It's a little late, so this will get buried, but I had a similar experience.
I caught two felonies (both from the same incident)
Luckily, I had a good job at the time and it was my first offense, so I was able to get house arrest.
After seeing what could have been my life, I completed my BS in CS, online part-time and convinced the state of California to let me move there.
I received five years of probation, so even though I was off house arrest, I had to convince the state of California to take me as a probationer.
I don't think this is usually offered, even though I had gainful employment waiting for me. I feel very fortunate.
Since then, I've worked for various startups and Fortune 50 companies as a software engineer. I was lucky enough that the tech industry valued me more for my skills than punished me for my past.
I will be forever grateful to the state of California and the tech industry for this.
I've looked into, and tried to volunteer for various programs that try to teach inmates or felons technical/engineering skills. All have fallen through.
I'd love to hear what you're working on OP, and if you want to brainstorm a way we can try and help more inmates turn their life around through software development.
Thank you for sharing your story. It's wonderful that you want to pay your fortunes forward.
I don't think they work directly in prisons and jails, but https://www.underdogdevs.org/ is a group that works to train formerly incarcerated people in software and tech. They built mentee/mentor relationships between professional development and those wanting to learn.
> "X is your mentor. X's main job is to mentor you and help you swim in this deep end."
I don't think that will ever happen, nor should it. No ones main job should be to mentor someone else. The best teams all help each other. Early and often.
A good work environment will see only good from developers asking each other questions to gain a better understanding of the complex systems being worked on. I was pretty senior in one of my last few roles, and I regularly asked questions of the folks that had been building the system before me. And I always made time to support other devs (and QA and support folks) that came to ask me questions, be it about code I wrote, general questions about technical things or whatever. Being supportive to each other is what made it a really fun place to work at.
I think your opinion is strongly founded on a bunch of personal assumptions given how little information was provided. Be careful not to miss the point by fixating on details.
I’ve seen a lot of bad engineers and most of them undervalue helping others. Good engineering leads know that they can write more code by supporting everyone than by writing code themselves. Definitely a form of mentorship. I’ve seen some that are almost 100% mentors.
I don't think this is unique to the LA area or even California and is a common misconception when people apply to colleges. As a high school or returning student you are told that some schools are better than others, and that might true from an entry standpoint. But, in most cases (except for ivy league or a Cal Tech, MIT) an employer is going to value your technical and interpersonal skills 1000x more than where you went to school.
