Re:Ask HN: How can felons find programming jobs?
by austincheney on Thursday March 29, 2018 @01:45PM
(#16709180)
I second the military route. Starting out it will be substantially less pay than a developer job in the civilian world, but it is a valid path of redemption. Contrary to popular belief a prior felony, depending upon what it is, won't necessarily stop you from even getting a top secret clearance.
Join the military under any form of "signal" branch MOS. All enlisted signal jobs require a secret security clearance and you might be able to get that directly depending upon what you were convicted of. Once you have been in for a bit and become an NCO you have some internal credibility to possibly transition to military intelligence or become a signal warrant officer of which both require a top secret clearance.
The trick to passing a security check in the military is disclosure. Be up front about your prior legal troubles with the investigating authority and don't hide anything. This is typically a recipe for immediate failure in the civilian world, but the military has greater resources to further investigate these issues and make more thorough determinations.
Once you hold a TS/SCI for a couple of years you can put that on a resume when you are ready to reenter the civilian corporate world. When people see active "Top Secret / Secure Compartmentalized Information" clearance on a resume they immediately think trustworthy despite that a background check will ultimately identify your prior felony. You are vetted, at great expense, by an external federal agency.
Join the military under any form of "signal" branch MOS. All enlisted signal jobs require a secret security clearance and you might be able to get that directly depending upon what you were convicted of. Once you have been in for a bit and become an NCO you have some internal credibility to possibly transition to military intelligence or become a signal warrant officer of which both require a top secret clearance.
The trick to passing a security check in the military is disclosure. Be up front about your prior legal troubles with the investigating authority and don't hide anything. This is typically a recipe for immediate failure in the civilian world, but the military has greater resources to further investigate these issues and make more thorough determinations.
Once you hold a TS/SCI for a couple of years you can put that on a resume when you are ready to reenter the civilian corporate world. When people see active "Top Secret / Secure Compartmentalized Information" clearance on a resume they immediately think trustworthy despite that a background check will ultimately identify your prior felony. You are vetted, at great expense, by an external federal agency.