They’re offering 150% of the average US income during a recession with 9% unemployment as starting salary for a potentially entry-level position doing satisfying creative work for an organization that could actually improve the world. I like money as much as anyone else, and I would fight for this job if I weren’t otherwise engaged. If my hunt for residency positions this summer falls flat, I might still try to fight for it.
There’s no indication that this is entry-level. Also, if you look further on that page, you’ll see that the median full-time employed person over 25 years of age with a Bachelor’s degree in the US makes $56k/yr. My read of the position description leans towards college grads given some of the qualifications that they want. If you look at overall median household incomes in the Bay Area, you’ll see that they top $74k/yr depending on the county of choice. Given the way that full-time vs. part-time seems to skew the data, I still say they’re undershooting for their area of the country.
Don’t sell yourself short. Unless you’re willing to forgo income now for the possibility that the movement needs you now, perhaps it will be better off if you go and make a lot more money with your skills, improve the world through some different work, and give as much of your income as you don’t want or need to SIAI instead.
FWIW, I disagree with bbarth’s assessment of your prospects. SIAI seems to do good things to bright folks like yourself, and I think you’d both benefit from the arrangement.
It’s not a question of SIAI not being good enough for Yvain, it’s a question of whether they might both do even better if he pursues something else. It clearly sounds like he’s pursing a different path than joining SIAI now, so he must have done at least some of the math. He’s in med school according to his webpage, so I suspect his prospects for helping the cause might be higher if he does well as a doctor and sends every dime he doesn’t need (say his salary as a doctor less $36k/yr) to SIAI. It certainly seems like it might be a waste of his current efforts to drop his medical aspirations and become a curriculum producer at SIAI, but I might be suffering from a form of the Sunk Cost Fallacy here.
Thanks to the magic of guilds, all new trainee doctor jobs in the US start on July 1st*. If I don’t get a job by then, I will probably have to wait until next July and find something to occupy me and provide me with money for a year. Hence my comment that I would be interested if my job search fell flat.
Even though it doesn’t look like it sometimes, I do give at least five minutes thought to most of my major life decisions.
*which is why some people have very reasonably argued that you should avoid hospitals at that time of year.
Ooh, my wife was just talking about a large study that apparently did not support this claim (using administrative data, I think). I’ll find out the title when she wakes up and post a link.
They’re offering 150% of the average US income during a recession with 9% unemployment as starting salary for a potentially entry-level position doing satisfying creative work for an organization that could actually improve the world. I like money as much as anyone else, and I would fight for this job if I weren’t otherwise engaged. If my hunt for residency positions this summer falls flat, I might still try to fight for it.
There’s no indication that this is entry-level. Also, if you look further on that page, you’ll see that the median full-time employed person over 25 years of age with a Bachelor’s degree in the US makes $56k/yr. My read of the position description leans towards college grads given some of the qualifications that they want. If you look at overall median household incomes in the Bay Area, you’ll see that they top $74k/yr depending on the county of choice. Given the way that full-time vs. part-time seems to skew the data, I still say they’re undershooting for their area of the country.
Don’t sell yourself short. Unless you’re willing to forgo income now for the possibility that the movement needs you now, perhaps it will be better off if you go and make a lot more money with your skills, improve the world through some different work, and give as much of your income as you don’t want or need to SIAI instead.
FWIW, I disagree with bbarth’s assessment of your prospects. SIAI seems to do good things to bright folks like yourself, and I think you’d both benefit from the arrangement.
It’s not a question of SIAI not being good enough for Yvain, it’s a question of whether they might both do even better if he pursues something else. It clearly sounds like he’s pursing a different path than joining SIAI now, so he must have done at least some of the math. He’s in med school according to his webpage, so I suspect his prospects for helping the cause might be higher if he does well as a doctor and sends every dime he doesn’t need (say his salary as a doctor less $36k/yr) to SIAI. It certainly seems like it might be a waste of his current efforts to drop his medical aspirations and become a curriculum producer at SIAI, but I might be suffering from a form of the Sunk Cost Fallacy here.
Thanks to the magic of guilds, all new trainee doctor jobs in the US start on July 1st*. If I don’t get a job by then, I will probably have to wait until next July and find something to occupy me and provide me with money for a year. Hence my comment that I would be interested if my job search fell flat.
Even though it doesn’t look like it sometimes, I do give at least five minutes thought to most of my major life decisions.
*which is why some people have very reasonably argued that you should avoid hospitals at that time of year.
Ooh, my wife was just talking about a large study that apparently did not support this claim (using administrative data, I think). I’ll find out the title when she wakes up and post a link.