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On being a woman in tech...
You lads probably have (and my fellow ladies certainly have) heard of "impostor syndrome" and, if you don't experience it, you possibly wonder what living with it is like.
Here's an example from this weekend.
Be me, about 5 years into my career, graduated from a top college, feeling decent but still unsure of skill.
Company gets a 4 week trial of an online learning website. It includes optional assessments, so that you know where in the video lessons to start. Rankings are novice, proficient, expert.
Hear from our QA that he got ranked "proficient." Which is a pretty broad category, but I become super afraid that I'll also be assessed as "proficient" and it will look like I have the same dev skills as a fucking QA (our management overlords can see our scores).
Boyfriend has me do some deep breathing before starting the test, because it's obvious how stressed I am.
Finally take it and get ranked "expert", in the 97th percentile, even though some technical difficulties made me miss four questions in a row. I decide to use my do over, and get ranked "expert" again, this time in the 99th percentile.
You'd think I'd be like, "Lawl, I can't believe I'd get the same score as our QA!" And there is some of that. But there's also the thoughts of, "that test could have been more thorough," "that score wasn't real because I resaw a question and got the right answer the second time," and "99th percentile isn't that great on a platform where new developers are over represented."
And this is all despite the fact that, if you were to ask someone how confident I am, the answer would probably "confident as hell."
Not saying this to start any fights. Figured it could be some interesting insight into a world that some people don't experience! (not that males aren't allowed to have impostor syndrome!)16 -
You think you're doing well, then you talk to someone who operates at a skill level so far above you, it makes you think why even bother.9
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Impostor vs Kenner syndrome
We got a new kid which does his internship from school. We talked and he asked me what stuff I had done with 14 - 16. I remembered with 14 I was really into reverse engineering, assembler and c/c++ but never managed to actually build something.
So he started to say stuff like he could replace me in an instant and he should get paid for this internship at least as much as I did, because he made some websites and games already.
I really was down. Kids today get a lot of shit done and I was a disappointing lazy little shit just playing games and try to reverse engineer stuff and learn assembler and c++.
It's been month and shit hit me when I've seen his stuff was copy pasted from a tutorial/ YouTube video.
Today's ressources, languages, frameworks make it really easy to build something but I still got respect for everyone every age who is interested and get into programming and stuff.
But I hope you'll read this you little shit and realise that you can use a simple physics engine by copy and pasting code. So don't talk disrespectful to people in general especially when they can create a whole game and physics engine.14 -
Believe it or not, this community has helped me overcome my impostor syndrome.
It's such an enormous relief whenever I open the app and read the rants, and I can actually relate to or understand many of them. It restores not only my confidence in my knowledge and skills, but also my motivation to learn and grow. It gives me strength to push forward instead of giving up on this path.
Thank you DevRant, rant on you awesome fuckers! :)4 -
Saying you know Javascript when you only know jQuery fells like inviting friends over for dinner and serve frozen food.7
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Employer made a mistake in making me interview dev applicants because they gave me a glimpse of how badly unskilled the market is... and how they are worth more than my current payscale.
Thank you for the much-needed sobriety from impostor syndrome.7 -
It’s actually pretty neat. I constantly suffer from impostor syndrome, so I always have keep learning to keep up the facade.
5 -
When I started my job a year ago, I felt impostor syndrome. Now I think everyone around me is a fucking moron and I'm an elite programmer.
Am I just an asshole, or has my journey with this company expired?12 -
Impostor Syndrome at it's finest.
Any experienced developer knows writing good programs has very little to do with syntax and a whole lot to do with where you put it. If this guy actually did any work over his career he probably knows a ton about application architecture and design patterns without even realizing it.
source: https://quora.com/I-have-been-worki...
2 -
Bad dev habit to unlearn:
Impostor syndrome before starting a project.
Don't think a lot before diving into a tough project. Just jump in. If you second guess yourself about being ready, you'll never do it. Either you're already good enough or you'll figure out what you need.
I wasted way too much time before starting to write an AI chess engine but it turned out a lot simpler than I expected.2 -
On every new job, there is always the Impostor Syndrome.
They know each other, they're all having fun and they're friends. They're super nice to me and include you in everything, but still a lot of the time they're talking about shit that I have no idea about.
And professionally it's not better. I'm new, I don't know how things work, yet everybody knows it like the back of their hands.
There is this irrational fear, this feeling, that I don't belong, that I'm an impostor, and someone might see through my mask for who I really am - a guy with no idea about what's going on, that doesn't belong, that's an IMPOSTOR.
