I'm fairly new as an engineer (less than a year of experience in industry), and I'm happy that I get so much constructive feedback in my code reviews. However, sometimes I come out of them feeling like absolute trash. The review I had yesterday highlighted my lack of experience with API development, and I left the meeting feeling like I didn't even deserve to work here.

I'm trying to take everything as a learning opportunity, and grow as an engineer... But sometimes it is hard to see myself improving.

You're actively trying to grow, and you do the job to the best of your abilities - I couldn't be more happy with that kind of co-worker. I know the feeling though, I hate not knowing everything. If you feel you're particularity lacking in one area: GOOD, that's where you could put your focus until you feel good about how much you know. That's how I try to see it nowadays, after being overwhelmed with how much there is to learn.

It’s completely normal to feel that way. I remember when I had my first PR and I panicked after committing a mistake. Wanting to be perfect! Not everybody is perfect. Once you code review others more often too you’ll see this. Think of it as helping each other not against. Once the code is merged, it’s everybody’s code!

Don't worry. It's an opportunity to learn more.
You can have 10 years of xperience and you will continue to learn.
That is the beauty of our work. New ideas, new ways.
When I started to work I had the same thing so you have to take advantage of that.
Even today I'm still learning.

@growling yea that's good and all. I just hope that the reviewer is not murdering you by words hahaha

The company i currently work for. I worked 2 years here. The first year i had a senior who always looked at my code and told me what i did wrong. At first i fucking hated him. He came in at my job interview and my first tought was literally: who is this dickhead? He had a “unique” way of communicating with people. But then we hang out a few times outside work and i started learning from him. I learned more in this 1 year than all of my life combined. Then he left an i became the most qualified programmer at the company. It was awful not being able to learn from someone. I could not ask a dev to take a look at my code because they asked me to look at theirs. While it was inspiring and stuff at my second year i learned nothing compared to the first. So right now im planning on leaving to a company where i count as a noob so i can continue learning. Quality feedback is invaluable as a programmer. So don’t feel down about not knowing stuff :) You can 100% learn it!

Stay neutral. Most of the time people mean good when they are giving criticism and don't want for you to feel stressed about it. Take each critique as a bullet point and work on them one at a time.

@PreyK I this is my story except that I'm still on the hating phase. Looking forward tho. Not that I don't accept criticism... it's just his wordings.