RPA Development as a second career with criminal charges?

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I am writing to beg you for insight and advice into my current situation. I am shocked to find myself in this situation and am desperately seeking advice. I have a BS in Finance and Marketing from a private university and over 12 years of sales experience in high net worth wealth management. I hold my CFA and CFP designations (both premier finance degrees.) I previously was a senior Wealth Manager for 10 years making over $160,000 a year.

In 2016 I went through a bad divorce and had somewhat of a mental breakdown. I am diagnosed bipolar disorder and ended up homeless, broke, and wandering the streets. In 2017, I was arrested and charged with burglary of habitation and tampering with government documents. Two felony charges. Since this was my first ever arrest and I had never been in trouble with the law before the judge offered me deferred adjudication. Upon successful completion of deferred adjudication the charges will be dropped and I will not have any convictions at all on my record. However, the arrests and charges still show up on company background checks. As a result I am ineligible for any roles in the finance industry.

After my arrest I was able to turn my life around and now have a stable working and living environment and feel back to my old motivated self. I find myself with a lot of downtime in my day and have the ability to further my skillset with some type of online course curriculum. I came across RPA on a thread in Reddit and I see there is a high demand for people with RPA Developer experience. My question is this:

Do you think it is possible for someone with a background like mine to master the UiPath RPA Academy, obtain my RPA Certification, and then obtain a position in the industry? Any type of entry level RPA role would be acceptable; temporary project, freelance, consultancy, or full time position. Again, I have my college degree, advanced finance designations, and significant sales experience, but I also regrettably have those criminal charges on my record. I enrolled in the Academy and started taking the online courses and am enjoying it very much so far, but in the back of my head I am wondering if I am wasting my time.

Thank anyone in advance for your time

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Hi @SkipE99

The technology, community and training is available to anyone who wants to invest the time to learn the skills. The hiring criteria of individual companies, and their specific background policies, would ultimately be the barrier that one would have to get past to identify employment in the field.

I would say, go for it. Understanding the actual process before automating it is just as important as the technical know-how.

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