It takes time to overcome, especially when in a foreign country. Once it's passed, I become more attached to my colleagues and my job if the hurdle was harder, than whether I felt right at home from the very start.6 -
When lot of people are actually using you open source software and contributing to it and donating money for it, but you don't know why given the fact that it objectively is complete crap.
I feel bad each time that I receive money. Is this what the "impostor syndrome" feels like? Because I'm actually feeling like an impostor.2 -
I just had my worst hackathon so far and need to puke my whole toxic hatred, the rant will be full of hate so be warned. (I just don't want to let it go on my girlfriend, but I need to shout it out loud somewhere)
First of all, it is alright to be a beginner at a hackathon. It is also alright to not know that much about coding and want to learn. But it is not alright to lie about your skill, pretend to be a senior programmer and waste my fucking time.
Don't even fucking dare to say your are "fit" in Android development if you just have done some foobar tutorial on YouTube, don't even bother to read the document and have literally non existent knowledge about computer science.
Why the fucking hell do you need to pretend to be a seasoned programmer if you are just a bloody beginner? I mean you are in a hackathon full of computer nerds so soon or later your impostor ass will be debunked so what is the point?
And the other guy. Why the fucking hell did.'t you say that you just begin Python for 3 months? You are not a fucking developer if you just started coding for 3 fucking months. Learn some fucking coding before starting with machine learning you fucking punk ass bitch script kiddie.
Alright, maybe I was too naive to not check my teammates' background before make a team with them. Fuck me and my fucking stupid ass. My dumb ass monkey brain fell for big mouths, I deserved the headache right now and none less.
Lesson learned!10 -
Here's the story of my first month at CERN :) But first, a little premise...
Before arriving, I expected to be scared, alone and unguided in most of my experiences: after all I was a simple 19 year old about to leave home and friends for 3 years heading out in the world with zero experience on stuff like banking, taxes.. let alone working in a huge environment! The impostor syndrome was at an all time high on that front.
Then, I had the luck and pleasure to find an extremely competent and helpful plethora of people, ranging from my team to other CERNies (yes, that how we're called :P) who took me under their wing and introduced me to all the key aspects of living the place. When the initial stress finally soothed down thanks to this, I finally started to manage focusing more and more on my work, by following day-by-day my teammates who taught me the core aspects of the system and the many projects that are in progress during Long Shutdown 2. Within a couple weeks, I already managed to grasp various concepts that got me quickly on track, and now I managed to develop and integrate new temperature monitoring scripts into a system checking on hundreds of Single Board Computer-based servers :) It's a real rollercoaster of learning and applying under all fronts and so far I'm not regretting my choice of departing.
Luckily I've also discovered I'm pretty efficient and good at my job, which surely boosts my morale :D
Keep you updated as usual!11 -
When the impostor syndrome hits me, I try to remember my achievements :
- I won a national coding contest when I was 18,
- I made and still maintain a complex app for 15 years, still actively used,
- I cannot count the number of languages I know; too many of them...
Not bragging here, btw. It's just important to actually enumerate your achievements.
If you get hit by the IS, just remember what you did 😉.12 -
!Rant
Had an employee evaluation today that I had been anticipating with a lot of anxiety since December. Went in with major impostor syndrome thinking I’m just not contributing enough and I was going to be put on the spot. But, they told me they couldn’t be happier with the work I’ve been doing. Now I can finally relax.4 -
Over 7 years writing software, through good, bad and ugly.
I still wake up feeling like an impostor most of the days.
Impostor syndrome on fleek.4 -
New clients and impostor syndrome.
As a self-taught freelance web developer-designer with minimum experience and an introvert it's hard to find new clients. Also the impostor syndrome-experience (call it as you want) doesn't help at all :/8 -
I wish to create a guild for software developers. Like in the old age, where certain masterwork developers work together in order to provide non-hacky solutions. The beauty of a guild is that it would allow proper apprenticeship, Blacklisting of toxic companies and directly help with wage negotiations. Too often I see proper professionals working overtime just because they are harassed and having "impostor syndrome" (I know the term is hated, but passes the idea much better). Also maybe that would eliminate technical debt...
But hey, this is just a vision... :')10 -
So I need some advice from some fellow devs here...
I recently accepted a job offer at a new company and I'll be leaving my place of work for the last 11 years. I'm a senior level dev who comes from a place where software is more of a secondary function and the skills of my peers are very... Atypical of most software developers.
My interview was ok, but I passed the mark barely - in that they recognize I'm rusty and have some gaps to shore up, but have decided to give me an offer anyway. I'm taking a "step down" to enter in as a level below senior to get my foot in the door of a real tech company.
