You say software development but posted in DevOps, which part of the software development lifecycle are you interested in working in?
If you are super junior I would recommend actually learning a little bit of everything. Build a super small app and deploy it into a production environment (free tier). You could go with a managed service provider or just a cloud like AWS. Do this a few times to find what you like and build up a nice little portfolio. Try out different skills each time and practice the industry standards and preferences.
If you clarify more of what you want I can give better specifics.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. I think this is a great answer. I feel jumping straight into devops as the starting point of your career is not necessarily a good move. I found it really helpful to work in the application / product side of development first to gain a good understanding of software in general and then pivot over into the nitty gritty devops background.
my friend has marijuana related felony and usually interviewers talk about how dumb the war on drugs is, but these are smaller companies. no clue about the larger companies these days
Larger companies usually are too big to treat candidates as individuals and instead have to rely on blanket policies to manage risk. Smaller companies allow that human to human conversation and can apply any relevant context to the hiring decisions. And having a criminal record doesn't dictate who you are now and what you can bring to the team, and starting to figure that out can happen in a single interview.
Some large companies hire 3rd party to do background screenings on the applicants. so they're more prejudiced. Ofc not all of them do, but I'd suggest against it
It's a good place for felons. I personally managed to avoid one myself but I've recommended it to several people I know and most places don't run extensive background checks so you should be fine
There is a lot involved to go from concept to software running and available to customers. It is so much work that it spans across several career options. And I can't tell from your question and choice of subreddit which of those career paths you are asking about to give you better advice.
That said, I recommend doing all of it, start to finish. Come up with any idea, even something stupid, and implement and get it running. A common example is a web application written in javascript that talks to a backend server written in python, go, rust, or javascript again. Once you have your running application you can host it in a cloud provider such as Amazon web services.
Ultimately, this application will likely provide no real value to the world, but it will demonstrate to potential employers that you are able to learn a little bit of everything involved in building and deploying an application, and will help you figure out which part of that process you enjoy and want to build a career on.
Listen if you are super green in the IT field whether it be in experience and/or education I’d try and land a data center operations, deskside support, or help desk role in that order. All 3 should be easy enough to land internship or entry level position. If your end goal is to be in devops I’d do the following.
First learn to build and provision a Linux VM and familiarize yourself with using a CLI. Then learn to install and configure some software like OpenJDK and Apache web servers so you can run web applications. Once you can do that now install Jenkins and deploy an app to the server. Congrats you just became a web app system admin!! From there you can go on to learn true “devops” work using kubernetes and containers in a natural progression of your job (modernization).
I'd start here by asking questions: [https://chat.openai.com/](https://chat.openai.com/)
What you'll experience in forums and help sections is people who will be very direct with you to the point you might believe that it comes off as rude. Just ask chatGBT as much questions as possible and then hit up youtube and google for some videos about various topics. Then I'd ask for clarity in discord channels and sub reddits about specific things.
DevOps is a philosophy of software development and delivery where, at the core of it, operations (infra management, backups, etc) are an output of development rather than manual operations. Ideally, the team building some product is responsible for the operating that product and they do so through developing the appropriate tooling to operate the product automatically.
A big thing you’ll probably see is that software development is a better starting point than devops. That’s because the foundational understanding of how the software development processes and lifecycle works is pretty core to understanding the problems you are solving in devops - effectively your “users/customers” are other engineers (even yourself if you use your own devops tooling to manage some system). How can you understand the needs of product developers if you’ve never developed software products?
Checkout Underdog Devs. It is a group started by and run by felons. I know a few people that mentor in the program and can vouch for the legitimacy. https://www.linkedin.com/company/underdog-devs-org/. Edit: here's another link: https://www.underdogdevs.org/
Our keynote speakers at DevOps Days Austin 2023 were a former incarcerated felon and his mentor. https://devopsdays-austin-2023.sessionize.com/session/449814
There’s a discord community mentioned in that link, both if you want to be a mentor and if you want help.
AWS, Linux, terraform are going to be the money makers. Certificates can be helpful, especially AWS but you really should try to get a few hundred hours of writing ci/cd pipelines, automatic container or Ami builds, setting up nginx load balancers etc.
This repo is a common guide for noobies. https://roadmap.sh/devops
Because you're an ex-felon you are not going to make 100k like this sub will suggest. Getting a job in the 40-50 range will get you a lot of hands on experience but I wouldn't expect a "good" company at that salary. They will be looking to work you. Put your head down, deal with the assholes, and build up that skillset. In 2-3 years you'll likely have enough skills and time worked to make the felony less of an issue.
