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Ask HN: Are there any software jobs in nature/animal conservation?

• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Razengan 6y ago
  I don’t know of any opportunities, but if anyone’s taking ideas for products in this domain then I would like an app or website that links volunteers with animal shelters, farmstays and other places that could use a few extra hands. It could be like a combination of Airbnb and Couchsurfing etc. that serves a specific niche.
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    https://www.workaway.info https://www.workaway.info is what you're looking for
    • Razengan 6y ago
      Thanks. From a quick scan of the site and their safety information page, it seems they do not handle payments between users like Airbnb does, or do they? And since they require an upfront membership fee, has anyone here used Workaway? How was your experience?
      • petargyurov 6y ago
        Yes, the membership fee is a bit annoying but I paid because my girlfriend and I were planning on volunteering abroad - then the pandemic hit. So I haven't actually done one of these workaways. > it seems they do not handle payments between users Most of the offerings you will find on there will only provide you with housing, maybe food, in exchange for labour. Some do pay, but I strongly suspect that it is in cash.
        • Razengan 6y ago
          > Most of the offerings you will find on there will only provide you with housing, maybe food, in exchange for labour. Some do pay, but I strongly suspect that it is in cash. Ah I do not require payment for myself, I just thought some hosts may request payment for accommodation or the initial moving-in costs (paperwork etc.)
• thedevindevops 6y ago
  What country is this?
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    I am in the UK but I am willing to relocate.
    • dougmwne 6y ago
      I would not bother with the US if you would need work visa sponsorship. No non-profit I've ever worked with ever had the resources to do that. You might have better luck with consulting where they don't need to relocate or sponsor you.
• ellissd 6y ago
  A few years ago Bret Victor wrote a long and wonderful essay lamenting the lack of attention to climate change in the tech industry. No specific job opportunities, but it's a wonderful read about how technologists can contribute to solutions. http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/
• roncanepa 6y ago
  Start investigating biodiversity informatics. There are a lot of different aspects in this space: genomics, georeferencing, image processing for feature extraction, etc, as well as typical distributed systems infrastructure.
  • pknerd 6y ago
    As a Python developer I once used BioPython for rNA/DNA related data exploration and liked it. Could not figure out how I could explore this niche further due to lack of domain knowledge and a clear path.
• rgovostes 6y ago
  Your website says you studied science and have built software for spreadsheets and for 3D printing. I work with oceanographers. There are many who get by with rudimentary programming skills but love the help of developers who can help them build tools to analyze and disseminate their data. They love spreadsheets because they don't know how to make databases. Having mechanical or electrical engineering or CAD skills helps them design enclosures for instruments, having software skills helps them add autonomy. However it is not a field where, at least as I've seen, engineers have free rein to improve processes simply for the sake of improving them. You are right that research funding is tight and in most of the world it is getting tighter. Right now many projects are burning through funds while scientists babysit their kids; the research vessels are only now trying to resume operation.
• ericvanular 6y ago
  Check out https://enviro.work https://enviro.work! I'm the founder and created the site because I felt similarly to you. Aligning personal values and your career is a great feeling
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    Thanks! From a cursory look I can't see anything that immediately applies to me but it's a good resource to find companies. Will take a deeper look later.
  • emddudley 6y ago
    None of these seem to be software jobs though.
  • probinso 6y ago
    thanks
  • reustle 6y ago
    Nice work! May I suggest adding a more detailed page title? When I send or bookmark it, it just says "latest jobs"
• jbob2000 6y ago
  Nature and animal conservation is a political issue. The best use of your skills would be to aid in the lobbying efforts for tighter regulations and more money for developing countries. You might save a tiger, but in the year it took you to save him, Brazil cut down 8 million hectares of the rain forest for palm oil.
  • havelhovel 6y ago
    Lobbyists require data. Existing wildlife laws require enforcement. Political support requires mobilization. All of the above can be helped by smart, enthusiastic developers. If more people help out, we can save the tiger and the forest.
    • jbob2000 6y ago
      All of this requires political support. You can't collect the data if you are not allowed to or if your results are silenced. Enforcement requires political will, otherwise the criminals never get prosecuted or flee to their home countries. Until we get "the establishment" to care about this, doing any work in this field is simply for vanity or to make you feel good.
      • havelhovel 6y ago
        > doing any work in this field is simply for vanity or to make you feel good Making blanketing, dismissive claims about everyone who works in a specific field is a great way to end the conversation.
  • jefurii 6y ago
    Why is this downvoted? We need people to do the actual work but we also need people to support the political projects to enable people to do the actual work.