I've got myself convinced I'm setting myself up to fail, despite being told by people that work there that they encourage mistakes and that they wouldn't be offering me a position if they didn't think I'd be successful.
Is it typical to feel inadequate and worried you'll be fired prematurely for underperformance? I've had little to no experience in a fast paced tech job so I have little to refer to. I was a very high performer where I'm coming from, but that's hard to equate to where I'm going. It seems like classic "impostor syndrome".
I've not even started there yet but I'm terrified my anxiety will get the better of me before I even have my first day there. Anyone out there have any advice?
I'm excited for this new opportunity but I can't seem to shake the fear of the unknown.4 -
By telling everyone that I have it so I can pretend to be an edge lord tortured genius and escape the need to work on my severe lack of accomplishments. Now I can have the credit of having such a crippling amount of intelligence without doing the work to prove it.
Someone else has more accomplishments than me? Oh no, that doesn't count. You see, I have impostor syndrome, I'm better than that person if only I can drag my giant balls around. You can't prove me wrong! Ha! I'm smart.
God fucking damn it. I shat on a weekly rant again. I fucking hate this topic.3 -
It's starting again. I can feel it.
You had a decent job, but you had to think otherwise. Then you had to go to that coffee shop tell some people you're the fucking bee's knees, didn't you?
Well, you know that's how the band plays.
Yeah, but now you'll have to live up to the hype, my friend. And you know pretty well that the pocketknife on your belt won't cut it anymore.
I can always learn as I go...
Sure you can. Except this time stakes are higher. They'll be expecting you to deliver on all your bloody greatness. They'll be relying on you. Not only them, but also the person who chose to be with you. And you know you're not enough, for neither of them. Now you'll fuck it up and let all those people down.
But I could build things little by little, lay out a solid groundwork and build up from that. Just like that other time when...
Of course you can. But can you make beautiful sparkly things? Can you make them sexy?
No... But I can make them resilient. I can follow best practices and intelligent design patterns.
Right. Cause design patterns win contests and prizes. Sure.
Well, it'll make things work better. And then when someone else comes along...
They'll say your work smells and let everybody know how it should've been done, because they need to prove themselves. You know that's what people do.
But that's just not fair! Solid work is solid work!
And a fraud is still a fraud. And that's what you are.5 -
Confession: I'm launching a major project for a client this time next week. It's some of the worst code I've ever written in my entire life. It's beyond awful, but I have no choice. It's sure going to be fun fixing it for the next 2 weeks post launch.8
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!rant. Encouragement for those feeing impostor syndrome like I am right now with a new employer. Source +
Bonus Panel: goo.gl/mhOvDs
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I remind myself that nobody knows everything, and even the most knowledgeable people have their gaps in knowledge.
For whatever I'm not doing well right now, I'll keep an open mind, and be willing to accept advice and work on it.
In the end, just because I'm not doing something right once, doesn't extrapolate to the rest of my life. I still try to be the best version of myself.
Geez, I'll be getting out of this quarantine as a stoic mindful person1 -
Why does google do this? It's supposed to be a map, not a fucking travel guide, I want to see the motherfucking map that it so ironically calls itself
Swallow a Collins road atlas whole you fucking impostor.
9 -
Want to make someone's life a misery? Here's how.
Don't base your tech stack on any prior knowledge or what's relevant to the problem.
Instead design it around all the latest trends and badges you want to put on your resume because they're frequent key words on job postings.
Once your data goes in, you'll never get it out again. At best you'll be teased with little crumbs of data but never the whole.
I know, here's a genius idea, instead of putting data into a normal data base then using a cache, lets put it all into the cache and by the way it's a volatile cache.
Here's an idea. For something as simple as a single log lets make it use a queue that goes into a queue that goes into another queue that goes into another queue all of which are black boxes. No rhyme of reason, queues are all the rage.
Have you tried: Lets use a new fangled tangle, trust me it's safe, INSERT BIG NAME HERE uses it.
Finally it all gets flushed down into this subterranean cunt of a sewerage system and good luck getting it all out again. It's like hell except it's all shitty instead of all fiery.
All I want is to export one table, a simple log table with a few GB to CSV or heck whatever generic format it supports, that's it.