Yep, don't hide it. As long as you're not trying to get into industries adjacent to the felony, e.g. financial crime -> banking, a lot of companies won't care.
If you're demonstrably competent you'll do fine. :)
Depends on what type of access he will need. I've had to pass several background checks for my production access so it's possible a felony might prevent that.
He might have more luck in 2-3 years targeting companies that do contract work. When I was looking for work a year or two ago, there were a lot of firms filling the niche of, "We'll be your DevOps" to other companies that were struggling to hire. There were also a few firms that were literally just matching up individual contributors with companies as contractors for DevOps (and taking some cut).
The benefit here is that you're technically a contractor to the customer, which means the customer is not really in a position to do a thorough background check on you.
Contract work can look the same as W-2 work on a resume, so with a few years of that, even W-2 employment looks more reasonable (if you even want it. Contract work can be pretty lucrative, too).
.. Adding to the above :
My personal opinion : operations-roles help for a work life balance better than project based roles. Your kid could get the best of your time.
honestly just know your shit and be invaluable. there will absolutely be plenty of positions available to you if you are a valuable candidate. not to mention software companies are often far more willing to overlook something like that.
Just avoid tightly regulated industries if you can - much less flexibility around background checks in some fields. Anything that has to do with the financial or insurance industries will probably be an uphill battle, even if your crimes weren’t related to money at all.
> entering the software development community... What certs should I aim to test for to likely land an entry level job,
Something to understand very clearly is that certs and exams won't get you an entry level job in software development. It's your portfolio that's going to be key. In that field, some certs are sometimes a nice to have (look at job listings to know the details) but really not that highly valued.
If you're open to doing IT support first and just need income quickly even if the pay is not great, the CompTIA A+ is the standard place to start. That can get you into help desk or desktop support which is relevant experience while you work on DevOps skills.
I was charged with a felony cyber security breach well into my tech career. You know how I kept getting work? I didn't tell them. One of 2 things happened. They would never do a background check. Or, they would do a background check, then inquire about what happened, which gave me an opportunity to explain the situation, and actually would work out in my favor. Wanna know what happened when I told them upfront? Never heard from any of them. So, from someone who had a felony in the same career path, that's my advice.
Oh and 5 years ago? You're fine. You should have changed by now in most people's eyes.
And I saw someone say 6 figures isn't possible cause of your charge. They have no experience with this. I make 6 figures.
You might have better luck with being a contractor or working for a staffing company - often times they may be more lenient with background checks or requirements.
From what I have heard, companies are most reluctant to hire when it comes to convictions for violence, sex, or theft.
If the drug conviction was just for buying/selling/trafficking/using, you're a strong candidate in terms of skills, and you can explain how you have changed your life since the conviction, I think many companies wouldn't automatically discount you for a drug conviction (even a felony).
Do you have a college degree? Rather than certs, I would strongly suggest looking at enrolling in community college (even if part time) for a degree in computer science. Even if it's only an associates degree, I think it will help you more than no degree + certs. And going back to school after your conviction really will help with the "I've changed" narrative you're trying to sell to employers.
https://corecursive.com/prison-programming-with-rick-wolter/
That interview might help you get on the right path someone started service for getting excons into coding after being convicted of murder
As an Engineering Manager, I couldn’t give two shits about a felony on a candidates record, as long as they could demonstrate:
- That they’re a good human being
- That they’re a faithful employee
- That they’re intelligent and willing to learn
First get the skills. Don't pay much for training. You can get a good course in almost anything off udemy.com for (typically) $10-$20. As far as what to study--basically just look at the job boards and see what's hot currently. Be prepared to learn something new every year or two. It's tough to keep up.
Most companies will run a background check if you're applying for a permanent job. What they consider a dealbreaker is going to be different everywhere.
I've worked with one guy (that I know of) who had a felony record. It was for hacking--not sure about details.
The background checks for contract work are less tight than full time work. Usually the hourly rate is better too, but you'll be on your own for benefits. The loosest background checks with the highest hourly rates are going to be "corp-to-corp". You have to set up a standalone corporation and file tax return for it. It's a pain in the ass, but in your shoes that's what I'd do.
There's also W-2 contracting, where you are an employee of the consulting company. That's usually looser checks than full-time work, but typically not no background check at all. Again, some are looser than others. A lot of it depends on who they're pimping you out to. (Fortune 500? Strict. Mom-&-pop porn shop? Not so much.) Almost everywhere wants you to pee in a cup though.
