I've been coding professionally for about 6 years now. I'm changing jobs, and I have this fear that I'm going to get there, they're going to decide I have no idea what I'm doing, and fire me. I'm the sole income for my family, and this shitty thought scares the crap out of me. Does anyone else go through this?

Moving jobs is always a risk, but is also essentially for growth. Be deliberate about burning bridges and keep a finger in the wind. If things look to be turning bad, bail out early so you'll have an easier time transitioning to stable footing.

Yeah, I had the same thought - I switched recently. Few points that may or may not be helpful:

- As for not knowing what you're doing - they decide that at interview. So unless you've lied or *grossly* exaggerated, you're fine.
- It's *really* expensive to have a high turnover - hiring then getting rid of people quickly, then re-hiring (onboarding costs, recruiter fees, equipment costs, new staff training, etc.) So unless you're utterly terrible, you're an absolute arse, or they're utterly bankrupt, you'd be incredibly unlucky to be shown the door that quickly. (The only person I know who was let go that fast posted a highly confidential chunk of code on Stackoverflow in his first week, *and then* was an absolute arse about it when called out.)

- My general advice for a new job where you want to be there a long(ish) time - work your arse off in the first few months to skill up and get to grips with things quickly, work your arse off in the next few months to become an expert in your niche area. Then you're an established, respected member of the team who's become damn near invaluable very quickly. That's incredibly good for both payrises and long term job security.

@AlmondSauce
This is why I'm sometimes tempted to move to Europe. Here it's super cheap to churn bodies, because company's don't actually hire anyone. It's pure ultracapitalist dystopianism.

@SortOfTested Yeah I should say this is from a UK perspective so YMMV of course. Salaries here aren't a patch on the silicon valley area and similar, but they're still what I'd consider "very decent", especially in central London - and 25 days paid leave plus bank holidays is generally the minimum you see in decent places. Some offer 30.

I'm quite lucky in that I'm in rather nice countryside here, with gigabit broadband and London only an hour away by train. (Not that any kind of commute is happening at the moment of course.)

@AlmondSauce
Def. I run one of my devs shops out of scotland. I pay above market, but it's still comparatively cheap.

@SortOfTested Ah very nice. An ex of mine was Scottish - it's great up there. Beautiful scenery, low cost of living. Well, so long as you don't manage to offend anyone by making a casual Scottish joke about supporting the wrong football team, then you may get beaten up.

@AlmondSauce
Yeah, I've got a decent enough flat is glasgow. Probably going to go back as soon as they hit phase 4.

To be on the safe side whenever anyone asks about football I just say, "it's Tonga's year!" We all have a good laugh and everyone goes back to minding their own business.

@SortOfTested That's a good one to know... I'll have to remember that if and when I'm in that neck of the woods again 😂

@AlmondSauce
Even had I tried to misrepresent myself, there was a technical coding session. This is a language I've worked in for 5 years, and a framework that I used for about 3 of those. I know that I know the material, I'm always just worried that I'm not there. I just feel really junior sometimes. Like I'm still stuck in the "Fake it 'till you make it" stage.

Yes, and have been fired many times but also been on my last job for like 6 years now.
The pressure is tough.