Help us accelerate the transition to a zero-emissions future.

Job openings

We’re currently looking for a full-time writer as well as freelance contributors. 

Job description

  • Do journalist-quality research
    • Read through reports by organizations like NREL, EIA, and other agencies with lots of acronyms to uncover interesting data about energy efficiency
    • Find trustworthy data on how much energy certain appliances use, energy efficiency alternatives and potential savings
      Aggregate data on costs and prices for energy efficiency upgrades
  • Come up with story ideas
    • Come up with story ideas based on what could save homeowners the most energy and money
    • Use SEO tools like Ahrefs to identify what keywords to target
    • Look at news websites and blogs to identify opportunities to pitch guest articles
  • Write data-driven, comprehensive articles
    • Write stories that distill complex information into simple, comprehensive articles that inspire people to act
    • Add content to the website using WordPress
    • Distribute content on social media and pitch content to reporters and bloggers that might be interested in citing our research in their stories

Examples of content you’d be writing
Energy insecurity and COVID-19
Want to lower your electric bill? Start with your water heater
Hybrid Heat Pump Water Heater Buyer’s Guide

What we’re looking for

  • Experience writing high quality content quickly
  • Experience writing about complex topics (no “10 tips for xyz” style content)
  • Experience doing journalistic or academic-quality research (i.e. you’re not scared of reading a government report or peer-reviewed paper)

Bonus points for

  • Experience developing content and SEO strategy
  • Experience creating images, simple data visualizations and multimedia content
  • Experience writing for high traffic blogs and publications

Time commitment
We’re looking for both part-time writers and a full-time writer to lead our content creation.

Compensation
In addition to early stage equity in the company, we pay competitive freelance rates and salaries

How to apply
Please send an email to michael@carbonswitch.co with a few relevant samples of your work (articles, case studies, etc) and how many hours a week you’re interested in working with us (e.g. full-time or 10 hours per week)

 

About our company

To many people, water heaters and HVAC systems might seem boring. And at the surface, they are. But the appliances and infrastructure in our homes use a lot of energy, which in turn means that they emit a lot of CO2. In fact, 25% of your carbon footprint is your home’s energy use. And most of that comes from a few places (like your air conditioner and water heater).

By 2050 the average home in America is going to need to be 50% more energy efficient than it is today if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. But ask the typical homeowner how to actually achieve those energy and carbon reductions and you’ll get a blank stare.

For other large sources of carbon like cars and diets people know about solutions like electric vehicles and plant-based foods. For home energy use? Not so much.

We believe that this communication gap is a really big problem and we’re on a mission to solve it. That’s why we’re building guides and tools to help home and building owners dramatically reduce their energy use and in turn reduce energy bills and carbon footprint. You can think of us like a modern day Consumer Reports or a Wirecutter for energy efficiency.

 

A note from our founder

As one of the first people on the team you’ll be working closely with me, Michael Thomas. I can promise that you’ll learn a lot working with me since I’ve sold a company, started another company that makes $1m per year in revenue, published stories for magazines like FastCompany and Quartz, and worked for companies like Stripe, Dropbox, and Asana.

Your work will also be read by large audiences since our work at Carbon Switch has been featured by Time, NPR, CNBC, and many other outlets.

Here are some stories I’ve written and recent coverage of Carbon Switch’s research:

Stories I’ve written
A profile of Kickstarter and history of the benefit corporation
SpaceX is cribbing from Boeing’s 1920s playbook
A plane crash, a glacier and an entrepreneur

Coverage of Carbon Switch’s research
CNBC
Quartz
Time Magazine