# Software development has no gatekeeping

> Software development has no gatekeeping: you do not need a degree or an exam, just a computer and a book to start learning and experimenting with code.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2022-09-29 | Topics: [Career](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/career/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/software-development-has-no-gatekeeping/

Software development is pretty cool as a profession because there's no gatekeeping.

You don't need a degree or special studies.

You don't need to pass an exam before you can start.

You can just get a computer and a book and you start learning.

Nothing stops you. You don't just become a doctor by experimenting on patients but you can become a programmer by experimenting with computers.

And if you find out you don't like it, you can just sell your computer and be done with it.

What's stopping you?