Instead of the "hard problems" of writing numerical integral routines in quantitative finance, the author chooses to try doing something for less fortunate peop

Instead of the "hard problems" of writing numerical integral routines in quantitative finance, the author chooses to try doing something for less fortunate people in poorer countries. I'd argue the latter is far more difficult! Mathematical problems, while maybe complex, are usually well defined, whereas social problems are never straightforward. The author even admits that the app ended up being more helpful to bad actors than to the intended benefactors. If the claim in this piece is "you don't need to work on technical problems, you need to work on social problems" then I could agree. I believe there is pretty much an ethical imperative, for anyone with the freedom of choice in their work, to choose to work on social problems of poverty, climate change, etc. But these are far from being easy problems!