Tech has an unusual problem:
It’s the only industry where beginners are told they’re unqualified before they even try.
Don’t have a CS degree?
Not “real” engineering.
Didn’t start coding at age 12?
You’re behind.
Not fluent in every acronym, architecture, and abstraction yet?
Maybe you’re not cut out for this.
It’s nonsense.
Worse than nonsense — it’s gatekeeping, and it keeps talented people out of an industry that desperately needs them.
After a couple of decades in this field, here’s what I know for certain:
**Most gatekeeping in tech has nothing to do with capability.
It has everything to do with insecurity.**
Let’s break this down.
1. Tech is one of the ONLY fields where you can become world‑class without formal training
You can learn programming from:
- books
- online courses
- open-source projects
- documentation
- communities
- tutorials
- mentors
- experimentation
And learn it well.
There are senior engineers at top-tier companies with no degree at all.
There are brilliant architects who started in support, QA, or IT.
There are founders with zero formal background.
Tech is accessible by design — the tools, the knowledge, the examples, the source code — it’s all public.
Gatekeeping denies the very nature of the industry.
2. The loudest gatekeepers are rarely the strongest engineers
The best engineers I’ve ever worked with:
- explain clearly
- welcome beginners
- break down concepts
- support learning
- simplify complexity
- don’t brag about pedigree
Meanwhile, the people who flex credentials and jargon?
They’re usually hiding behind them.
Gatekeeping is almost always a shield for insecurity — a way to maintain status without having to demonstrate clarity or competence.
Truly capable engineers don’t need those shields.
3. Real engineering is not trivia — it’s thinking
You can memorize every algorithm known to mankind and still be a terrible engineer if you can’t:
- reason about tradeoffs
- architect for scale
- communicate clearly
- debug methodically
- reduce complexity
- design for real constraints
- build maintainable systems
Engineering is applied thinking.
It’s not remembering the definition of a red‑black tree on command.
Gatekeeping confuses knowledge with wisdom — and they’re not the same.
4. The people who come from nontraditional backgrounds bring strengths traditional engineers lack
People who learned outside academia often bring:
- better intuition
- stronger problem‑solving
- more creativity
- practical thinking
- adaptability
- resilience
- customer empathy
- real‑world perspective
A team filled only with academic thinkers is as limited as a team filled only with hackers.
Diversity of experience is a superpower.
Gatekeeping kills that diversity.
5. Everything in tech is learnable — and re‑learnable
Programming is not magic.
Computer science is not magic.
Architecture is not magic.
They are systems.
And systems can be understood.
Most gatekeeping acts like tech is a mystical art with chosen practitioners.
But everything you need to learn is documented — publicly, thoroughly, and often for free.
If you’re willing to take small, consistent steps, you can learn anything in this field.
And if you did learn it already, you can relearn it later.
6. Gatekeeping hurts companies, not just people
When an organization only hires:
- one type of thinker
- one type of background
- one type of resume
- one type of personality
- one type of learning style
…it pays for it in blind spots, technical debt, brittle systems, and cultural stagnation.
The strongest teams I’ve ever seen were built from wildly different people who shared one thing:
Curiosity.
Curiosity is the real filter.
Credentialism is the fake one.
7. Tech grows faster than any curriculum anyway
By the time a university updates its syllabus, the industry has already moved on.
Frameworks, languages, architectures, standards — everything evolves.
The ability to learn fast matters more than the ability to memorize old material.
Which means the thing gatekeepers defend as a prerequisite — a degree — is often the least relevant measure of long-term success.
Here’s the truth:
Gatekeeping in tech isn’t about protecting quality.
It’s about protecting egos.
And the industry doesn’t need protected egos.
It needs learners.
It needs builders.
It needs people who can adapt, think, experiment, and collaborate.
It needs people who weren’t “supposed” to be here but showed up anyway.
If you want to be in tech, you belong in tech.
No gatekeeper gets to decide that.
Not their degree.
Not their title.
Not their insecurity.
Not their narrow definition of who’s allowed in.
You’re allowed in the moment you decide to start.
And the industry is better when you do.