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License to code? It's time for my favorite opinion that many of my past colleagues think is nuts. Licensing is how we ensure that consumers can trust the skills, safety, and ethics of professionals who have expertise that we can’t evaluate directly. Like software engineers. 1/6

Software engineers are at least as pervasive and important to our lives and well-being as acupuncturists, landscape architects, and polysomnographers. And yet software has qualification exam, no continuing professional development requirements, and no code of conduct or ethical standards. 2/6

If software engineers had to sign an ethics pledge to enter the field, and could be disbarred like lawyers, writing dishonest software would be a huge personal risk. The licensing board would also be a powerful ally to help them stand up to dishonest employers who want code that lies. 3/6

Anyone handling our sensitive data should only be employing software engineers with minimum required skills in security design and practices, who update their knowledge regularly as the threat environment changes. [Compare: doctors in NJ must do 100 hours of continuing education every 2 years.] 4/6

The existence of edge cases and exceptions doesn’t invalidate my point. Other professions have spent decades in active discussion over appropriate qualifications and standards to protect our safety without undue burden. We need to have that same conversation about software engineering. 5/6