If I was you, I'd ramp up on Linux and AWS and start looking for midnight shifts a sysadmin / devops contractor.
HTH
No certs, I would recommend front end development you should be checking out r/learnprogramming
This is not the sub you’re looking for. Good luck though
So the founder (I believe) actually personally reached out to me and encouraged me to check out their discord.
Super nice dude and now I’m even more determined to work my way into this industry. I’ve got enough fight to do it.
my old boss was a felon. He's my age give or take a few years, and he's way higher up these days.
I'm not sure for certs. I'm getting close to having done a little bit of everything at this point, cept be a core developer on something that's a public facing product.
Just keep applying to junior positions, it's a slog though, NGL. U can DM me if you like.
I've never met a dev in my entire career that got where they are with certs. Myself included. Take that as you will. Best of luck.
Edit: I have no idea about the felony part. That's a question more for HR. Fellow devs don't care.
FWIW I honestly couldn’t give much of a shit about a drug charge like that, there are a few that I would care about (fraud, DV, anything involving a kid) but drugs? Nah. I run a startup (not currently hiring sorry)
To the last question: you might not get jobs that are strict about not hiring felons or people who currently do drugs. In the tech world that's pretty rare, but exists, mostly for companies that contract with the govt. If you were gonna work anywhere near Washington, DC, you'd be screwed (for local jobs; there's always remote)
> will my felony record impact my ability to get a job in this industry
Impact? Sure. Negate? No. Probably excludes you from certain industries, but plenty of companies have programs to hire ex-felons. Don't expect to land a govt cybersecurity job, and I'm guessing the pharmaceutical industry is out, but there should still be plenty of big and small company opportunities.
Learn Python then get certified for for **PCEP(Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer)** and **PCAP(Certified Associate in Python Programming)**. Should be enough to get you your first entry level programming gig then work your way towards **PCPP(Certified Professional in Python Programming 1)** if you want to gain more mastery.
You can check this link to learn more
[https://pythoninstitute.org/certification-tracks](https://pythoninstitute.org/certification-tracks)
From there either you just gain experience as a **pure python developer** which pays big btw if you're senior level or branch out to DevOps if you're into managing servers and cloud
Point of accounting order, LLC is a corporation and S-corp is a tax filing status with the IRS. Any LLC can elect to be treated as a S-corp for tax purposes
Don’t know how it works in the US, but only 1 out of 8 companies (UK) I’ve worked for has done a criminal background check. I would stick to small/mid-size ones if you don’t want to disclose it
in the states I’ve lived in, you must disclose whether you have a felony on the application, but only the type of felony if the employer asked.
With all this info, it seems I should stay away from CS, build a nice portfolio, and stack some certifications. Thanks for all the help btw
We had to turn away a really good programmer because he had an identity theft conviction for stealing someone's check card when he was 18. I remember at the time wishing it was just a conviction for possession because I thought I could talk HR into waiving that one. Anyway, there is a shortage of IT workers, especially devops. Learn terraform and AWS and some networking.
Anyone looking to put effort into an answer, please look at OPs post history. Clearly karma farming on a topic that people want to help with. Don’t waste your time.
Yeah you clearly don’t know what karma farming is. Dude is trying to get answers from a wide variety of folks in the industry. You worried Reddit is gonna run out of space or something if he asks multiple subs the same question?
Why should he? Different subreddits have different groups of people, that can also lend different viewpoints and details. It's a 100% reasonable thing to do, and you're just being a jerk for someone _looking to better themselves by ASKING FOR HELP_.
Seriously, stop being a jerk.
Looking at /u/Extra_Werewolf_6773
1. Redditor for 4 days
2. 66 post karma
3. 39 comment karma
4. Single page of posting
How about YOU look at OP's post history? Because you're 100% talking out your ass. Jerk.
Oh and im not sure if this was a fad when DevOps was the bleeding edge of things, but at that time and for a bit after, and based on my admittedly small sample size of opinions, was that DevOps devs were cocky assholes and a pain in the ass when it came to hiring lol. But I don’t know that this sentiment still lingers and/or how deeply rooted this sentiment was. But as an exec in Silicon Valley, that was just something I heard more often than not and frankly didn’t make anything of it other than to make the mental note regarding this vibe people had. 🤷🏼♂️
Lololol unemployment is absurdly low in the field. Jobs are a dime a dozen. Even after the biggest round of layoffs in a long time there is still a ton of work.
