Ask HN: Career change for elderly UK ex-convict?
One of my clients did 10 years for two charges which actually weren&#x27;t true (don&#x27;t mess with Texas, or at least not the people who help get officials elected!)<p>What we found was that many people do not care if you&#x27;ve been in prison, especially if you almost use that as a badge of honor.  If you try to suppress it, it is used as a negative.  Sure there will be people who will judge any ex-con immediately and not want to work with them, but there are also people who will judge any group (women, minorities, etc.).<p>So the prison time can be used to your advantage with many audiences.  Resilience.  Social pennance.  Triumph over injustice.  Whatever.  Also, EVERY human worth working with understands that we all make mistakes.  Some of them just cost us a lot more...<p>Most jobs are found by networking, regardless of the industry or skillset.  So the biggest question is, what would you really like to do?  I personally would argue against software development, just because I wish I had chosen something else in my life; but instead it has been the career that locks me in because it makes more money than other undeveloped skills I might have had.<p>This might be a strange suggestion, but perhaps there&#x27;s something about your mistake you made some time ago which you learned from, and which you can use to provide a value to clients.  Not saying this is the case (really), but if you were intentionally trying to shuffle money illegally and got caught, maybe you have advice for other people who are doing things that might get them in trouble.  Especially with your technical interest, you might be able to help them avoid doing something stupid or even steer them away from trying.  Or maybe you know better how to help them do it without getting caught.  I&#x27;m not judging here, because some of the biggest global banks have made fortunes intentionally laundering money.  I&#x27;m not aware of any of them being in jail...<p>More specifically, especially at your age, I would try to discover you passion.  Then go with that.  Yes we need money to live, but you can also move to cheaper places (and network&#x2F;work via the internet).