifer_pahlka.htm... [1]http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/feb/01/fixing-government-bottom-and-outside/ http://longnow.org/seminars/02017/feb/01/fixing-government-b...
oddlyaromatic 9y ago
Through the Code For Atlanta group I was able start a project with MARTA to make some things better about paratransit customers' access to up to date ETA info for their rides, which is currently a pain point for many customers. The code for America idea is awesome and stuff really does happen!
- astrange 9y ago
  MARTA seems like they could use some hardware donations - for years the "next train" screens were broken and the announcement speakers on the station platforms were totally unintelligible. Maybe a better use of time would be starting a guerrilla group that fixes their stuff without asking?

scelerat 9y ago

I agree with this comment. A friend of mine is a programmer taking a year off of work to volunteer for a refugee aid organization to analyze and improve their databases. It's important work, not necessarily sexy, but helps these organizations do their work. In the end he's likely to emerge a better programmer along with a body of domain knowledge. It helps to actually be passionate about the field.

vijayr 9y ago
can you share the organization name?

wchest 9y ago

This. There are many incredible organizations doing great work in the code for good space, and not solely in the non-profit or government sectors. I’ll second the reference to Code for America. I have a colleague who did their fellowship and learned a ton while working with some great local governmental agencies. They’ve also recently launched a job board to curate high impact mission-driven jobs and jobs with local government entities: https://jobs.codeforamerica.org/ https://jobs.codeforamerica.org/. I’d also encourage looking at B-Corps: https://www.bcorporation.net/ https://www.bcorporation.net/. These are for-profit companies that include positive social impact alongside profit as determinants of success. I work at TechChange, which is a B-Corp. If education and capacity development are your passions, we at TechChange are building a SaaS learning platform that empowers organizations around the world to make their training more effective. We are working hard to push the limits of traditional online learning and are looking for talented folks to help us achieve this goal: https://www.techchange.org/careers/ https://www.techchange.org/careers/.

daguar 9y ago
Hi! I lead engineering on Code for America's work building services improving the social safety net, so happy to answer any questions. I'd also mention that we're hiring directly for teams at CfA building large-scale services serving the most vulnerable Americans. My team works on radically improving access to the food stamp program, a massive anti-poverty program, but one with only about 65% of eligible Californians enrolled — we've found a lot of that gap is because the process is really difficult. If you apply in California, this is the online experience — 200+ questions, 50+ screens, a lot of confusion: http://citizenonboard.com/snap/ca/#2 http://citizenonboard.com/snap/ca/#2 So we operate a much easier online application which is mobile-first (~50% of search traffic for "food stamps") and which takes on average 8 minutes to complete — you can try it out at https://demo.getcalfresh.org/ https://demo.getcalfresh.org/ And we're hiring: - Senior Engineer (Ruby/Rails, TDD, pairing): https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=502640 https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=502640 - Product Manager: https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=652829 https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=652829 We also have a superb team working on safety and justice, namely with the goal of safely reducing incarceration. For example. They operate services that: - Make it much easier for people to clear their records when the law allows (invaluable for re-entry and getting jobs) - Allow case & probation workers to text with folks in the justice system and help them do the pre-trial diversion things that keep them out of jail/prison and help them with resources They're also hiring for a Senior Engineer role: https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=525208 https://www.codeforamerica.org/jobs?gh_jid=525208 Happy to answer any questions about these!