Risky. If I interview somebody and their resume is inflated or wrong, at best as a candidate you wasted my time reviewing your resume and scheduling interviews and what not, and now you're starting from a disadvantage because my first impression of you is one of being misled. We're a high-trust organization and anything that causes doubt on your integrity puts you at a disadvantage. If I'm interviewing you, it's because I considered you against the torrent of other applicants, and I likely excluded one that is more qualified than you based on your misrepresentation. That also doesn't work in your favor.
If you are a truly exceptional dev in your previous field and can convince me of that, along with an up-front and transparent explanation of why you lied to me as our first interaction, it is possible to overcome this. However, that is a pretty small pool of people.
Definitely fair but for the candidate considering this, it's a numbers game. They're just looking to get their foot in the door for a new career path. You care, and you're right to care, but there will be others who don't.
Then next time, it's no longer a lie and they can (in theory) get by on merit
If you're interested in working on database internals, it's worth looking at startups—even if you don't have prior experience in this exact area. At my company, we hire engineers with strong systems backgrounds who haven't necessarily worked on databases before. If that sounds like you, feel free to check my profile for more details.
