"It was all accomplished by putting in long days from his cell at the Mountain View Correctional Center in Charleston. "It's not normal to have 15-17 hours a day to really focus on something and learn something, like deeply," Thorpe says. "And fortunately tech is one of the few areas where they're not concerned with your college degree. They're really only concerned with your ability to write code.""
"He got into trouble with drugs, using them and selling them. He says his parents kicked him out of the house and he ended up in prison for the first time at age 20. "You know, I was worried and pretty hopeless that I had messed my life up so bad that it was no longer possible to have like a normal life and normal career," he says."
People who are incarcerated are paid notoriously low wages for kitchen, laundry work and maintenance. Expanded use of laptops is creating other opportunities. Preston Thorpe, 32, says he landed his dream job as a senior software engineer and bought a modest house with a six-figure salary after putting in long days from his cell at Mountain View Correctional Center in Charleston. Tech employers often value coding ability over college degrees. Thorpe built his first computer at 13 and expected a tech career. He entered prison at 20 after drug-related activity. A 2019 transfer to Maine brought limited-internet laptops for education, prompting an epiphany to pursue his passion.
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