Hacker News Reader

Comment by llarsson | Hacker News Reader

Great initiative! Hopefully employers will not overlook these candidates because of their criminal record.

Good luck with that unfortunately. I can't remember the last time I joined a company that didn't run a background check on me.

Running a background check doesn’t mean you can’t accept certain negative content in that background.

A background check produces information not a decision.

Usually a background check just means a credit check.

I meant it as a check for criminal record.

Yeah, usually it's just a credit check... people are cheap and corporations are cheaper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box#California

> California Fair Chance Act, which assists Californians with conviction histories to re-enter society by prohibiting employers from asking about conviction history before making a job offer.

I guess if they are significantly cheaper than others, people will hire them. There is a long way to $0 from the salaries people on HN say developers make in the US. I do not know any convicted people, however, I do know jobless people who were 'made redundant' by covid or before that and they would work for very little (enough to get by, but not more than that) if they could work from home as developer. I bet that goes for many people including ex convicts.

That would include me. I am not a convict, but I am unemployed. My many years of professional development experience is all in embedded and other hardware control software that generally needs to be done onsite. At this point I would be glad to do any remote work, regardless of pay.

Multiple felon software dev here. I make $250k in Minneapolis.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com