Comments/suggestions:

• If you care about earning a living wage, compare the two very, very carefully. Think about separating 'How do I make a living?' from 'How do I get to do what I love?'
• There are extremely few 'conservation tech' employment opportunities; it's a field mostly driven by solo entrepreneurs and startups
• Actually understand the conservation challenges before diving into the tech opportunities
• Learn some business finance basics to speak the language of funders. EG conservation tech is great as an unnecessary labour replacement, meaning the funding dollar goes further
   

Hi Martin.

I agree with Doug. Because conservation technology is early, there are few job opportunities available for it and probably even more difficult to find entry level or early career engineering jobs. 

I would look at the specific areas you are interested in, ie: camera traps, drones, remote sensing, etc. Then look for commercial careers in that area and what that career path looks like. For example, if you like drones, look for opportunities with drone companies where you can learn the nuts and bolts about how drones are built, manufactured, and flown.  In that way, it's possible to work towards conservation and volunteer to help on projects, while having a stable income. 

Aim for a commercial career path, with the idea that some of the skills you learn can be used in a conservation context as well. There are many areas of electrical engineering that would benefit conservation technology, ie: power electronics, analog circuits, digital electronics, FPGA, wireless, embedded, the list goes on. So my advice is to focus on the fundamentals and get to a high level of proficiency in what you're interested in. Then you have more freedom to dabble in conservation tech and decide if you want to fully transition into it. 

Akiba