LessWrong user weighs research career vs $100k yearly donation to EA

A LessWrong user (alias "Master Chief") with a mechanical and electrical engineering degree is weighing two career paths from an Effective Altruism (EA) perspective. The first path is becoming a professor or researcher tackling neglected scientific problems outside 80,000 Hours' priority areas — such as advanced manufacturing, alternative energy storage, or cryptography. The second path is taking a higher-paying role, specifically an ML engineer earning ~$400k/year with decent work-life balance, then donating around $100k annually to support researchers working on EA's most important cause areas like biosecurity, AI policy, and animal welfare.

The core question is whether direct personal research impact in a non-EA field can be replaced by funding one additional researcher in an EA-priority field through donations. The author notes that $100k/year could fund a PhD student, but the funded student might not become a professor or work on neglected problems. The tradeoff is framed as contributing directly to a non-EA field versus funding a replacement researcher in a major EA cause area. The post explicitly calls for rigorous online discussions, posts, or quantitative analyses that address this comparison. As of now, no comments have been posted, making it a fresh request for community input.