I'm a programmer. A few months ago, I decided to find a job in a company that somehow helps fight global warming.
Google immediately led me to Bret Victorâs article â
What can a technologist do about climate change? â. The article helped me navigate my search as a whole, but still turned out to be part of an outdated, part impractical in details. Therefore, I had to do the bulk of the rough work of finding and organizing opportunities myself.
The goal of this post is to save your time if you also think about working against climate change, and also list as many directions as possible.
I added this post to the hub âIT-emigrationâ, because in Russia (just like Ukraine and Belarus) there are practically no IT-businesses built on the idea of ââreducing and / or decarbonizing the economy. The only noticeable exception that I could find was
Avito . You can check their
vacancies ;)
Specialized job search sites and message boards
The main problem with finding a job that would help fight climate change is that there are simply no normal sites aggregating all (or at least any significant part) of relevant vacancies. There is
www.climate.careers , but only a microscopic fraction of all relevant vacancies is represented there. But the attempt is not torture, you can start from this site.
There are several more similar sites:
environmentalcareer.com ,
Climate Change jobs (IISD Community) , but the coverage there is even less than
climate.careers .
A few more sites with "green" vacancies specifically on the German market are listed in the
checklist compiled by Pedro Oliva.
If you are considering seed-level startups, AngelList has a matching selection of
angel.co/clean-energy .
The
ClimateAction.tech community in Slack has a vacancy feed. To be added to the group, you need to fill out
this Google profile . The advantage of the group is that many of the vacancies that slip through there are able to work remotely, which, in general, is very rare in the companies listed below in this post. I must say right away that the only such relatively mature and large company whose
vacancies are clearly designated as deleted are
Rail Europe (formerly known as Loco2).
Unfortunately, as I already mentioned, all of the above resources with vacancies - a drop in the bucket. To find something worthwhile, with a good match in your skills, and also that the company is ready to relocate you (or with a remote) - get ready to walk a lot on the websites of companies, look at sections with vacancies and write them âcoldâ letters about relocation and udalenka, if itâs not written about anywhere (as will most often be).
So the next question is where to look for these same companies?
A good place to start looking for jobs in mature companies in the clean energy market.
Awards and Associations
The second source is various industrial awards and associations in the field of clean technologies:
In addition, there are a huge number of green awards and awards in the field of environmental protection: google environmental awards only to find several
meta-lists of such awards, including a
category on Wikipedia . True, I doubt that through them you can find some interesting work options for programmers and engineers: there is more about planting trees in Africa and campaigning for using the small flush button in the toilet than about technology.
Perhaps there is a little more sense to see awards in certain relevant industries, for example,
FoodTech or
Smart Grid . All similar business branches known to me are listed below in a post.
Listed companies operating in the British market. The catalog is compiled by
Regen .
Energystartups.org
Energystartups.org is an independent website with listings of startups in renewable energy and optimization. The lists are very fragmented and sometimes irrelevant (which, however, is a common problem for all resources: otherwise this article would not have been necessary). But on the site you can quickly see the largest companies by specialization: solar energy, wind, electric cars, etc. since startups are sorted by investment size.
Large companies / startups have several advantages over small ones:
- There is a great chance that they will really make some contribution to the decarbonization of the economy, and not just burn the money of investors and close (which means that your efforts for N years in the literal sense simply warmed the planet)
- The ceiling of personal contribution (influence) within the framework of a large company is greater, since there is already a large customer base, operating volume, etc.
- Large companies often offer relocation
There are also disadvantages to small start-ups: more stringent rules (regarding the working day, remote work, internal procedures), outdated technologies, and low efficiency are more common. Small startups have a chance to participate in the formation of a good engineering culture for years to come.
However, there is nothing specific for companies in the energy sector, everything is like everywhere else.
Learning Speakers at Clean Technology Conferences
We open the lists of speakers at the past CleanTech events and see where they work:
More events can be found on the
International Cleantech Network website and in
this blog post .
Companies by industry
If all of the above ways to find an employer did not lead you to interesting vacancies, you can begin to search "deep" for specific industries.
For each of the sectors, you can:
Look for industrial awards, âtopâ lists, associations, conferences - in other words, use all the same techniques as above, but for specific industries, such as solar energy or Smart Grid.
Do not forget to just google "% fieldname% companies" or "% fieldname% startups". For example, try "
delivery drone companies ". Optionally, you can add the country: "solar startups netherlands".
Use chrunchbase.com to search for companies by category. In free mode, Crunchbase only shows the top 5 companies in each search, but if you patiently narrow your search to mutually exclusive filters, you can actually get around this limitation. For example, if you take the AgTech (âagricultural technologyâ) field, you can start with companies
headquartered in Silicon Valley , then look at companies
headquartered outside the United States , etc.