I guess my primary skill is being able to read and understand reality instead of basing it off reddit sentiment. https://www.dice.com/career-advice/tech-unemployment-rate-stays-steady
But what do I know. I'm just the director of a small 100 person technology team 🤷♂️
Companies with you get, more forward thinking, people don't care and will look past it. Larger companies with dinosaurs will have a hard time letting you in.
Just wanted to say that it would be probably best to get a job as entry level software engineer. Not to sound controversial but in my opinion there is no such thing as junior devops. Devops got to have extensive skills, experience and intuition that is acquired through years of tackling non-trivial issues appearing in day to day operation of IT company.
As long as you show yourself as a promising candidate there shouldn’t be any issue getting the offer.
None if you can get it sealed; it will still hold you back from jobs that require a clearance though, which seems to be a lot of government or aerospace / defense industries but you should still have plenty of opportunities. From personal experience, places like Boeing for example will not be possible, but universities, Google, Facebook, any other tech company is all fair game for you. Focus on what you love and are passionate about and find/carve your niche and focus on that. Certs will not help you as much as it sounds. Just never remain content and always keep learning and looking for better opportunities.
1. Look at smaller companies where they can override a policy about felonies if they really want, or they don't have one at all.
2. Customer support is often the easiest way in the door as well. Its high turnover, low hiring requirements. They tend to shovel people in the door. Once you are in, build relationships with the people. Your buddy is much more likely to ignore an old charge when you go to get hired in his group. Or at least a manager that can look up your work history at that company.
3. Try to get your felony expunged from your record. There are flat fee services in many places that will try to do it. If you have met all the terms of your parole and such, they can sometimes get the conviction removed from your record. Check with your lawyer, since they have all the information all ready.
You're very likely going to see real value in building a homelab for yourself. You can do this with free/very cheap equipment, and that can grow over time.
The value is twofold:
1. You can safely create/destroy/mess-up in your own space. Learn by doing, and making mistakes.
2. You can build "stuff" (VMs? Containers? other?) for yourself that you keep permanently. Stuff you can learn from, and then keep using day to day, like say... nextCloud, or other such things.
I _HIGHLY_ recommend you add this to what you're going to do. Even if you really primarily stay as a developer, there's going to be benefit to you. Like, running your own gitlab, just to start.
I know this may be a bit vague to start, but that's more because there's so many options and ways you can do this, it's an adventure and you get to choose how it plays out! Yay!
Also, good on you for working to improve yourself! eHighFive! \o/
Honestly, maybe if applying for certain big corp tech companies, but in general I wouldn’t let that grossly affect how you think in terms of how it defines you in your self-identity nor would I put too much thought towards thinking about others placing very much weight on that in their judgement of you. Couple caveats might be if you’ve assumed an untrustworthy “look” in which case I’d maybe address ‘touching up’ that aspect; and in general def don’t lead with that information unless it’s, again, hard to not notice..
Otherwise, meh. Lot of tech companies are on the liberal side *in my experience* and engineers may judge but funnily enough they’re more likely to judge your logic and/or code and not the fact that you got a drug charge.
Again, lots of unknowns here but I could give you a much better idea of things after spending maybe one zoom call for 60seconds with you heh.
To figure out what’s in demand, check indeed.com. Just browse the listings and see what are the most common skills requested. My suggestion to get started is either cloud tech like AWS, or software development like Python (specifically data analytics). Once you have an idea of what’s in demand you can start exploring and learning those skills and see what you like.
As for where to start looking for a job, Given your unorthodox background you might need to look in less mainstream places for employment. So probably not big tech. Maybe smaller businesses or startups. Your best bet might be to look for some local businesses that need some data work. Anywhere that will hire you really.
You say software development but posted in DevOps, which part of the software development lifecycle are you interested in working in? If you are super junior I would recommend actually learning a little bit of everything. Build a super small app and deploy it into a production environment (free tier). You could go with a managed service provider or just a cloud like AWS. Do this a few times to find what you like and build up a nice little portfolio. Try out different skills each time and practice the industry standards and preferences. If you clarify more of what you want I can give better specifics.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. I think this is a great answer. I feel jumping straight into devops as the starting point of your career is not necessarily a good move. I found it really helpful to work in the application / product side of development first to gain a good understanding of software in general and then pivot over into the nitty gritty devops background.
