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> I don't think the market for ecologists in the private sector is super hot right now. You might be surprised to know that there's a fairly big environmental

> I don't think the market for ecologists in the private sector is super hot right now. You might be surprised to know that there's a fairly big environmental consulting sector. It's serious stuff. Multi billion dollar construction projects can be derailed by the discovery of e.g. a particular kind of unique beetle. I don't know what it's like in the US, but I have met some people in the sector in Australia and they do real work, they're ok with it, they do it with integrity - nobody gets asked to "bury" things. Of course, they DO get asked by their customers what the absolutely cheapest possible way to (legally) solve their problems might be :)

loudmax 2y ago
A close relation of mine worked for a decade in the environmental consulting sector. In his case that meant a lot of long working hours and tedious research finding the cheapest possible legal solution. He was kind of miserable at this job. He wasn't asked to bury things or hide anything, but he had studied environmental engineering because he wanted to make the Earth a better place, not to work out the limit of meeting legal responsibilities. I suspect a lot of his misery would have been mitigated if his employers paid a higher salary, but that's what the market demand was for those skills.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  > He wasn't asked to bury things or hide anything, but he had studied environmental engineering because he wanted to make the Earth a better place, not to work out the limit of meeting legal responsibilities. This is an unfortunate reality of much of the private sector, not just environmental engineering. You get into career X in order to [build interesting stuff | solve problems for the world | improve life for your customers], but instead end up in endless discussions with managers and lawyers, deciding what is the bare minimum the team needs to do in order to comply with the exact wording of the contract, while spending the least money.
- xyzzy123 2y ago
  Yeah heaps of paperwork folks - not all office work though - there are also plenty of people who just work on the land and do surveys etc.

loudmax 2y ago

A close relation of mine worked for a decade in the environmental consulting sector. In his case that meant a lot of long working hours and tedious research finding the cheapest possible legal solution. He was kind of miserable at this job. He wasn't asked to bury things or hide anything, but he had studied environmental engineering because he wanted to make the Earth a better place, not to work out the limit of meeting legal responsibilities. I suspect a lot of his misery would have been mitigated if his employers paid a higher salary, but that's what the market demand was for those skills.

ryandrake 2y ago
> He wasn't asked to bury things or hide anything, but he had studied environmental engineering because he wanted to make the Earth a better place, not to work out the limit of meeting legal responsibilities. This is an unfortunate reality of much of the private sector, not just environmental engineering. You get into career X in order to [build interesting stuff | solve problems for the world | improve life for your customers], but instead end up in endless discussions with managers and lawyers, deciding what is the bare minimum the team needs to do in order to comply with the exact wording of the contract, while spending the least money.
xyzzy123 2y ago
Yeah heaps of paperwork folks - not all office work though - there are also plenty of people who just work on the land and do surveys etc.