I'm a programmer. I've been working at Contract Company A for a year now. I worked for them before. Specifically, I'm working for Contractor B under A which works for Contract Company C. And C works for BigCompany. BigCompany is one of several companies in Industry that Contract Company C works for.

Contractor B actually lost her dayjob at Normal Company D because she had ties to A, and D was going to branch out and get the contract with C, but A got it instead, even though she did not actually tell A anything about the potential contract with C. They assumed that she did. She ended up working at A again anyways because it was difficult for her to find another job because D marked her as blacklisted, and A was pretty much begging her (and me) to come back.

I apologize for the confusing obfuscation, but bear with me please. As you may be able to read from this, confidentiality is really super important.

Apart from one or two small jobs, I've only ever worked for or through Contractor B, as a sub-contractor where appropriate, and as a consultant at other times. I've been interning in this field since I was ten years old, but I don't have a lot experience I can use in an interview, except for getting into really tiny specifics (like I wrote such and such query to get blah data. Who did I do this for? I either don't know or am not allowed to say). My work with BigCompany is some of the only recent professional experience I can talk about in a larger scale (I wrote larger pieces of the applications we've made), and I can't even mention BigCompany's name, anywhere.

And here's the kicker: I was recently contacted by a recruitment company to work directly for Big Company.

Specifically, due to her experience at D, Contractor B has informed me that I absolutely must not speak to anyone at A about this potential job position. They are not allowed to know that BigCompany is trying to hire someone directly. However, the job required/desired list includes "Experience in Industry". B was going to ask boss at A if it was okay for me to mention that I did work for BigCompany at the interview/application for BigCompany, where I'm not normally allowed to mention any of the BigCompany or Company C names. But then she remembered her experience at D.

This situation is very awkward for me. I've been trained my entire career (aka B's entire career and nearly my entire childhood and adult life) to program well without knowing who I was working for, the larger purpose or scope, or anything beyond the actual page or data behavior. It seems weird and backwards, but I'm really good at it. It's only been in this past year that I've done professional work having any understanding of the business layer of the larger application. But I've learned, in attempting to get a so-called 'real job', that what I can do with that code isn't nearly as impressive (understandable) to the hiring professionals as the larger project or the big company names.

So how do I handle this? How do I state my experience in Industry to BigCompany without revealing that I'm a sub-sub-sub-contractor working for the same BigCompany or might it not matter?

I'm a programmer. I work for a small contracting company that indirectly does contract work for a very large company.

I was recently contacted by a recruitment company about a position at the very large company. My company is encouraging me to apply for this direct-hire position. However, I need to show experience in this industry on my resume.

My challenge is that my secrecy agreements prevent me from disclosing the fact that I have indirect experience with the very large company or the contracting company that works directly with them. My work has also been very narrowly focused on building specific pages within large applications. While I'm very good at working with little context, I'm worried that I will not be able to intelligently explain the type of work I've done in the industry without having to disclose details about that work that I'm not allowed to disclose.

How can I best present my experience in an industry to a company I'd like to work for when all the experience I have in the industry is indirectly working for them and I'm not allowed to disclose that I have that experience?