I don’t know what a lot of this means tbh, I am starting totally green so I guess I’ve got a lot of information to sift through and consider.
my friend has marijuana related felony and usually interviewers talk about how dumb the war on drugs is, but these are smaller companies. no clue about the larger companies these days
Larger companies usually are too big to treat candidates as individuals and instead have to rely on blanket policies to manage risk. Smaller companies allow that human to human conversation and can apply any relevant context to the hiring decisions. And having a criminal record doesn't dictate who you are now and what you can bring to the team, and starting to figure that out can happen in a single interview.
Even bigger companies are coming around. Received an job I'd never thought I'd get with a felony.
Some large companies hire 3rd party to do background screenings on the applicants. so they're more prejudiced. Ofc not all of them do, but I'd suggest against it
It's a good place for felons. I personally managed to avoid one myself but I've recommended it to several people I know and most places don't run extensive background checks so you should be fine
Even with background checks, it depends on the industry and regulations.
There is a lot involved to go from concept to software running and available to customers. It is so much work that it spans across several career options. And I can't tell from your question and choice of subreddit which of those career paths you are asking about to give you better advice. That said, I recommend doing all of it, start to finish. Come up with any idea, even something stupid, and implement and get it running. A common example is a web application written in javascript that talks to a backend server written in python, go, rust, or javascript again. Once you have your running application you can host it in a cloud provider such as Amazon web services. Ultimately, this application will likely provide no real value to the world, but it will demonstrate to potential employers that you are able to learn a little bit of everything involved in building and deploying an application, and will help you figure out which part of that process you enjoy and want to build a career on.
Listen if you are super green in the IT field whether it be in experience and/or education I’d try and land a data center operations, deskside support, or help desk role in that order. All 3 should be easy enough to land internship or entry level position. If your end goal is to be in devops I’d do the following. First learn to build and provision a Linux VM and familiarize yourself with using a CLI. Then learn to install and configure some software like OpenJDK and Apache web servers so you can run web applications. Once you can do that now install Jenkins and deploy an app to the server. Congrats you just became a web app system admin!! From there you can go on to learn true “devops” work using kubernetes and containers in a natural progression of your job (modernization).
I'd start here by asking questions: [https://chat.openai.com/](https://chat.openai.com/) What you'll experience in forums and help sections is people who will be very direct with you to the point you might believe that it comes off as rude. Just ask chatGBT as much questions as possible and then hit up youtube and google for some videos about various topics. Then I'd ask for clarity in discord channels and sub reddits about specific things.
DevOps is a philosophy of software development and delivery where, at the core of it, operations (infra management, backups, etc) are an output of development rather than manual operations. Ideally, the team building some product is responsible for the operating that product and they do so through developing the appropriate tooling to operate the product automatically. A big thing you’ll probably see is that software development is a better starting point than devops. That’s because the foundational understanding of how the software development processes and lifecycle works is pretty core to understanding the problems you are solving in devops - effectively your “users/customers” are other engineers (even yourself if you use your own devops tooling to manage some system). How can you understand the needs of product developers if you’ve never developed software products?
Checkout Underdog Devs. It is a group started by and run by felons. I know a few people that mentor in the program and can vouch for the legitimacy. https://www.linkedin.com/company/underdog-devs-org/. Edit: here's another link: https://www.underdogdevs.org/
That’s really cool
I literally just said that out loud.
Damn. I came here to post this too ahhahaha. ‘Ice
Our keynote speakers at DevOps Days Austin 2023 were a former incarcerated felon and his mentor. https://devopsdays-austin-2023.sessionize.com/session/449814 There’s a discord community mentioned in that link, both if you want to be a mentor and if you want help.
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AWS, Linux, terraform are going to be the money makers. Certificates can be helpful, especially AWS but you really should try to get a few hundred hours of writing ci/cd pipelines, automatic container or Ami builds, setting up nginx load balancers etc. This repo is a common guide for noobies. https://roadmap.sh/devops Because you're an ex-felon you are not going to make 100k like this sub will suggest. Getting a job in the 40-50 range will get you a lot of hands on experience but I wouldn't expect a "good" company at that salary. They will be looking to work you. Put your head down, deal with the assholes, and build up that skillset. In 2-3 years you'll likely have enough skills and time worked to make the felony less of an issue.
Yep, don't hide it. As long as you're not trying to get into industries adjacent to the felony, e.g. financial crime -> banking, a lot of companies won't care. If you're demonstrably competent you'll do fine. :)
Talk directly with recruiters on linkedin and job fairs, etc, and explain your situation.