    • havelhovel 6y ago
      I assume it was downvoted because it attempts to reduce a complex issue down to a single dimension while providing nothing of substance for the OP. It's also misinformed, by creating the false dichotomy of saving a tiger or saving a forest, and by ignoring that wildlife conservation is a lightning rod for public support that leads to wider initiatives.
• hprotagonist 6y ago
  If you’re in the UK look at SMRU. http://www.smru.st-andrews.ac.uk/ http://www.smru.st-andrews.ac.uk/ active group, good work, and they’re a semi-commercial autonomous wing of st. andrews.
• iicc 6y ago
  https://oceanmind.global/careers/ https://oceanmind.global/careers/
• jamil7 6y ago
  Remote sensing is being used as a tool to help fight deforestation by a few startups and tech companies. There aren't many jobs yet as I think it is still mostly an academic area but it's something to look into.
• msrpotus 6y ago
  Check out Tech Jobs for Good: https://techjobsforgood.com/?q=&impact_areas=Environment&impact_areas=Food+%26+Agriculture https://techjobsforgood.com/?q=&impact_areas=Environment&imp... Big NGOs also need technical people, too. Check out the Humane Society, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Compassion in World Farming, etc. They aren’t going to be the highest paying jobs and there are all sorts of downsides but it’s a way to use your skills to make a difference in the world.
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    That looks interesting, thanks!
  • fock 6y ago
    scrolling through the non-JS accessible adverts: it's like 80% of (probably VC-funded) startups offering some vision of "we are making the world a better place" for their usual, "crappy" (yes, they are also advertising) capitalists dream of: - "aggressive ROI goals" [https://techjobsforgood.com/jobs/3172/ https://techjobsforgood.com/jobs/3172/]
  • balladeer 6y ago
    Many would just need, at least me, a decent salary for sustaining comfortably (in my case that would be fine in just 50% of my CTC or even less) but a stellar medical insurance (yeah, I want that covered!) and work-life balance which also includes being treated and respected as a human being.
• jefurii 6y ago
  It's most certainly better for your soul, but get ready to take a pay cut. After a short career in game development and a much longer career in museum/library/archives, my take is that our societies values are out of whack: the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. You'll also take a hit in your reputation among other developers, most of whom seem to have gone into it for money and don't seem to care whether or not their labor is doing anything to benefit society. Good work is still worth doing of course. You just have to count the work itself as one of the benefits. "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation."
  • linuxftw 6y ago
    > the more your job benefits your community and the planet the less you will get paid, and vice versa. It's even worse for social services. In a free market economy, this is an entirely false statement. People pay for the things they value. They more they value it, the more they pay. Compare the amount of hours spent playing video games to the amount of hours spent touring museums. It's not close. People value video games much more greatly than museums. Just because you value certain things more than others doesn't give them any intrinsic value.
    • 9wzYQbTYsAIc 6y ago
      Tragedy of the commons
    • fock 6y ago
      well, if museums would drive the same marketing campaigns (read propaganda or simply media based manipulation), this might easily change... Also generally the amount of time you can spend in museums is somehow limited, as most don't allow you to be active (like videogames do in a sort of lobotomied way). As for your example: if you compare the amount of time people play in bands/sing in choirs (often without any direct money involved, e.g. around church or school) you've got an obvious example that people don't naturally "pay more for the things they value" (or see the need to pay or get payed at all). I value this very much and if someone was coming up and saying: pay up, I'd say - come on guys, let's do this on our own.
• de_watcher 6y ago
  You mean making conserves?
• pvaldes 6y ago
  It depends on the country, probably. I would suggest you to assure first a well paid job and use your free time for volunteer activities. Nobody should be doing science before 50 Yo. Not at this moment when postdocs are being paid 300 euro/month. Is committing economical suicide and starting a family first and having kids should be your priority. About oceanography. If you can read spanish (if not, you can always google-translate it) you may find interesting this recent piece of news. https://elpais.com/ciencia/2020-06-30/dimite-la-cupula-del-mayor-organismo-oceanografico-de-espana.html?rel=lom https://elpais.com/ciencia/2020-06-30/dimite-la-cupula-del-m... Your mileage may vary
  • fock 6y ago
    you missed two 0s for our postdocs annual net salary. But hey, generalization is so great. And while I understand that in most parts of the world, it's paid a lot worse and you might have problems making ends met, I don't really get, how you want to solve these problems (interlinked with nowadays capitalism) by getting more kids (wow, just 30t of CO2/year more "output") and helping the 1% redistribute an even larger fraction of the wealth to themselves (which are imho the only really "richly"-paying jobs.)
