[Yabood]

Hm... Maybe I should get my story published someday too. Born and raised in Baghdad. Lived through three major wars and participated in the last one as a translator for the US army. Built Baghdad's first correctional service access database, which ended up being used at three prisons including Abu Ghraib. Spent over a year living as a refugee between Syria and Jordan before getting admitted to the US. Started with 20K of debt and.. who am I kidding.. No one gives a shit.

[dbancajas]

interested in this story. Did you get US asylum? What kind of deal do you get as a translator for US army? Super interested in your story and appreciative if you can write a 10-min summary. Cheers!

[Yabood]

I came in as a refugee. There was no deal; I took an English proficiency test at an L-3 Titan site and passed, then was offered a job at two different locations. One of them was the ICS (Iraqi Correctional Service), and the other was just too far from where I lived. At the prison, I discovered that someone was swapping the Pentium CPUs with Celeron and told one of the American advisors; He fired me, but later realized I knew what I was talking about and asked me if I could build a database. Fun times.

[oh_sigh]

I was actually really interested. I'd definitely read your biography.

[Yabood]

Thank you! Well, the rest of the story is pretty vanilla. When I got to the US, my best friend managed to get me an unpaid internship that later converted to a full-time job. The first year or so was tough, but I had good friends and good mentors who helped me move up the corporate ladder. I'm currently working on my own startup like most people here.

[deft]

Wait a few years until the next conflict when torture is cool again.

[spoonjim]

Yeah, getting people interested in the person who writes infrastructure software for torture sites is going to be harder than getting them interested in someone who shoots robots onto Mars.

[Yabood]

Your comment makes it sound like prisons are nothing but torture sites, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. The database was necessary to establish a reliable paper trail and prevent corruption, which was widespread.