[phaus]

Not a software engineer, but my perspective might be useful.

My current job contributes positively to society, but I would love to have a job like this. Long ago, I joined the military because I naively thought we could help put a stop to human rights abuses around the world (too young and stupid at the time to realize we were only going to make things worse). So, this would be something of a dream job for me. I would even do it for a compensation package that's slightly below market rate. However, I couldn't justify either to myself or my family, financially crippling the rest of my life by taking a job significantly below market rate with little or no benefits. If I could do it all over gain, if I were young and single I would much rather have spent my military years working for an organization like yours. However, I have too many responsibilities at this point.

On a positive note, I think if you found a way to establish some kind of a part-time volunteer effort, many people would be willing to help for free. It might be difficult to manage, but I think it could work. I'd even be interested in volunteering at least a few hours a week (although my coding skills are approximately at the level of an intern.)

[Osmium]

> My current job contributes positively to society, but I would love to have a job like this.

Seconded. You [the OP] don't give numbers in your post, but I would jump at a job like this. Having lived in London for several years, whatever wage you're offering would have to be at least liveable, but I (personally) would happily accept significantly less than a big tech company knowing that the work was important and impactful in a very real sense, and suspect many other people would also. Honestly, if I were still in London, I would love to apply for this: "complex visual tools for analysis" sounds just like my sort of thing.

To make this advice more actionable: perhaps you're best looking for academics/PhDs with programming experience, since they tend to be both more idealistic and accustomed to lower pay (this is a little cynical but sadly true, having come from this background myself). There is huge variability in programming ability amongst PhDs however (again, speaking from first-hand experience), but on the plus side many will have the other skills you need (knowing how to effectively distill and visualise complex information is often at the very heart of a good science PhD).

[francamps]

Thanks a lot for your advice, this is great. Former academics / PhDs are good pool of people with wonderful skills (I didn't finish my own PhD, but I know the environment). Some PhDs might hopefully also be more attuned to the social problems like the ones we are looking into, so we will definitely be considering that.

The challenge we could have is more on looking for usability and frontend expertise, considering the type of tools we want to build, and these are not necessarily in the programming skillset you grow during a PhD (generally more about data analysis / engineering, but of course it depends on the line of work).

Anyways, thanks for the suggesting though.