    • pvaldes 6y ago
      Some people want to have kids
      • fock 6y ago
        yes? if you want to have kids by 30, a PhD probably isn't right for you. A career in science might as well probably not work out. So what, not everyone needs to procreate?!
        • pvaldes 6y ago
          Do I need to sacrifice my children to have the privilege to be allowed to solve your problems? Okay. Good bye, science.
• nico_h 6y ago
  There is this development company that’s doing good work (the “improve people’s live in developing country kind of development”): https://catalpa.io/work-with-us/ https://catalpa.io/work-with-us/ They are based in East Timor and were founded by an Aussie and an American (U.S.) and they allow remote work.
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    That looks very interesting, thank you. And they need a backend dev!
• linuxftw 6y ago
  > However, I've been wondering if there is a demand for software in these projects? No, there's not a demand for software in this arena. All this stuff is dominated by grants and politically charged funds.
• dougmwne 6y ago
  Yes there are jobs and yes the non-profit industry needs your talents. Software jobs in the industry fall into one of 4 buckets in my experience. Don't expect much career growth or pay. Most of the work is in support of fundraising. Be willing to work at a vendor that serves the non-profit industry. - Web development. Nonprofits need websites. Sometimes they may have a dev on staff, usually they at least have a digital director that can work with devs at web dev vendors. These vendors are usually solely focused on the non-profit market. - CRM. Non-profits fundraise and they need people to manage the donor database. Usually this is bought from a vendor that specializes in non-profit CRM and those vendors also have devs/DBAs. - IT. Non-profits need IT to manage networks, phones and equipment. Often they work with IT vendors. - Devs for conservation work. This is more rare. Still, some non-profits have staff scientists, GIS people, and devs to build out conservation tools, such as data collecting apps, data visualizations or other things. This is rare because most non-profits are trying to convince the government to do the science because the government has much more money and power to recruit. It's rare and maybe a bit of a vanity project to do any science out of the non-profit, though there are a couple of groups that do that.
  • jefurii 6y ago
    In my personal experience working in nonprofits there is a tendency for organizations to have the actual technical work done by vendors rather than staff unless the work is central to the mission of the organization. There's a feeling that this is cheaper than trying to hire and maintain staff with those skills.
    • dencodev 6y ago
      It may be less about it being cheaper, and more that you know what your budget is for a given year but perhaps not what it is three years from now. You can spend this year's budget with confidence and not worry about having to lay off your dev staff next year when donations dry up. It also requires management expertise to manage a software building team - not something a lot of non-profits have.
      • 6y ago
• mistrial9 6y ago
  Bay Area listing service, world scope? http://www.greenjobs.net/ http://www.greenjobs.net/ ps- contact them and help with the cert!
• mepiethree 6y ago
  Not sure about preserving nature and animals directly, but there are lots of software jobs in clean energy (I'm hiring SWEs for Kevala right now). These could indirectly have a big impact on preserving nature via slowing climate change.
• thenickb 6y ago
  It's a bit of an adjacent field but there are many tech jobs in Animal Rights. You could check out https://thehumaneleague.org https://thehumaneleague.org or https://mercyforanimals.org https://mercyforanimals.org. You could also dive into the world of Effective Altruism which is broad and has a lot of tech related jobs. Check out https://80000hours.org https://80000hours.org and https://www.gfi.org https://www.gfi.org
• nhhoxf 6y ago
  Hey, we are working on this www.bexbox.cc Drop me an email at nhh@downforce.com. We don't have a framework for hiring at the moment but might do very soon.
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    I've sent you an email :)
• digitalutopia 6y ago
  Find a grad student working on research projects in the field. Every area of focus will have different requirements but almost all wildlife related field work involves some form of data entry that involves transfer from data in a notebook to excel or some CAD program. Challenges include no access to cell data, wet environments, battery management, etc. That being said, if it cuts down on tedium, most researchers will find a way to pay for it. I've seen a plant identification app disrupt the process of species identification with field guides. I suspect that there are a lot of tedious classification projects that professors assign to undergrad researchers (find photos with wildlife) that can be entirely automated.