So I run the export table to file command and off it goes only less than a minute later for timeout commands to start piling up until it aborts. WTF. So then I set the most obvious timeout setting in the client, no change, then another timeout setting on the client, no change, then i try to put it in the client configuration file, no change, then I set the timeout on the export query, no change, then finally I bump the timeouts in the server config, no change, then I find someone has downloaded it from both tucows and apt, but they're using the tucows version so its real config is in /dev/database.xml (don't even ask). I increase that from seconds to a minute, it's still timing out after a minute.
In the end I have to make my own and this involves working out how to parse non-standard binary formatted data structures. It's the umpteenth time I have had to do this.
These aren't some no name solutions and it really terrifies me. All this is doing is taking some access logs, store them in one place then index by timestamp. These things are all meant to be blazing fast but grep is often faster. How the hell is such a trivial thing turned into a series of one nightmare after another? Things that should take a few minutes take days of screwing around. I don't have access logs any more because I can't access them anymore.
The terror of this isn't that it's so awful, it's that all the little kiddies doing all this jazz for the first time and using all these shit wipe buzzword driven approaches have no fucking clue it's not meant to be this difficult. I'm replacing entire tens of thousands to million line enterprise systems with a few hundred lines of code that's faster, more reliable and better in virtually every measurable way time and time again.
This is constant. It's not one offender, it's not one project, it's not one company, it's not one developer, it's the industry standard. It's all over open source software and all over dev shops. Everything is exponentially becoming more bloated and difficult than it needs to be. I'm seeing people pull up a hundred cloud instances for things that'll be happy at home with a few minutes to a week's optimisation efforts. Queries that are N*N and only take a few minutes to turn to LOG(N) but instead people renting out a fucking off huge ass SQL cluster instead that not only costs gobs of money but takes a ton of time maintaining and configuring which isn't going to be done right either.
I think most people are bullshitting when they say they have impostor syndrome but when the trend in technology is to make every fucking little trivial thing a thousand times more complex than it has to be I can see how they'd feel that way. There's so bloody much you need to do that you don't need to do these days that you either can't get anything done right or the smallest thing takes an age.
I have no idea why some people put up with some of these appliances. If you bought a dish washer that made washing dishes even harder than it was before you'd return it to the store.
Every time I see the terms enterprise, fast, big data, scalable, cloud or anything of the like I bang my head on the table. One of these days I'm going to lose my fucking tits.10 -
It's frustrating trying to find help related to mental health in this place. I asked for an online appointment with a psychiatrist because that's the only appointment they allow during the pandemic. They called me after over a month to ask if I'm still experiencing anxiety and depression which I had a few years ago. I said no but I have trouble sleeping for several months now, maybe over a year. I lost track of time. My problem with concentration is also getting worse.
They completely ignored the concentration part and gave me a prescription for 10 tablets of sleep medication to take "as needed". Lol. This is after I said, I have not had a decent sleep in months. I don't plan to take it every day but come on, how long will it take for another prescription? A month? I sleep like 4 hours every day. No interruptions and nightmares if I'm lucky, and 6 hours on unicorn days. I don't care if you sleep less than that, it's not a competition.
Stop drinking coffee? I tried that, fell asleep early only to wake up by midnight and stay up until the sun comes up. Exercise? I strength train thrice a week and have other physical activities on other days. Melatonin? That shit doesn't work for me. Benadryl? Awesome but I can't abuse it for so long.
The concentration part has always been a problem regardless if I was on sleep medication or not. It doesn't fucking matter. I feel like I'm writing on a journal while another hand of mine writes over the same texts I've just written a moment ago and then another hand, and then another until they're all just writing different shit on top of one another. Voila, I have different kinds of novels and all them are unfinished. I am seriously concerned about my job and my future in general.
This is not impostor syndrome. I am fucking up and it gets worse every month. My colleagues are very patient which makes me feel guilty as shit. It's so frustrating knowing you can do so much and how easy it is but not being able to do it. "Maybe it's not so easy." It really is. As soon as I do it, it takes so little time but 75% of the time I'm doing or thinking god knows whatever unrelated crap.
Time blocking? Turn off all distractions? It doesn't work. Nothing works. I contacted a few other psychiatrists and the only one who replied said they'll be available on January. Nice. I'm not even worried about COVID. I've been sick for almost a week (don't know and don't care if it's COVID) and I just stay at home. It will pass and if it doesn't, I'm dead. But why are psychiatrists not available during the time when they are needed the most? And why is it so hard to meet one who takes you seriously?