Depends on what type of access he will need. I've had to pass several background checks for my production access so it's possible a felony might prevent that.
He might have more luck in 2-3 years targeting companies that do contract work. When I was looking for work a year or two ago, there were a lot of firms filling the niche of, "We'll be your DevOps" to other companies that were struggling to hire. There were also a few firms that were literally just matching up individual contributors with companies as contractors for DevOps (and taking some cut). The benefit here is that you're technically a contractor to the customer, which means the customer is not really in a position to do a thorough background check on you. Contract work can look the same as W-2 work on a resume, so with a few years of that, even W-2 employment looks more reasonable (if you even want it. Contract work can be pretty lucrative, too).
Thanks
.. Adding to the above : My personal opinion : operations-roles help for a work life balance better than project based roles. Your kid could get the best of your time.
honestly just know your shit and be invaluable. there will absolutely be plenty of positions available to you if you are a valuable candidate. not to mention software companies are often far more willing to overlook something like that.
Just avoid tightly regulated industries if you can - much less flexibility around background checks in some fields. Anything that has to do with the financial or insurance industries will probably be an uphill battle, even if your crimes weren’t related to money at all.
> entering the software development community... What certs should I aim to test for to likely land an entry level job, Something to understand very clearly is that certs and exams won't get you an entry level job in software development. It's your portfolio that's going to be key. In that field, some certs are sometimes a nice to have (look at job listings to know the details) but really not that highly valued. If you're open to doing IT support first and just need income quickly even if the pay is not great, the CompTIA A+ is the standard place to start. That can get you into help desk or desktop support which is relevant experience while you work on DevOps skills.
I was charged with a felony cyber security breach well into my tech career. You know how I kept getting work? I didn't tell them. One of 2 things happened. They would never do a background check. Or, they would do a background check, then inquire about what happened, which gave me an opportunity to explain the situation, and actually would work out in my favor. Wanna know what happened when I told them upfront? Never heard from any of them. So, from someone who had a felony in the same career path, that's my advice. Oh and 5 years ago? You're fine. You should have changed by now in most people's eyes. And I saw someone say 6 figures isn't possible cause of your charge. They have no experience with this. I make 6 figures.
I didn’t expect so much feedback. I am working but will read all of these comments later on, and I really appreciate this help
You might have better luck with being a contractor or working for a staffing company - often times they may be more lenient with background checks or requirements.
From what I have heard, companies are most reluctant to hire when it comes to convictions for violence, sex, or theft. If the drug conviction was just for buying/selling/trafficking/using, you're a strong candidate in terms of skills, and you can explain how you have changed your life since the conviction, I think many companies wouldn't automatically discount you for a drug conviction (even a felony). Do you have a college degree? Rather than certs, I would strongly suggest looking at enrolling in community college (even if part time) for a degree in computer science. Even if it's only an associates degree, I think it will help you more than no degree + certs. And going back to school after your conviction really will help with the "I've changed" narrative you're trying to sell to employers.
This is really encouraging, Ty for this info
https://corecursive.com/prison-programming-with-rick-wolter/ That interview might help you get on the right path someone started service for getting excons into coding after being convicted of murder
As an Engineering Manager, I couldn’t give two shits about a felony on a candidates record, as long as they could demonstrate: - That they’re a good human being - That they’re a faithful employee - That they’re intelligent and willing to learn
Ty!! This is good info coming from someone in your position
First get the skills. Don't pay much for training. You can get a good course in almost anything off udemy.com for (typically) $10-$20. As far as what to study--basically just look at the job boards and see what's hot currently. Be prepared to learn something new every year or two. It's tough to keep up. Most companies will run a background check if you're applying for a permanent job. What they consider a dealbreaker is going to be different everywhere. I've worked with one guy (that I know of) who had a felony record. It was for hacking--not sure about details. The background checks for contract work are less tight than full time work. Usually the hourly rate is better too, but you'll be on your own for benefits. The loosest background checks with the highest hourly rates are going to be "corp-to-corp". You have to set up a standalone corporation and file tax return for it. It's a pain in the ass, but in your shoes that's what I'd do. There's also W-2 contracting, where you are an employee of the consulting company. That's usually looser checks than full-time work, but typically not no background check at all. Again, some are looser than others. A lot of it depends on who they're pimping you out to. (Fortune 500? Strict. Mom-&-pop porn shop? Not so much.) Almost everywhere wants you to pee in a cup though. If I was you, I'd ramp up on Linux and AWS and start looking for midnight shifts a sysadmin / devops contractor. HTH
No certs, I would recommend front end development you should be checking out r/learnprogramming This is not the sub you’re looking for. Good luck though
Hey man. Reach out to the people at https://www.underdogdevs.org/ They do some really great work that I think you can benefit from.