• KineticLensman 6y ago
  Some tangentially relevant observations based on volunteering at a raptor conservation trust in the UK. The trust maintains a visitor park that provides bird displays and experience days for the general public. The gate takings and donations fund conservation activities in the UK (raptor nest boxes, bird hospital, bird surveys) and overseas activities (e.g. reducing poisoning of wild birds by game poachers). The Trust itself is very much an outdoor organisation, with key staff supporting bird care and site infrastructure. There is a small back office that supports ops, marketing and merchandising, using COTS software. Academic research is conducted but in conjunction with local universities, which is where data crunching, etc, happens. There are a small number of on-site student placements, primarily for those in biology / zoology courses, and the placement activities seem fairly practical in nature. I suspect that most similar organisations follow a similar pattern, with a relatively small COTS software footprint and a focus on practical tasks rather than software development / data analysis. That said, I started volunteering to support an office-based marketing function: management of a massive photo library and video editing to support marketing and outreach functions. After six months of doing this, COVID-19 happened and most office staff started WFH, with office-based volunteering suspended because it involves hot-desking. When the park started to reopen, I switched to COVID-related activities such as queue management (‘space marshal’) and cleaning. Although some tasks are menial, I’ve learned much more about how the trust works on a daily basis and I’ve got to know the key bird staff much better. One of my key insights, as an ex-software professional, is how much I didn’t know about how conservation actually works, and how specific conservation organisations actually operate. But getting hands-on with some of the less glamorous tasks is a good apprenticeship and a way of building trust in the industry, if you have a long-term interest in directly supporting conservation.
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    Thanks, that was insightful and encouraging.
• dencodev 6y ago
  I applied to and was interviewed for a non-profit in the area that serves to connect volunteers with non-profits that need their help. Maybe they just really didn't like me in the interview (I didn't get that impression at all) but even offering my senior software developer skills for free to any non-profit, I have not heard back with anyone wanting my help and it's been months.
• walleeee 6y ago
  Not exactly conservation, but there's plenty of computational work (and funding!) in plant biology. I do web development and data engineering for plant phenomics automation in a plant bio lab. Crop optimization (e.g., for abiotic stress resistance, reduced fertilizer requirements, atmospheric carbon sequestration, yield) basically requires digital surveillance infrastructure on the same scale we've (regrettably) developed for humans, except for plants. Nobody really understands how phenotypes develop as a function of genetic, physiological, and environmental factors; but we need to if we want to maintain the viability of agriculture in the face of climate change etc. You won't get paid like you would in a more traditional software development position, but it's enough to live on. Let me know if you'd like more information.
  • pknerd 6y ago
    I am interested to know details but I am in Pakistan. I work (Ed) on multiple technologies but mostly python these days for ETL and automation. Learning Go too. Check out http://adnansiddiqi.me http://adnansiddiqi.me
    • walleeee 6y ago
      Hi Adnan. Unfortunately I'm only familiar with the situation in the U.S. Pakistan may have different agricultural practices and a different funding landscape. Here are a few links about the motivation and current state of the art if you want to read more. [0]: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5967/818 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5967/818 [1]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pce.12107 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pce.12107 [2]: https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/66/18/5429/482901 https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/66/18/5429/482901 [3]: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1360138511002093 https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S13601385110020... [4]: http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.114.243519 http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.114.243519 There is a ton of software-oriented work involved, from robotics and embedded devices in the field, to data engineering (containerizing and automating pipelines in grid, cloud, and HPC environments), to web development (creating research portals), to simulation of growth processes and modeling yield as a function of genetic/physiological/environmental factors, etc. Python is very widely used for all of the above. Go not as much, but Singularity (Docker for HPC, basically) is written in Go iirc. If you want to discuss more let me know and I'll contact you directly.
• grawprog 6y ago
  When I was working in that field any 'software development' I did was alongside everything else I did. Most of that was online database and website work and some scripts to make analyzing data easier. I still spent far more time doing field work, writing reports and hustling for grant money though.
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    May I ask where that was? That sounds like a good deal to me, to be honest with you - I don't mind getting my hands dirty - it breaks up the monotony of development sometimes.
    • grawprog 6y ago
      It was in bc in canada. It was after I finished school. I went to school for fish and wildlife management and ecological restoration. That was actually our own project we'd gotten some grant money to run for a couple years. All the programming and stuff I know is self taught. I've been learning since I was a kid. It's mostly something I do for fun though. I make small games and little apps for myself and stuff. I'd recommend looking for local parks and stuff with conservation activities going on and volunteer. There's a lot of volunteer work involves in that kind of work because money is scarce, people do it because they care. While I was in school, I volunteered many hours with the conservation group at a local park. Helped them around their office and with their computer stuff, some data analysis and reportinv, as well as on field counts and other things. I led a few teams of other volunteers and we had our own slot with some volunteers for our own study we were doing as a school project with the park. Those kinds of groups are always looking for help though. There's always lots to do, with never enough people or money. I know volunteering may not seem as appealing, but volunteers, especially good ones are usually first in line for job openings when they do eventually appear.
