A convicted drug offender became a full-time engineer from behind bars. His story might change how we think about justice, talent and second chances.
If you glanced at Preston Thorpe’s GitHub activity, you would assume he was just another brilliant backend developer. Maybe a little too into Linux. Definitely deep into database design. The kind of engineer tech startups fight to hire.
You would never guess he has spent the last eleven years in prison.
That is the part most people miss. Not because it is hidden, but because it does not fit the usual script. But that is exactly why his story matters.
The Job Offer No One Expected
For months, Thorpe contributed to an open source project run by a San Francisco startup called Turso. The CEO, Glauber Costa, noticed how clean and consistent his work was. He reached out.
Only after reading through Thorpe’s profile did he see the line most others would have skipped past. It said clearly that he was incarcerated.
Costa hired him anyway.
Since May, Thorpe has worked full time for Turso. His setup is not normal. He does not go to an office. He works from a prison in Maine. He is part of a small pilot program that allows inmates with clean records and initiative to hold real remote jobs.
He gets a paycheck. He pays taxes. He contributes.
Rock Bottom Was Not the End
Thorpe grew up without stability. He was kicked out as a teenager. He turned to dealing drugs online. By twenty, he was locked up. He got out. He had no place to go. Within just over a year, he was back inside.
He will tell you he gave up on everything.
But then came a transfer. He was moved from New Hampshire to a facility in Maine. It was quieter. Less chaotic. He was alone. For the first time in a long time, he had space to think.
He signed up for online college courses. He started teaching himself to code. The pandemic hit and isolation forced a deeper kind of focus.
He realized something quietly powerful. It was not over. He could still build a life. But he would have to make it from scratch.
Building a Future from a Cell
What makes Thorpe’s story possible is not just his own willpower. It is the infrastructure Maine built around the idea that prison could be more than punishment.
While most states offer little beyond basic GED classes, Maine created pathways. Remote education. Paid remote jobs. Support for inmates who want more than survival.
The program includes about thirty inmates. They live in a low security housing unit for those with long records of good behavior. Ten percent of their income goes to the state. They pay restitution. They pay off court fines. They support families.
They are also proving something few outside believe. Given tools and trust, people can change.
Results That Are Hard to Ignore
The numbers tell a story the national prison system refuses to listen to.
Most states have recidivism rates near sixty percent. That means the majority of inmates end up back behind bars. In Maine, the rate for men is closer to twenty. For women, it is under ten. And for those who attend college while inside, the number drops to near zero.
Inside the prisons, violence has dropped too. In one maximum security facility, assaults on staff went from almost ninety a year to just seven.
None of this is by accident. It came from a change in mindset at the top.
Randall Liberty, the state’s corrections commissioner, saw the effects of trauma while serving in Iraq. He came home with a different lens. He saw incarceration as something that could make people worse or make people better. And that choice depended on the system, not the inmate.
Why the Labels Matter Less Than the Work
In the open source world, no one cared that Thorpe was in prison. They just saw what he built. He became a contributor like anyone else. He was judged on commits, not convictions.
For the first time in years, he got to be known for his talent, not his past.
That shift gave him something prison rarely does. It gave him purpose.
He no longer feels like the person he was. He says the version of himself that lived on the streets feels like a different life. The identity he used to carry has been replaced by one he actually earned.
Not because someone let him off the hook. But because someone gave him a shot to prove what else he could be.
The Bigger Question
What if there are thousands more like him?
What if the real crisis in our prison system is not just overpopulation or cost, but wasted potential?
How many people never get the chance to be seen for anything beyond their worst mistake?
This is not about sympathy. It is about logic. When people are allowed to learn, work and contribute, they become less likely to return to crime. They become taxpayers. They become coworkers. They become part of the solution.
Thorpe’s story is not just a one-off. It is a mirror held up to a system that throws away people instead of building them back.
And the results are clear.
All it took was someone seeing value where the world assumed there was none.
“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” - Elbert Hubbard