I understand that you want to do something with impact and also that you love programming so combining the two could actually be desirable. I am more or less a programmer (40 years+) and have also run a business. Business involved making more money but a great deal of really boring stuff. How about looking to make an impact in solving a serious problem which requires programmer? (and science organisations immediately spring to mind). My title is actually “Senior Scientist” but I live most of the day in my programming environment. People present me with endless interesting problems to solve though I admit to being for more taken by “interesting” than “impact”—let the funders sort that out. Stuff I do is bridging high level mathematical models with real life what-a-computer-can-actually-do and do it with all the limitations in the data. Numerical analysis (which is boring to learn but kinda fundimental) and stats are key there. So maybe look to what key science problems that have impact are and what is needed to work on them?
I understand that you want to do something with impact and also that you love programming so combining the two could actually be desirable. I am more or less a programmer (40 years+) and have also run a business. Business involved making more money but a great deal of really boring stuff. How about looking to make an impact in solving a serious problem which requires programmer? (and science organisations immediately spring to mind). My title is actually “Senior Scientist” but I live most of the day in my programming environment. People present me with endless interesting problems to solve though I admit to being for more taken by “interesting” than “impact”—let the funders sort that out. Stuff I do is bridging high level mathematical models with real life what-a-computer-can-actually-do and do it with all the limitations in the data. Numerical analysis (which is boring to learn but kinda fundimental) and stats are key there. So maybe look to what key science problems that have impact are and what is needed to work on them?