• joefreeman 6y ago
  I'm about to start at Optimal (in London). It's not exactly conservation, but I like to think it's not far from it. Some details on the Who's Hiring post [1]. Best of luck otherwise. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23702401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23702401
• abawany 6y ago
  This is not directly answering your query but you might sometimes be surprised at the positions available at major companies that work towards your goal of nature conservation. For example, I had a stint at Siemens working on an project that managed customer site environments. This meant doing things to help them conserve energy and helping them save money by reducing power waste. I am guessing Siemens doesn't come to mind as an environmental pioneer in spite of their work on wind power, etc. but there you are: it was functionally one of the more gratifying jobs I had.
• ForHackernews 6y ago
  There are several startups working on conservation/anti-poaching initiatives using image recognition and/or drones. https://airshepherd.org/ https://airshepherd.org/ https://wildlifeprotectionsolutions.org/ https://wildlifeprotectionsolutions.org/ https://observer.com/2017/05/artificial-intelligence-can-stop-elephant-rhino-poaching-in-africa/ https://observer.com/2017/05/artificial-intelligence-can-sto...
• seltzered_ 6y ago
  A few thoughts: - https://4returns.earth/network/job-listings/ https://4returns.earth/network/job-listings/ is in the regenerative ag space - lists some tech jobs if you search for them. (e.g. try https://4returns.earth/network/job-listings/?searchval=developer https://4returns.earth/network/job-listings/?searchval=devel... ) - Conservation is only one area, and the term 'conservation' itself is a frame I've been more critical of after reading papers like https://www.uv.es/jgpausas/papers/Pausas-Millan-2019_BioScience_Mediterranean-Basin-changes.pdf https://www.uv.es/jgpausas/papers/Pausas-Millan-2019_BioScie... which have been making me think some of the problems we have might be more with abandoning land for the city. Another frame of thinking about about is how/where you want to live and go from there - I'm really questioning whether one should live in "today's society" - that doesn't mean going off-grid entirely but living in a way that's local/bioregional oriented.. - I'm skeptical of the tech-focused effort on only looking at co2 because it doesn't account for the other problem areas (google "planetary boundaries framework" to learn about biodiversity collapse/nutrient flows and how those are much bigger problems), but there's the airminers folks: http://www.airminers.org http://www.airminers.org . Again, while this falls more in the tech frame I'm not sure I'd spend time on it. - While I disagree with some of the recommendations around 'effective altruism', it's another path worth considering if your survival requires making money at the moment. You could say, work at a mapping or weather-related company spend then leverage the experience later on for more direct action. At the moment I haven't quit my dayjob yet but am taking an "Ecosystem Restoration Design" course (https://www.gaiaeducation.org https://www.gaiaeducation.org), donated to various things, and participate in a study group around these topics (https://earth-regenerators.mn.co https://earth-regenerators.mn.co) and feel like that so far has helped in developing a perspective before jumping into anything. - almost forgot, Patagonia's Action Works seems to have a really good platform for finding tech volunteering on environmental projects: https://www.patagonia.com/actionworks/ https://www.patagonia.com/actionworks/
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    Thanks, that's very useful! Will read through those links. > developing a perspective before jumping into anything Probably the biggest takeaway here, for me. Each domain is more complex than it appears on the surface.
• fiftyacorn 6y ago
  I worked on a forestry grant platform for a while. It was interesting, but at the end of the day it was the same software problems I solve everywhere else
• probinso 6y ago
  droneseed inaturalist Cornell ornithology lab eesa Caltech JPL USFWS MBARI blue point conservation science NOAA Sitka technology group conservation x labs sail drone uw escience institute greenridge sciences Oregon carbon m science (marine research) Tortuga agtech conservation metrics
  • petargyurov 6y ago
    Thank you for listing these. It's a great starting point.
    • probinso 6y ago
      I always find it easier to find companies once I have a list to work from, even if they're not in the geographic area that I'm looking for
• hkiely 6y ago
  I would have to imagine a large amount of work in the animal conservation space would be in the hardware market.
• gulato 6y ago
  I wouldn't say I "write software" but I have a computing job in the field of animal/landscape ecology research with a pure CS background. I guess I'd say it's part scripting ETL type jobs, some parallel processing stuff, and ... I guess I'll call it DevOps to keep it short. Make friends with people in national-level government organizations (whatever would be most like USGS wherever you live) or university "geomatics" type people. A good start would be those involved with remote sensing (satellite [radar or optical]/drone/other sensors). These are the people that know of or are sitting in these types of jobs. If you want a web dev type job find a way to get experience with scripting for ArcGIS Portal.