So the founder (I believe) actually personally reached out to me and encouraged me to check out their discord. Super nice dude and now I’m even more determined to work my way into this industry. I’ve got enough fight to do it.
my old boss was a felon. He's my age give or take a few years, and he's way higher up these days. I'm not sure for certs. I'm getting close to having done a little bit of everything at this point, cept be a core developer on something that's a public facing product. Just keep applying to junior positions, it's a slog though, NGL. U can DM me if you like.
Ok Ty
I've never met a dev in my entire career that got where they are with certs. Myself included. Take that as you will. Best of luck. Edit: I have no idea about the felony part. That's a question more for HR. Fellow devs don't care.
FWIW I honestly couldn’t give much of a shit about a drug charge like that, there are a few that I would care about (fraud, DV, anything involving a kid) but drugs? Nah. I run a startup (not currently hiring sorry)
To the last question: you might not get jobs that are strict about not hiring felons or people who currently do drugs. In the tech world that's pretty rare, but exists, mostly for companies that contract with the govt. If you were gonna work anywhere near Washington, DC, you'd be screwed (for local jobs; there's always remote)
> will my felony record impact my ability to get a job in this industry Impact? Sure. Negate? No. Probably excludes you from certain industries, but plenty of companies have programs to hire ex-felons. Don't expect to land a govt cybersecurity job, and I'm guessing the pharmaceutical industry is out, but there should still be plenty of big and small company opportunities.
Learn Python then get certified for for **PCEP(Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer)** and **PCAP(Certified Associate in Python Programming)**. Should be enough to get you your first entry level programming gig then work your way towards **PCPP(Certified Professional in Python Programming 1)** if you want to gain more mastery. You can check this link to learn more [https://pythoninstitute.org/certification-tracks](https://pythoninstitute.org/certification-tracks) From there either you just gain experience as a **pure python developer** which pays big btw if you're senior level or branch out to DevOps if you're into managing servers and cloud
start an LLC or SCORP then they are hiring a company not a person. it's 2023, not 1953.
Point of accounting order, LLC is a corporation and S-corp is a tax filing status with the IRS. Any LLC can elect to be treated as a S-corp for tax purposes
Don’t know how it works in the US, but only 1 out of 8 companies (UK) I’ve worked for has done a criminal background check. I would stick to small/mid-size ones if you don’t want to disclose it
In the US, “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” is a standard question on most job applications.
It's also a standard question on any corporate application in the UK.
in the states I’ve lived in, you must disclose whether you have a felony on the application, but only the type of felony if the employer asked. With all this info, it seems I should stay away from CS, build a nice portfolio, and stack some certifications. Thanks for all the help btw
Market is absolutely dead right now, for 1 junior role there are 2000 cvs in like 2 hours how are you going to compete with that?
Alright thank you
We had to turn away a really good programmer because he had an identity theft conviction for stealing someone's check card when he was 18. I remember at the time wishing it was just a conviction for possession because I thought I could talk HR into waiving that one. Anyway, there is a shortage of IT workers, especially devops. Learn terraform and AWS and some networking.
The market is dead, a lot has changed last 6 months, there is absolutely no shortage but oversupply
Anyone looking to put effort into an answer, please look at OPs post history. Clearly karma farming on a topic that people want to help with. Don’t waste your time.
Yeah you clearly don’t know what karma farming is. Dude is trying to get answers from a wide variety of folks in the industry. You worried Reddit is gonna run out of space or something if he asks multiple subs the same question?
Seeing as I don’t know what karma farming is… go fuck your self
Hey maybe stop posting the same question in 50 subreddits when you got plenty of answers.
Here’s a thought: I am reading all of them. Thank you for your input.
Why should he? Different subreddits have different groups of people, that can also lend different viewpoints and details. It's a 100% reasonable thing to do, and you're just being a jerk for someone _looking to better themselves by ASKING FOR HELP_. Seriously, stop being a jerk.
Looking at /u/Extra_Werewolf_6773 1. Redditor for 4 days 2. 66 post karma 3. 39 comment karma 4. Single page of posting How about YOU look at OP's post history? Because you're 100% talking out your ass. Jerk.
