No Experience Necessary

Kai Dupé • April 4, 2023

It depends on who you are

It was tough to land a job as a software engineer after I graduated from college. The main issue was that I did not have any prior experience as a programmer. Interview after interview, rejection after rejection it was the same refrain, “we are looking for someone who has prior experience”. I would think to myself. How am I supposed to gain experience if no one will hire me? And now one will hire me without experience. It was highly frustrating. Was I supposed to get experience while I was in college? It took me 5 months to land my first job after college. I graduated in December of 1986. I accepted an offer as a junior programmer in May of 1987.


And the only reason I was able to land that job was because I had the experience they were seeking. It was not professional experience, but it was experience, nonetheless. The language was Turbo Pascal which I had learned in college. As a result of my work as a mentor to aspiring Black software engineers it seems that not much has changed. At least much as not changed for us.  I have mentored several Black recent graduates who are grappling with the same issue I faced in 1986. However, since then I have learned that not having experience is not the same hurdle for others as it is and has been for us.  Since starting my career, I can cite several examples where I have worked with folks who did not have the required experience for a job nor the required degree in computer science or a related field.


Many folks have had two-year degrees when a bachelor’s degree was listed as a requirement.  Some have not had a degree of any type. Let alone the necessary experience. It seems for some folks this is not a problem.  These examples are all over LinkedIn. For example, I saw a post recently where an ex-colleague of mine was changing companies. He mentioned in his post how he wanted to thank his former manager for taking a chance on him even though he had zero experience as a…  I can assure I have NEVER been hired in such a fashion. Please understand most of the people who are given such opportunities without experience are not Black people.


I am sure there are a few exceptions. My point is experience has nothing to do with who are given these opportunities. Although I don’t deny that the shortage of African Americans in the tech field is partly due to the fact that we don’t have the requisite experience. I am merely saying that the rules are not the same for everyone.




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Stepping onto the campus of Morehouse College this past weekend for Admitted Students Day was more than a visit—it was a moment of reflection. As I watched young Black men walk with purpose across the yard, I found myself asking a simple but profound question: What would it have been like for me to study computer science here? My journey into computing was shaped in environments where I was often the only Black man in the room. That reality brings with it an unspoken weight—the need to prove you belong, the awareness of being watched, and sometimes, the quiet isolation that comes with underrepresentation. Standing at Morehouse, I realized that this burden is not a given. It is a condition of the environment. At Morehouse, the environment is different by design. Here, Black men are not anomalies—they are the standard. I imagined what it would feel like to learn algorithms, data structures, and software development in a space where my identity was not questioned but affirmed. Where excellence is expected, not in spite of who you are, but because of it. As a computer science professor, I understand the academic rigor required to succeed in this field. There is no shortcut through recursion, no bypass around debugging, no substitute for disciplined problem-solving. But what struck me during my visit is how much context matters. When students are free from the psychological burden of proving they belong, they can redirect that energy toward mastering the material. They can collaborate more openly, ask questions more freely, and take intellectual risks without fear. I also thought about legacy. At Morehouse, students walk the same grounds as Martin Luther King Jr.. That kind of history does something to a person. It raises the bar—not just academically, but personally. It invites students to see their education not just as a pathway to a career, but as preparation for impact. Leaving campus, I felt inspired—but also reflective. I cannot rewrite my journey, but I can appreciate what spaces like Morehouse offer the next generation. For a Black male pursuing computer science, it is more than a degree. It is an opportunity to develop skill, confidence, and identity in alignment. And that combination is powerful.