At Crunchbase, each company has a CB Rank rating, the lower the better. In experience, companies with ratings below 20,000 are almost certainly rubbish. If a simple filter by category and location doesnât allow you to âget to the bottomâ of all companies that deserve attention, you can âpartitionâ further, for example, by the year the companies were founded:
The Crunchbase blind spot is that it is the directory of individual startups. For example, during my search, I missed a nice start-up
Tiko Energy (they are looking for Haskell programmers!) Because after Engie took over its CB Rank, its CB Rank fell to a very
low value .
Look for
professional market reviews . Google "% fieldname% industry report", "% fieldname% landscape", or "% fieldname% market analysis". For example, if you are interested in smart home technologies, try
smart home market analysis or smart home industry report. Professional market reviews are the source of the highest quality and relevant information. Unfortunately, they are rarely available for free, and almost never without confirmation on the so-called. business e-mail, i.e. the box is
not on a public service like Gmail.
The business areas listed below are sorted based on how directly business activities affect the balance of CO
2 in the atmosphere.
Direct carbon dioxide extraction from the atmosphere
This âbusinessâ is, so far, in the literal sense, air charges, but regulators are simply obliged to make it profitable if we do not want to warm the planet more than 2 degrees from the pre-industrial level.
A good signal is
Stripe's promise to invest in capturing CO 2 from the atmosphere at any price .
Examples of companies:
Carbon Engineering ,
Climeworks ,
Global Thermostat .
Planting trees : a natural way to extract CO
2 :) In this area,
DroneSeed is worth mentioning.
Solar power
Categories at Crunchbase:
Solar ,
Renewable Energyenergystartups.org/top/solarenergySome large companies:
SunRun ,
Sunnova .
Wind power
Categories at Crunchbase:
Wind Energy ,
Renewable Energyenergystartups.org/top/windenergyThe largest producer of wind turbines is
Vestas . In Russia there is a company
NovaVind .
Other renewable energy
Crunchbase categories:
Clean Energy ,
Nuclear ,
Biofuel ,
Biomass Energy ,
Renewable Energy ,
Energyenergystartups.org/top/nuclear-energyenergystartups.org/top/waste-energyExamples of Western companies:
Statkraft ,
Enerkem .
In Russia, of course, there are
Rosatom and
RusHydro .
Energy storage and batteries
Crunchbase Categories:
Energy Storage ,
Battery ,
Fuel Cell ,
Energy Managementenergystartups.org/top/energystorageenergystartups.org/top/batterySome large companies in this area:
Tesla ,
Bloom Energy ,
Stem ,
Northvolt .
Specifically, Northvolt (a company with $ 1 billion in funding) is hiring a
data architect and
data engineer with cloud experience in Stockholm to build a data infrastructure with a bias in IoT / analytics. A vacancy with the possibility of relocation - checked personally, because I spoke with them.
Crunchbase categories:
Power Grid ,
Energy Efficiency ,
Energy Management . You can combine one of these categories, or simply âEnergyâ with âArtificial Intelligenceâ, âPredictive Analyticsâ, âMachine Learningâ, âInternet of Thingsâ, or âSaaSâ to narrow your search. For example, see
Energy + AI .
energystartups.org/top/energy-savingenergystartups.org/top/energy-iotCompanies:
Itron ,
Enbala ,
Dexma ,
Actility ,
gridXSmart grid and energy exchange trading
The contribution of companies in this area to the fight to reduce CO
2 emissions may not be as direct as the contribution of companies in some areas listed below. I simply put this category next to other âenergyâ categories.
Charles River Associates'
An assessment of the economic value of demand-side participation in the Balancing Mechanism document provides a good overview of the market (with examples of specific companies).
energystartups.org/top/smartgridIn Europe in recent years there have been a lot of IT startups in this area. Examples of companies:
Landis + Gyr ,
Aclara ,
AutoGrid ,
Centrica Energy Trading ,
Enel X ,
Limejump ,
Moixa ,
Origami Energy , the aforementioned
Tiko Energy .
In
this post there is a good picture that outlines the landscape of the market.
We should also mention the
blockchain for power systems . According to GreenTech Media, as of March 2018,
there were at least 122 companies in this narrow direction only! There is a specialized
blockchain2energy conference on this subject. You can also check out the combination of
Energy + Blockchain tags on Crunchbase.
The notable Russian startup
Insolar makes the blockchain more general-purpose, but also promotes its
use in the energy sector .
Green energy suppliers
Large holding companies in this area:
E.ON ,
Engie ,
Innogy ,
Centrica .