I found some medication online. I would love to get a proper diagnosis but I've been trying for years and this part has always been dismissed. Even if I wait until January, I doubt that one will take me seriously. I wasted enough of my youth fucking around with unresolved issues when I could be spending time implementing some ideas I have. If no one's gonna help me, I'll help myself.20 -
sometimes I can't understand how I got my senior web engineer position at my age.
but then I look at my fellow senior cursing about some stuff that he doesn't understand and doesn't want to understand (today it's npm) and then I feel ok again :D1 -
Colleague: Ivy, I have a problem with blah blah.
(Meanwhile we are in two different places)
Me: I'm not sure I understand your problem. Just Google it.
Colleague: I don't want to.
Me: Okay bye.
Question: Are Developers who use Google impostors?9 -
Lets play a game of spot the bug...
Too easy you say?
What if I told you that this code was written by a well paid dev over an exceptionally large period of time?
Crazy huh, but that's still nothing. The most ludicrous thing about it - is that you (like me) probably suffer from a mild case of impostor syndrome.
I just ended that suffering. The only thing worse than impostor syndrome is believing you actually know what the fuck your doing. Keep it in check but learn to love it... it's probably the reason you could spot the bug after all.
5 -
There are two types of people: Doers, and Talkers.
It really annoys me when talkers (who do nothing) ask me to stop doing things because it makes their lack of productivity look bad.
So sorry sweetheart, if you want to look better, just start doing work yourself and then you don't have to worry about my work making you look bad.4 -
My rant is that I low key hate devRant.
I'm 23, I'm an average software engineer, with some expertise in machine learning and with a decent job.
But seeing all your cool stories, skills and rants makes me feel like I don't know shit and everyone else is just more driven, skillful and passionate, taking care of a 1000 pet projects at a time and dominating their work routine.
Oh impostor syndrome, how I've missed you!
P.S.: I still love your rants, keep them coming.2 -
how do i deal with impostor syndrome?
i read thedailywtf.com... daily.
also, since i'm trying to be a gamedev i watch youtube channels that foxus on reviewing/trying shitty games.
helps with the impostor syndrome quite a lot, but has a side effect of causing depression from "how the hell are all these incompetent morons successful, and i' m not?"3 -
[how to deal with impostor syndrome]
By consuming the flesh of the innocent, or learning new skills, i forgot which one.2 -
I feel stupid.
I'm not familiar with any of the new tools we are using and there are so many concepts in web development that I know nothing about. I'm googling the shit out of everything, trying to cram other people's years of experience into my brain, and I feel like I'm annoying my colleagues.
All of a sudden, the compliments feel like "That's a good job for your level of understanding. I lowered my standards for you a long time ago." Yeah, yeah, it's dumb to overthink like that. Every time my manager wants to have a meeting with me, I feel like he's assessing if I'd still be useful in the future or adapting well into the new tools like, "Oh, you're learning too slow. Maybe we have to let you go and hire someone who's been using this and that a long time ago."
Please don't tell me it's impostor syndrome or some shit. I really don't know much about this side of the field and those set of tools. I learned a few during my months of stay here and managed to get my tasks done. I just want to vent because I feel like my team deserves a better developer and I'm trying to be that. I just can't help but wonder if they are better off with someone else.12 -
Being offered a mid DevOps role after just 1.6 years of experience in the field (plus 1 year as an intern) feels... unreal.
Side-note: also, each stage was at a different company and my "junior" 1.6 years were at a startup where I was the only one on this discipline so at times it got a bit hardcore.
Having a 5x salary increase in 2 and a half years is both heartening and terrifying.
And, of course, the impostor syndrome slowly creeps back in...5 -
I'm a programmer who is still learning, and I've been having some nasty impostor syndrome lately. How do you deal with it? And does anyone know some websites with good programming tests/quizzes? I want to see how much I know.
(also first rant yay)6 -
Impostor Syndrome...
I dropped out of university because of Maths (I'm not really that bad at maths, but that thematic wasn't really mine... But whatever) and obviously had no job nor any graduation (except my school thingy) and wasn't able to study something computer science related, because that's how it goes in Germany... (If you can't pass a certain subject, you will get blocked for the studies that involve that subject for 2 years or sth... Because I failed in Maths meant that I'm fucked)
So I started an apprenticeship to atleast do something and get that degree.
In my new company I really felt (and sometime feel it nowadays) like I'm the fifth wheel on the car and don't really achieve anything (but i really do).
That really fuckin sucks and hinders the fun that I could have in my job :/6 -
That feeling when you've been programming, scripting and developing games, software and web pages for nearly a decade and you still feel like a talentless hack that doesn't deserve the wages you are paid, and constantly fear being exposed as a fraud by your peers... :x6
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Going through a period of overwhelming impostor syndrome. And I blame LinkedIn for it. Fuck LinkedIn.9
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The temporary friends you meet in "Among Us" makes the game even more charming. Many players are overly aggressive assholes then you meet that one player who's into the childish shit you are into. Hiding behind a box, standing on top of each other, celebrating with party or flamingo hats then boom, one of you disconnects.