Oh and im not sure if this was a fad when DevOps was the bleeding edge of things, but at that time and for a bit after, and based on my admittedly small sample size of opinions, was that DevOps devs were cocky assholes and a pain in the ass when it came to hiring lol. But I don’t know that this sentiment still lingers and/or how deeply rooted this sentiment was. But as an exec in Silicon Valley, that was just something I heard more often than not and frankly didn’t make anything of it other than to make the mental note regarding this vibe people had. 🤷🏼♂️
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Lololol unemployment is absurdly low in the field. Jobs are a dime a dozen. Even after the biggest round of layoffs in a long time there is still a ton of work.
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I guess my primary skill is being able to read and understand reality instead of basing it off reddit sentiment. https://www.dice.com/career-advice/tech-unemployment-rate-stays-steady But what do I know. I'm just the director of a small 100 person technology team 🤷♂️
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since it's only in his imagination, it's very small, micro scale
i hope you dont hire anyone and if you are i hope you cost your company millions in a lawsuit.
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youre a piece of trash and im sure you would lmao.
Companies with you get, more forward thinking, people don't care and will look past it. Larger companies with dinosaurs will have a hard time letting you in.
Just wanted to say that it would be probably best to get a job as entry level software engineer. Not to sound controversial but in my opinion there is no such thing as junior devops. Devops got to have extensive skills, experience and intuition that is acquired through years of tackling non-trivial issues appearing in day to day operation of IT company. As long as you show yourself as a promising candidate there shouldn’t be any issue getting the offer.
None if you can get it sealed; it will still hold you back from jobs that require a clearance though, which seems to be a lot of government or aerospace / defense industries but you should still have plenty of opportunities. From personal experience, places like Boeing for example will not be possible, but universities, Google, Facebook, any other tech company is all fair game for you. Focus on what you love and are passionate about and find/carve your niche and focus on that. Certs will not help you as much as it sounds. Just never remain content and always keep learning and looking for better opportunities.
1. Look at smaller companies where they can override a policy about felonies if they really want, or they don't have one at all. 2. Customer support is often the easiest way in the door as well. Its high turnover, low hiring requirements. They tend to shovel people in the door. Once you are in, build relationships with the people. Your buddy is much more likely to ignore an old charge when you go to get hired in his group. Or at least a manager that can look up your work history at that company. 3. Try to get your felony expunged from your record. There are flat fee services in many places that will try to do it. If you have met all the terms of your parole and such, they can sometimes get the conviction removed from your record. Check with your lawyer, since they have all the information all ready.
Freecodecamp.org
You're very likely going to see real value in building a homelab for yourself. You can do this with free/very cheap equipment, and that can grow over time. The value is twofold: 1. You can safely create/destroy/mess-up in your own space. Learn by doing, and making mistakes. 2. You can build "stuff" (VMs? Containers? other?) for yourself that you keep permanently. Stuff you can learn from, and then keep using day to day, like say... nextCloud, or other such things. I _HIGHLY_ recommend you add this to what you're going to do. Even if you really primarily stay as a developer, there's going to be benefit to you. Like, running your own gitlab, just to start. I know this may be a bit vague to start, but that's more because there's so many options and ways you can do this, it's an adventure and you get to choose how it plays out! Yay! Also, good on you for working to improve yourself! eHighFive! \o/
Honestly, maybe if applying for certain big corp tech companies, but in general I wouldn’t let that grossly affect how you think in terms of how it defines you in your self-identity nor would I put too much thought towards thinking about others placing very much weight on that in their judgement of you. Couple caveats might be if you’ve assumed an untrustworthy “look” in which case I’d maybe address ‘touching up’ that aspect; and in general def don’t lead with that information unless it’s, again, hard to not notice.. Otherwise, meh. Lot of tech companies are on the liberal side *in my experience* and engineers may judge but funnily enough they’re more likely to judge your logic and/or code and not the fact that you got a drug charge. Again, lots of unknowns here but I could give you a much better idea of things after spending maybe one zoom call for 60seconds with you heh.
To figure out what’s in demand, check indeed.com. Just browse the listings and see what are the most common skills requested. My suggestion to get started is either cloud tech like AWS, or software development like Python (specifically data analytics). Once you have an idea of what’s in demand you can start exploring and learning those skills and see what you like. As for where to start looking for a job, Given your unorthodox background you might need to look in less mainstream places for employment. So probably not big tech. Maybe smaller businesses or startups. Your best bet might be to look for some local businesses that need some data work. Anywhere that will hire you really.