Report prepared by Prospex Research Ltd. surveys the top 20 companies in Europe in terms of energy supply.
Between large companies and consumers there is still a layer of distributors who compete with each other, including the convenience and efficiency of digital services, so they actively hire programmers:
OVO Energy ,
Bulb ,
Ecotricity ,
Octopus Energy ,
Xcel Energy ,
HolaluzHeating, ventilation and air conditioning
energystartups.org/top/hvacenergystartups.org/top/heatingenergystartups.org/top/coolingExamples of companies:
Aeris ,
Honeywell ,
tadoSmart home, smart buildings
Crunchbase Categories:
Smart Home ,
Smart Building ,
Green Buildingenergystartups.org/top/smarthomeenergystartups.org/top/smart-buildingSome notable companies:
Nest ,
ecobee ,
Leanheat ,
Carbon Lighthouse ,
BidgelyOptimization of production and supply chain
Crunchbase Categories:
Manufacturing ,
Industrial ,
Industrial Automation . You can also combine one of these categories, or simply Energy with Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, or SaaS to narrow your search. For example, see
Industrial + Predictive Analytics .
energystartups.org/top/enterprise-energyExamples of companies:
o9 solutions ,
Stottler Henke ,
Flexciton ,
SparkCognition ,
Sight MachineElectric transport
Crunchbase Categories:
Electric Vehicle ,
Automotiveenergystartups.org/top/electric-carsSome large companies:
Tesla ,
NIO ,
Rivian ,
ProterraElectric planes : it is still difficult to call this direction a practical, real business, but it must become one if we want to continue traveling around the earth for hours. See a comparison of modes of transport for CO
2 emission rates in
this material .
Pioneer Companies:
Lilium ,
EviationExchange of used things
Companies in this area are helping to reduce excess consumption.
Examples:
OLX ,
letgo ,
OfferUp ,
Avito . In some countries,
Ebay is more used as a direct sales channel (that is, it works more for overclocking than for reducing consumption), in some it is used as a platform for announcements about the sale of used things.
Foodsaving
A lot of information about foodsaving (food sharing) in Russian can be found in the
diary of Yana Frank .
Check out
Karma and
Too Good To Go vocations.
Cargo and delivery optimization
Crunchbase Categories:
Freight Service ,
Shipping ,
Logistics ,
Supply Chain Management ,
TransportationCompanies:
Convoy ,
Freightos ,
Flexport ,
EinrideEfficient regional transport
BlaBlaCar and
FlixBus are the two largest companies in this field. Both hire a huge number of IT people.
The trains
The train is the most âlow-carbonâ mode of transport over long distances. In addition to national carriers (Russian Railways, Ukrainian UZ, Belarusian Railways, Deutsche Bahn, etc.), it is worth noting the same
FlixBus (operating FlixTrain trains) and
The Boring Company .
There are two online businesses specializing in the
sale of train tickets :
Trainline and
Rail Europe (as mentioned above, the only company in this post that is clearly remote).
Fleet management
Crunchbase Category:
Fleet ManagementExample companies:
Wunder Mobility ,
BestmileElectric bicycles and scooters
It must be borne in mind that this area can be
overheated and not require more working hands right now.
Crunchbase Category:
Last Mile Transportationenergystartups.org/top/electric-bikeLargest companies:
Lime ,
Bird ,
Skip Scooters ,
Uber's New MobilityPersonal Mobility Optimization
Categories Crunchbase:
Navigation ,
Public Transportation . Perhaps the largest company in this sector is the Israeli
Moovit .
Agricultural Optimization
Crunchbase Categories:
AgTech ,
Agriculture ,
FarmingExamples of companies:
The Climate Corporation ,
Indigo AGConstruction optimization
Crunchbase Category:
ConstructionExamples of companies:
Procore ,
PlanGridLocal offline delivery
Nuro (on the road) and
Starship (on the sidewalks) are the two leading companies in the area.
Drones
Delivery by drones should be more efficient (in terms of energy consumption) than any type of delivery on land. Drones also have interesting applications in the fields of agriculture and tree planting (see
DroneSeed ).
Crunchbase Categories:
Drones ,
Drone ManagementSome companies:
Zipline ,
FlytrexSmart city
Crunchbase Categories:
Smart Cities ,
GovTechenergystartups.org/top/smartcityExamples of companies:
Sidewalk Labs ,
Worldsensing ,
SpacemakerEnergy and climate analytics, data collection and reporting
Examples of companies:
Wood Mackenzie ,
Sustainalytics ,
T REX ,
Tomorrow
Search for similar companies
If any of the companies mentioned above, or any other, seemed to you a very interesting option, it makes sense to also look at its direct competitors and similar companies in other countries. The following services may come in handy in this: