From Felony to Founder: How Gavin Ray Rebuilt a Tech Career After Incarceration

Gavin Ray, a software engineer currently employed by Hasura, which has recently rebranded as PromptQL, has published a detailed account of his rehabilitation from severe addiction and a criminal record. Ray’s narrative outlines a trajectory that began with incarceration in a maximum-security juvenile facility in Colorado between the ages of 14 and 16, followed by county jail time for a low-class felony at age 19. His story serves as a case study on the intersection of personal rehabilitation and the rigid hiring practices prevalent in the technology industry.

Ray’s early life was marked by experimentation with prescription drugs, specifically Adderall, which initiated a cycle of addiction and drug dealing. After being emancipated from his parents in Colorado following the interception of research chemicals, he experienced homelessness and unstable living conditions. His first period of incarceration occurred after he was arrested for possession with intent to distribute controlled substances. During his release, he briefly attempted to balance manual labour with night classes but ultimately dropped out of community college.

A second arrest for drug-related charges led to Ray’s incarceration in county jail between the ages of 18 and 19. It was during this period that he discovered an article in a newspaper about Techtonic, a company offering internships for at-risk youth. Upon entering a work-release program, Ray secured an internship as a full-stack web developer. This role provided him with intensive, trial-by-fire experience in frontend, backend, and dev-ops technologies, marking his initial entry into the software engineering field.

Following his time at Techtonic, Ray experienced a relapse into addiction and a period of sobriety in Florida. Upon attempting to re-enter the tech workforce, he faced significant systemic barriers. Ray reported receiving eight job offers that were subsequently rescinded due to corporate human resources policies that disqualified candidates with felony records. This pattern of rejection persisted until he secured a position at a small startup in Miami, which offered a salary of $50,000 and assistance with relocation.

At the Miami startup, Ray encountered significant technical debt and began evaluating technologies for a system rewrite. He identified Hasura, an open-source tool that automates CRUD operations for Postgres applications, as a solution. Ray became an active contributor to the Hasura community, engaging in their Discord server and submitting pull requests to implement features. His technical proficiency and community involvement caught the attention of the company.

In 2020, Ray was hired by Hasura, receiving an offer that more than doubled his previous salary. The company’s small size at the time meant no background check was conducted during the interview process. Ray later disclosed his felony status to the founders, who accepted his employment. He has remained with the company since, working on developer-facing tools within the Postgres ecosystem. The company has since rebranded to PromptQL.

Ray’s account underscores the disparity between talent and the barriers imposed by background checks. He notes that while he made poor choices and required luck and support to rebuild his life, the tech industry’s reliance on criminal history checks often excludes capable candidates. His narrative is intended to encourage individuals facing similar circumstances while urging employers to evaluate candidates based on current capability rather than past convictions.