CallMeKevin had three episodes where he always had that one random homie. He didn't find them ever again. There was a time he was an impostor and he proved it to that same "friend" he just met in that lobby a few minutes ago by getting into a vent in front of him. In every emergency meeting, the guy vouched for his innocence and the impostors won even though the homie was a crewmate.
I'm rambling. I just like how the game was designed. Of course, there are far more people who lose their shit for someone lying when that's literally what the game is about. Users will always be dumb no matter what.5 -
Hi there fellow Devranters,
I am new here but my problem is pretty old. You see i stumbled into coding totally by accident. That was about 5 years ago. I have been learning ever since.
But the problem is that each day I just feel less and less of a programmer, more of a failure. I started with python, from sololearn to various ebooks.Then C++ and finally Ruby. But I still feeal weak.Despite the projects that I have worked on I still don't feel good enough. Most especially in Ruby.
I have a friend who is also into coding and coincidentally started about the same time as I did.The difference is that he learnt at university and I am self-taught.We used to talk a lot but we don't anymore,I feel too ashamed, an impostor even. I am scared he'll ask me something and I won't know anything about it.And I once taigjt him OOP. Right now I can't even code a hello world program without reading a whole ebook on python just to be confident.
We had dreams with my friend on a dozen or so projects that would have put us on the software dev map, but I keep avoiding him so much we have barely started any. I am afraid he'll find me too amateurish to work with.
I learn everyday to expand my knowledge,I have subscribed to a gazillion software related stuff on all social media platforms I happen to be in.But deep down I feel insufficient. I have been going through rants since the few hours I joined and it doesn't sound gibberish to me.Neither does other people's code when I go through it.But I am ashamed of mine I end up deleted after it runs successfully.
I just don't feel like a software developer, I don't even know what it takes to be one even. I learned 10 languages focused on 3, laughed at memes only devs get, used linux and loved it too but still I feel like an impostor. I used to be happy about all the things I taught myself, I onced dreamed of working at Google and later having my own startup back home.Now my friend and a couple of his friends have a small start-up and I feel ashamed of myself.
I don't feel like what I know is enough and learning only makes me feel worse, so bad I am scared of coding again now.Yet I just can't stop learning, I feel incomplete when I don't do anything dev related,but I don't even feel my speed is fast enough when I type on my keyboard.
😥😥6 -
Am I a hack? Like yeah I complain about technology left right and center, this sucks, that sucks, what fucking moron wrote this?! These days I do write my own alternatives (which usually work surprisingly well). But for what? And was I really in a position to complain about those other things? Impostor syndrome, it's so annoying...
Oh and also, is it really all worth it? I like retro tech and so I do have a fair interest in the history of technology. Say between VHS and Beta, sure VHS was superior in practice and won the video cassette war, but Beta machines were seemingly better constructed. VHS won because it did just enough. Perhaps the same is true for software? Overengineering, is it poor engineering?
Anyone can build a bridge if the budget is unlimited and it can take a lifetime to construct. But part of engineering is making a bridge that'll just barely stand and be finished in a few years. I've been working on my own Linux distro since August last year and am not even close to finishing it. Chances are that it'll take several years. Perhaps I've been looking at the problem the wrong way all along?1 -
Watching the small interpreter that I am building compile and run as I want it to is my big highlight, I am working on a project that a lot of people will hate really (I am trying to bring back VBScript for the web, but adding a ton of shit to it to make it a proper PHP alternative, this is a side project really)
But before that? Understanding the neckbeard rants in hacker news, legit, I used to browse there trying to find perspective of what experts would think, would not understand shit, eventually, skills came (and so did the degree) and I was able to fully understand them and even interact with them.
that also squandered all notions of impostor syndrome.3 -
People around me and clients are increasingly saying i am a genius, because i show them an app i made in react-native or some crappy site i set up in a week as POC.
While im quite noobish still, i barely read publications out of interests, and most of the time i just put in async/await somewhere just to see if it makes the promise work or not, because i dont understand promises fully, and I think in general i just accomplished very little in the 5 years I have been programming
It is really putting pressure on my impostor syndrome, even more when i talk with my peers who can tell who was the driving force behind ES6 :/13 -
I've seen far worse people doing what I'm doing, applying terrible practices and still being valued af.
