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Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

underdogdevs.org

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Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#81

Post by navd »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #63
auslegung wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, all of this come from fear of not being able to make a living as a programmer in 10 years Caveat: I'm in the USA, so what I'm about to say may only apply here. I don't know the market for software engineers outside the USA. In 10 years, you and I will have 10 more years of experience than we do now. We will probably be twice as valuable to a company. Anyone who joins the field today will forever be behind us i…

Does experience matter in technology that much?

Yes but from the frame that the amount of diff problems you experience matters. Not your 10 years of experience solving 1 set of problems

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#82

Post by klik99 »

nomdep wrote: post #8

Are developers the new blue-collar workers? I haven’t seen a similar program for aspiring lawyers, doctors or accountants. Aren’t we too eager to commoditize the profession?

Someone who fixes cars isn't the same as someone who builds prototypes, despite the fact they both know their way around engine parts. Lumping all developers into the same category is just as ridiculous. There are blue collar development jobs, doesn't mean all developers are blue-collar workers.

The equivalent for doctors would be nursing programs, and I'm pretty sure there are similar programs for nurses - like developers, there are a lack of nurses right now.

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#83

Post by AlwaysRock »

nomdep wrote: post #8

Are developers the new blue-collar workers? I haven’t seen a similar program for aspiring lawyers, doctors or accountants. Aren’t we too eager to commoditize the profession?

Good lord this hurts to see. Writing html and css isn't surgery or arguing a case in court. However many similar programs exist for paralegals and accountants. I don't think there are a lot of jail to rocket science programs but coding isnt rocket science.

Is scaling a high performance financial platform that needs to have .000001 downtime simple? No. Is this program trying to train anyone to do that? No. There are plenty, and I'd argue the majority, of software jobs that are pretty simple and can be picked up by most folks with average intelligence and interested/effort.

Aren't we too eager to gatekeep the profession?

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#84

Post by RickWolter »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #66

Although I support the idea, the web site seems a bit … sparse … to me. This is an area that I know well. I’ve been working with folks like this for decades. One huge problem with rehabilitation and reentry programs, is a fairly significant level of sketchy behavior. Many times, these efforts start from a good place, but fall victim to corruption. It’s difficult to work with folks that have criminal backgrounds, but…

Hi founder of Underdog Devs here....

1. The website is sparse because we spend our money on the mentees bills and so relied on those learning to build it.

2. As for orgs having a "fairly significant level of sketchy behavior" and falling victim to corruption, as you put it...sounds like a lot of speculation. I cant know either of those assertions as I dont have any data on it. I only know what we are doing.

3. I disagree that it's difficult to work with folks who have criminal backgrounds. I do agree that there are some who have no interest in changing.

4. The site doesnt conflate “disadvantaged” folks with ex-cons. Read it again. It says OR. Meaning you can come from either.

5. You say ex-cons are a subset of disadvantaged people and then you mention they face "radically" different challenges than folks who suffer from things like poverty, prejudice, and lack of opportunity. They face legal discrimination but thats the only difference. The vast majority of inmates come from lower socio-economic backgrounds so they face very similar obstacles.

If you have any more questions reach out rick@underdogdevs.org or join an info session some time.

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#85

Post by zactato »

pbourke wrote: post #59
endisneigh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh goodness, there's a lot to unpack here. >You literally directly contradict yourself. You link to two pages that have absolutely nothing to do with getting formerly incarcerated people into law/medicine, then immediately concede that there isn’t an effort to do so because they’re not welcome in those fields. I linked to the two respective institutions that lobby for physicians and lawyers respectively. They cannot…

> failure to perform leads to more severe consequences as compared to tech. When “we” (people who write code) fuck up, things like this can and have happened: - people die of radiation poisoning (Therac 25) - cars crash (Toyota unintended acceleration, Tesla autopilot fails) - rockets explode (Ariane 5) - hundreds of millions of dollars are lost (Knight Capital) - the financial information of millions is exposed (Equ…

Isn't this why we have unit testing, code review, CI?

Also most of us aren't working in these industries. Most software developers build consumer apps for buying stuff or serving ads.

All of Facebook was just down from a single error. No one died.

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#86

Post by AlwaysRock »

xamolxix wrote: post #76
ThrowTeenFelon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not alone! It's going to take a movement to raise awareness about felons not being a Protected Class, and the legalized-discrimination that implies. The way I usually phrase it is: "What would you do if you were black/hispanic/asian and someone said: 'Yeah there's nothing technically WRONG with you as an applicant. 'But we just don't really house/hire YOUR KIND around here. Just policy, nothing personal, sorry…

You are conflating "the way you are born" with "something you've done" e.g. something you can't choose with something you can.

To be fair a massive amount of people end up with felony records based on bullshit, trumped up charges, or laws that now seem insane (selling small amounts of drugs which are now legal).

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#87

Post by RickWolter »

shadycuz wrote: post #56
tossit24 wrote: post #53

I am a person with a degree in computer science that was convicted of a felony many moons ago. I have been working as a developer for about the last decade. You can do it, but the fear of losing employment, housing, etc is a very real day-to-day thing I still have in the front of my mind.

Yup. It's not teaching these people how to code. It's getting them a job once they can. Most companies will not hire them.

We have had 16 people hired in under a year and without a website at that time.

Companies will hire if you use your network to make it happen.

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#88

Post by RickWolter »

willcipriano wrote: post #5

The sign up form could use a confirmation dialog, had to get into the dev console to confirm it had been submitted. Otherwise cool idea, I'd like to help coming to development from a non-traditional background as well.

reach out. We are always looking for more support.

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#89

Post by RickWolter »

babelfish wrote: post #2

John Carmack has commented on this company before - does he have any affiliation? https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1435307747470454787

He is helping us solve some things.

Mainly how to get companies to give our mentees a chance.

Re: Underdog Devs: supporting formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged aspiring devs

#90

Post by RickWolter »

devwastaken wrote: post #46

I want a program like this to work, and this is of course an unpopular but factual statement - most of these kinds of programs define "disadvantaged" on your sex, skin color, and country of origin. This makes sense because they're the programs companies like to fund to pad their diversity portfolio.thst protects them from Title 9 lawsuits. It follows the money. But it doesn't actually target "disadvantaged" people, i…

In referring to "disadvantaged" we meant having a lower socio-economic background. Mainly those who are economically disadvantaged.

We started by trying to help only the formerly incarcerated but enough people reached out that we decided to try and expand to help more people.

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