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Attendees packed into the Los Altos Community Center for a Careers in Conservation job fair last week. The scene was emblematic of California’s employment market in 2026: job seekers are packed shoulder-to-shoulder and face lines to speak to prospective employers.
The March 6 job fair was hosted by Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. Roughly half of the 800 attendees were younger, entry level job seekers – the demographic commonly expected at a job fair. But a subset of those present – around 24% – were looking to transition into conservation jobs.
It was Midpen’s first-ever career fair, according to public affairs specialist Eleanor Raab, who said the organization was pleasantly surprised by the degree of interest. Around 30 conservation partners attended the fair, including nonprofits like the Palo Alto Open Space Trust, indigenous groups like the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and environmental consulting firms such as Stillwater Sciences. Midpen also aimed to highlight the broad range of careers that are needed in conservation organizations: field work and ecology-focused employees, of course, but also communications, human relations and finance.
“We decided to put on this career fair basically just to raise the profile of conservation jobs in general throughout the Bay Area,” Raab said. “I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of amazing conservation- and environment-related jobs that are available in this region.”
Midpen is a unique form of government called an “independent special district,” which is a multi-county agency that preserves a green belt of more than 70,000 acres of open space. Raab suspects that some of the career-changers in attendance were tech professionals looking to ditch screen fatigue for careers that serve the environment.
“We do have a good chunk of people who moved from tech careers to working for [Midpen] because they wanted to work for a mission-driven place and because they were burnt out with their tech jobs,” Raab said. “We’ve inferred that there’s a chunk of folks that are looking to do something similar at the career fair.”
Vinay Patel is a former tech employee who attended Friday’s job fair. He worked on Meta’s Metaverse team until was laid off in January, alongside thousands of other employees in the Reality Labs division. Patel now seeks a role with a larger purpose, and one that doesn’t involve desk work.
“I want to be outside, and I want to do something useful and meaningful, and that contributes in a positive way,” Patel said. “Ideally, something where I can actually see the fruits of my labor.”
In his previous tech roles, Patel said employees were seen as dispensable. Patel worked for seven years at Meta and had stints at other technology companies before that. Company executives were prone to capricious changes in the priorities of the company, Patel said. The Metaverse, for example, was once described as the future of Meta.
“From now on, we will be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first,” Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a 2021 founder’s letter which helped announce the company’s rebrand from Facebook to Meta. The company is now focusing on its wearable technology and artificial intelligence, the Wall Street Journal reported after the January layoffs that impacted Patel.
Patel said there was a “constant threat of being fired” while working in the tech industry. When the day of his layoff came, Patel described the news as freeing.
In recent months, companies like Amazon, Salesforce and Block have laid off thousands of employees, citing artificial intelligence tools as a reason for its workforce reduction.
“That felt like it reinforced my decision to not keep trying to plug away right at this castle that does not want you in there, at least not for long.” Patel said, referring to Block’s February layoffs. “I think [for] more and more people, their eyes are being opened to the reality of how harmful these companies are, and the golden handcuffs become less and less worth it every day.”
Conservation careers are just one of Patel’s possible next moves. With a financial safety net, Patel has the ability to explore options. In the short term, he’s considering getting a part-time job as a barista.
Sarah Araya is a current Midpen employee who made the transition from the technology industry to government. For 10 years, she worked for Meta, DocuSign, and a cybersecurity firm in procurement. Three years ago, she saw a similar role at Midpen. She applied and had a smooth recruiting process. The whole thing happened organically, she said.
“I thought.. ‘I don’t know if I want to be in tech anymore,’” Araya said. “My heart and soul felt like I needed something different.”
Since transitioning to Midpen in 2023, Araya said she’s kept in contact with her former colleagues in the technology industry. Many of them seem to be seeking a career change.
“It seems like a lot of the folks in tech are looking for more stability,” she said. “They’re looking for an opportunity where they can do some greater good, where they can work with the community.”
It’s difficult to say with certainty what prompted so many people to attend Friday’s job fair. It could be a tight market that is making all jobs competitive, regardless of industry. It could be layoffs that are driving former tech employees to other industries, or reduced hiring opportunities as more companies turn to artificial intelligence.
But one thing seems clear: there is interest in conservation jobs. Raab noted that some of Midpen’s social media posts advertising the career fair went touched a nerve, with one Instagram post garnering 4,500 likes.
“There are a lot of comments on those posts expressing that people are super excited to see that there’s something for the Bay Area to highlight something other than tech jobs,” Raab said.