Even if I do smth wrong after doing all the research and alternatives' analysis I know I'll do a proper post-mortem RCA, document it and learn from it, as a result I'll make a better choice to fix the problem and I'll know better next time.
I think I'm alright compared to them. So I don't wory about being an impostor.
Learning by good examples is a good approach. Learning by bad ones might be even better. The "good ones" are yet to fail and be replaced by better (or worse) ones. The "bad ones" are already failing and you can learn WHY you should not be doing it like that and HOW should you do instead to solve the problem.
Learning from good examples only works well if you know the back-story, all the WHYs and HOWs. People usually don't :) -
Getting past my impostor syndrome
Finishing a project
Having a few hundred users on my projects
Having fun in the mean time. -
I'm about to take full responsibility for front-end solutions plus doing UI/UX design, and I've pretty much completed the official React and Redux tutorials.
In my defense I only said I was interested in UX but I have a creeping suspicion they think I'm a UX God.
I also used AngularJS for years and I feel that React speaks to me in a completely different way. It's exactly how I want to do things. Big fan of functional programming as well... So I think I'll thrive with React/Redux and friends if I can get some hours in before things kick off. It's just enough pressure for me to put in the work without feeling overwhelmed... for now.
It's thrilling though. I'm somewhere between excited that I'll get to show off my skills and scared that I'll be exposed as a fraud. I have a mild case of impostor syndrome though, so I think it'll work out in the end.2 -
I had a pretty good day today. Things are coming together at the new job, and I'm a little less afflicted with impostor syndrome.
Hope everyone else had a pretty good one too. -
To be honest, the majority of my work is just man and grep, and these two things already somehow make me better than the vast majority of my colleagues. Impostor syndrome doesn't think so though.7
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That moment you find your C++ code from 2012 but you still feel like you know nothing after 8+ years coding. 😭
(Impostor syndrome is strong with this one! 😂)
2 -
I am my teams goto guy for anything and everything. For any problem they face technically.
They think I am some kind of genius. But in reality I just Google. :/ I don't know most of the things they ask!
The saving grace is that, whenever I try to solve anything, the pieces of the puzzle quickly fall into their places in my head.
Now the impostor syndrome is kicking in hard!1 -
I guess my story is not really cool, but okay, I lost my job as a Digital designer (Yeah, I actually have a bachelor's degree in graphic design, I'm an impostor)
I lost it because I saved enough money to travel to Japan and I wanted to stay at least a month so the company didn't like it. after coming back I got a job as a content editor, I just copied old content from an old website to a new one, basic html and css, not even responsive design, then I got really into it, and bootstrap came along, the company opened a new department "Front End" so I got in, I learnt responsive design and Jquery, really loved it, I went back to Japan for a month and a half, keeping my job, I liked it, but I quit.
I now work as a remote front end and I feel stuck, I'm very comfortable as remote, don't wanna go back to an office, but it seems I'll have to, can't find any opportunities to improve remotely, and I feel like I'm missing what the "cool kids" are doing.4 -
I'm taking a year out from my degree to do a software dev placement. I fought hard to get it and totally smashed the interview. But I'm still nervous as all hell and not sure I want it.
I think it stems from not actually feeling like I'm a real dev yet. I feel like I'm a big fish in a small pond at uni, which is why I took the job. That and the fact I never really made many friends there. Still can't shake the feeling that I'm just going to fail miserably...
I guess this is what they call "impostor syndrome".3 -
It was when my engineering big boss asked my friend, instead of me, questions about a feature I was working on. And whenever I tried to jump into their conversation, he would turn his head to my friend and continue talking to my friend, as if I was not there.
Sounds simple, right? But at that time my impostor syndrome was at its worst point, which led me to take it that he didn't trust my capabilities to develop that feature. After that, overthinking played its part, telling me that I can't be a good developer, and I should quit and switch career path.
Eventually I decided to stay for a few months and see how things would work out. Things slowly went better, and I have successfully recovered my confidence ever since :)2 -
Whenever I feel like searching for a freelancing job in python, I feel like I don't know anything and stop contacting the person who wants to hopefully - since there are retards who don't pay - pay for it.
Fucking impostor syndrome.2 -
Starting new job on the Isle of Man 🇮🇲!
- Prove to myself that I can make it on my own merits.
Impostor syndrome is real.4 -
I've been reading more books. The more I read, the more knowledge deficit I feel I have. It's an impostor syndrome circle.
