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Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

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Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#291

Post by 0xDEADFED5 »

infamouscow wrote: post #175
retrac wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume they're suggesting create a false identity, and pose as a foreign national illegally living in the United States. It's a rather ...unconventional suggestion, that clearly was not thought out. There is a high risk someone doing that ends up stateless, i.e., with no documentation or paperwork establishing citizenship in any country. The US may arrest such a person at the border - and then imprison them - and t…

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will happily reply to emails explaining exactly what I said is what in fact happens. You don't have to travel to Arizona or Texas to see it first-hand. Rather than constructing an imaginary straw man detached from reality, please try to reply to the comment and the facts with external links to refute the information. I'm more than happy to provide further counter-factual information…

according to [0] the government collects fingerprints from asylum seekers. huge surprise, i know. this probably renders your "idea" moot.

[0] https://help.asylumadvocacy.org/faqs-biometrics/

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#292

Post by 300bps »

phpisthebest wrote: post #248
300bps wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An assault charge is likely relevant for most positions. If I hire a convicted felon with a track record of assault and they end up assaulting another employee or customer, I’d feel responsible. The victim would probably hold me legally responsible. I’d feel more comfortable hiring someone with a 100% track record of never having been convicted of assault. If you disagree, is there any number of assault convictions t…

Based on your response you most likely are not using Assault in the legal sense but in the Common Sense, but given the topic is legal in nature we should be using legal definitions. Assault act of causing someone to reasonably fear imminent harm, what most people think of Assault they actually mean what the law calls battery which is actually causing physical harm. Further I am not sure why we are focusing on Assault…

Legal definition of both assault as well as battery is state dependent.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#293

Post by keepamovin »

bombcar wrote: post #220
jcims wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to suggest looking into an LLC. I ran a security consulting company for about ten years and the only customers that asked for background checks were banks and some federal agencies.

And there are even some customers that’ll happily pay a bit more when they learn you’ve been roughed and tumbled.

What does that mean?

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#296

Post by throwaway17_17 »

Ubergeek99 wrote: post #294

[flagged]

Assault is a pretty broad thing, given all the enhancements that can be stacked onto it. There are at a minimum felony assault statutes for threats involving a weapon, threats involving specifically a firearm, threats involving protected characteristics, then there are the laundry list of ‘threats’ (often vaguely defined) against police, emergency personnel, government officials, etc all of which are typically felony charges in a majority of US states and federal jurisdictions.

In my experience dealing with convicted felons, depending on location, there is a real problem in securing interview with real people who have hiring authority who you can actually offer up the details which present your conviction in the best light and offer explanations and clarifications of said conviction.

OP may have just been broad in the description of the conviction to imply a conviction for something that did not actually involve violence, while keeping the extraneous details to a minimum. I think your admonishment to ‘not exaggerate’ was a bit unwarranted and certainly came across as condescending when written in text.

Also, the above is not legal advice.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#297

Post by throwup238 »

smsm42 wrote: post #285
busyant wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the super-illegal (but "grey morality") thing he did I'm curious to know what he did given your description. I can think of examples of the reverse: quasi-illegal, but quite immoral.

Drugs? Contraband? Tax evasion? Insider trading? Industrial espionage? Any process crime like "lying to a fed"? If you think about it, we have tons of laws that don't fit into the mold of "hurting specific people" - which would definitely be "black morality" to me - but are more of either "preserving the system as it is" or even "we said it's illegal and so it is". I'm not saying none of those should exist, but I def…

I agree, I just wouldn’t trust a felon to make an unbiased determination about the morality of their actions. The only item on your list that I would say is mostly gray area is insider trading - the rest are very much case dependent. A weed dealer might be gray area but someone who peddles crack cocaine is not.

Most people like to think they are good, even when presented with hard evidence that they’re not.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#298

Post by wyclif »

keepamovin wrote: post #293
bombcar wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there are even some customers that’ll happily pay a bit more when they learn you’ve been roughed and tumbled.

What does that mean?

It means that having that kind of background isn't necessarily a negative.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#299

Post by alt2319 »

Yes. I have a federal felony conviction for fraud involving a computer, against a former employer. Good times.

I've worked for 2-4 companies since then, depending on how you count acquisitions. I've even been trusted to write code that has touched a lot of financial transactions for customers. I doubt I would have been able to stay employed if I didn't have some dedicated advocates, mostly at the CTO level.

At my last (very small) company, my background never even came up. No check at all.

I've also spent a few years scraping by as an indie mobile developer with up to 15 apps in the different stores. With just a bit of a corporate shield, nobody even needs to know who you are.

In the software/IT field, I've met and even worked with plenty of people with criminal records. Multiple DUIs. Two that were convicted of vehicular manslaughter or something similar. Plenty of drug offenses.

You may want to check out Underdog Devs. You're likely too experienced for their mentee program but at one time they had a good list of tech companies willing to hire people with criminal records.

Re: Ask HN: Any felons successfully found IT work post-release?

#300

Post by wyclif »

jph wrote: post #158

I worked at 70 Million Jobs (YC) to help people with records get jobs. Here's my advice FWIW. Your experience in security operations is in demand, so that's a big plus for you. Seek work that you can do via external environments, meaning you don't need to be on-site, and don't need to have internal access. Ideally you can create an LLC so you can work for yourself. A few examples... 1. Doing compliance-oriented secur…

Not a felon, but this is a valuable reply. I'm finding it tough breaking into security operations and DevSecOps even though I have a clean record, but because of the fact that I'm a US citizen living offshore now. Seems like a lot of roles they want on-site in the US. (I'm currently in an APAC time zone). I'm wondering if that's true or if it's just a possibly wrong impression I have about the industry.
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