One day death might free me from this misery but until then *opens another book on another programming paradigm.*3 -
I'm doing my last days at my current job this week. I'm beginning a new job next week and am quite affected by impostor syndrome. What happens when they find out how bad I am at programming?3
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I think a lot of “confession of having impostor syndrome” on devrant is false humility. You really are an impostor, it became sth like i am perfectionist lies in interviews. Discuss(or flame at me, whatever).2
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I feel the stress in my head and a fire within cause my PRs are rejecteeed ♫
I have an error to solve and frustration to spaaaaare!
What a beautiful wind blowing through~
I wish that it blew my shaaame
And incompetencyyyy
Just fire me alreaaaadyyyyy ♫
- a song by Bugged the series on Disney Channel -
Anyone else here ever feel like an insignificant cog in a large machine that's easily replaceable?
I feel like the company has gotten so big that I don't have much say or impact anymore. Everything we do is determined by the dudes at the top. -
I still don't get what the impostor syndorme is precisely, so either I'm good enough to not get it or I constantly sell myself as an impostor.
Edit I think I fucked up english grammar...4 -
$TheForce = 'Impostor Syndrome';
$incompetent = true;
while ($incompetent) {
echo <<<EOT
I am one with $TheForce. $TheForce is with me.
EOT;
if(get_training($result) > 9000) $incompetent = false;
} -
I wish impostor syndrome wouldn't be a thing. After reading some blog posts I feel like I lucked out and I should just quit this and become a delivery man or something.6
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Advice/input welcome:
I’m nearing the end of my first year of a 2 year SE program at college. I’m considering leaving at the end of this year and looking for a job, but I don’t have much of a portfolio and feel insecure about my ability to make it in this industry. I know it’s probably just impostor syndrome, but it’s a really hard feeling to shake. It’s a trade college, so the program is designed to have students work ready by the end, but there is a certificate for having completed the first year even though most students do both years.
I’m competent with java, web dev including JavaScript vanilla and bootstrap, ok with python and a lil c++, and I used c# over last summer in unity to develop a game I never finished. 2nd year is mostly more of the same, just more in depth. I’m feeling like idgaf about school anymore, and there are some things happening in my life that would benefit from a full time salary and a decent health care plan.
I spoke with an alum of the program who left after one year to work, and he strongly suggested I stay for the 2nd year, but wasn’t clear on why he thought that.
So what I wanna know is, from folks in the workforce, do you think I should stick it out for the last year and then look for work? Or would I be ok to just... go and start looking for a job now?2 -
I understand that impostor syndrome is an occupational disease among devs... But what does it take to overcome it?
Any good stories/advice?6 -
A lot of us get imposter syndrome in this industry. I still get it on a regular basis.
You can't wait until things are perfect. You have to launch imperfectly, but with confidence that you'll get where you need to be. But then imposter syndrome sets in. Self doubt tells us we don't belong.
I found this quote in my email pile this morning:
"Isn't doing your best all you can do? Dropping the narrative of the impostor isn't arrogant, it's merely a useful way to get your work done without giving into Resistance. Time spent fretting about our status as impostors is time away from dancing with our fear, from leading and from doing work that matters." - Seth Godin -
So recently I've been feeling like I fooled myself into thinking I'm any good at anything regarding development.
Today I tried to deploy a Console Application that would run nightly. The production systems are much more guarded, as it should be, but I should still be able to schedule a windows task (yeah yeah, windows servers, not the time Linux fanboys and not my choice :P) no problem.
Except I didn't expect that network users can't run jobs, because of a Group Policy about saving passwords on network accounts.
I expected a local administrator account to be available, and it wasn't.
Also a web API isn't available, even though I could telnet to the address on port 443 (HTTPS). A proxy apparently accepts all HTTP/HTTPS traffic and so on.
All this I feel like I should have known....
So am I in my own head, or am I right in thinking maybe I'm not "pro" development yet? Maybe I don't deserve to be "pro".
Thoughts?4 -
While browsing I just found the following website titled The Mediocre Programmer, and thought it might be an interesting read for some people on dR that are grappling with self-doubt, impostor syndrome, or similar issues:
http://themediocreprogrammer.com/wh... -
For some reason nothing i've been working on has been satisfactory lately (failed code reviews requiring me to re do the code).
The better way to do things seem so obvious after I speak to my seniors and I don't understand why the solutions never occurred to me.
Anyone ever feel like they're getting worse at programming?3 -
!rant
'Ol Rowsdower's got some of the major players interested. Deep down, I know that I know my sh--, but I'm worried that I'll get a bad case of impostor syndrome. Anyone have some words of advice?1
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