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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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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 -
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 -
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 -
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!9 -
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 -
!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 -
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 -
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 -
I'm about to quit without a backup plan.
It's been almost 4 years since I started working as fullstack dev in my current company, also those are the same years of experience I have working in general. Right now I feel burnt out.
I feel I haven't progressed professionally at least in the last 2 and a half years... I feel stuck. Right now I don't feel like a dev, I feel like a dude that knows how to use a framework and only makes CRUDs.
I've lost the apetite for learning, also I feel very discouraged about the industry in general, watching media full of those tech-influencers and the apperently fakeness of the culture that companies show off only helps my disappointment and discourage about the industry in general. Also the unconscious action of comparing myself with others (and impostor syndrome) makes me feel less about myself.
I didn't go to college. During my last year of school I went to a Bootcamp and started learning by myself, I felt I choosed the correct path for me, I don't regret it, but makes me feel I entered at a young age (18) and unprepared to an industry I felt I knew at least a bit (I did two interships at 16).
Right now I can only think in taking a time for me and disconnect myself from everything, finish all the books I bought, continue doing excercise and therapy and stay connected with nature.
I know that most probably what I say about the industry is wrong but what I **feel** about it right now is not.
I know is better to search for better options and places to work than just quit, but I really feel it's gonna be the same, I know it's an unfounded fear and I'm a bit blinded about it.13 -
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 -
Well, my company hired a total amateur who can't do anything right on his own without copying code from me or the internet and I have to pretend he's helping in any capacity because otherwise I'm a "bad team player" and "should communicate more".
Helped me get over impostor syndrome, at least.7 -
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 -
!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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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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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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 person -
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.
4 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
I'm struggling to write a function that finds a subsequence in a sequence. I made a fucking programming language and String::find is where I get stuck. Fucking fuck.
Impostor syndrome hitting hard today27 -
[how to deal with impostor syndrome]
By consuming the flesh of the innocent, or learning new skills, i forgot which one.2 -
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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A certain person here on devRant was annoyed about my phone being named “Beyond”, seeing a screenshot of my settings.
What they said: “the name, beyond, reeks pretentiousness and arrogance, you say you’re better than other people”
What really happened: during one of my manic episodes, I discovered the band named Death Grips. Their music resonated with me and helped me to cope with my derealization. In one of their songs, I misheard lyrics, and heard the word “Veyon” that was never there in the first place. Upon my inner voice pronouncing it, as it usually happens to me, a brand-new universe appeared before me, where Veyon was a name of a megacorporation that exists in a shaky spacetime plane somewhere in India. If you want to go there, three outcomes are possible: you can actually come to their building that appears to be normal, with people working inside you can talk to, and no signs of trouble in sight. Or, you can try to walk to their building, but you will never reach it. GPS will show you slowing down gradually as you get closer, but to you, it would look like you’re just walking with your regular speed, as if nothing happened. Like a function trying to reach its asymptote, you’ll never come to your destination. The third outcome is by far the most interesting one. You will reach the building, but it will be abandoned, with doors scattered on the floors randomly, some of them will disappear after you walk in, rendering you missing in this universe. Oh, and floors are guarded by robots and turrets, and they are made by Grumman, the military aviation manufacturer. Yes, Grumman, not Northrop Grumman. This building in the third outcome originates from the spacetime plane where Northrop and Grumman never merged.
The whole thing raced through my mind in a millisecond. I liked it and decided to squat the name, but it was already taken by Veyon open source software (Virtual Eye On Networks).
In some time, I bought a new phone second-hand, and named it Veyon. The next day, I took it to shower with me. It turned out that the seller lied to me about it never being fixed. It was, and in the process its water resistance was compromised. So, this phone was damaged beyond repair the next day I bought it.
The same day, I went and bought the same phone model, but brand new, and in black, as I originally wanted. I was grateful for this opportunity that helped me escape the situation where I would've been using the phone of the colour I disliked just because I cheapen out. I know myself, and I would’ve been feeling uneasy every day, hesitant to sell it and get a new one because “nothing is wrong with it, quit being this picky, it’s just a colour”, but wait, don’t I deserve to make the colour a significant enough reason to switch the phone because I care about colour, especially if it’s me who’s paying the money? Did I make this money rightfully, or am I an impostor who gets paid because of intricate lies I tell? Do I actually tell them, or do I make that up to somehow convince "them" I'm innocent? Or do I try to get attention?
I’m terrible at dealing with that kind of mess, So, I was grateful.
The only thing left to do was to name my new phone. I decided not to name it “Veyon” again, just in case. So, I named it “Beyond”, as this word is probably what the actual song said.
The monstrosity of a story above is the usual thing for me to feel. I was really hurt by you telling me the name I chose was a display of pretentiousness. Do I deserve to be pretentious? I say yes, but my voice is shaking, as flashbacks of my awful mother abusing me come in the way.
You hurt me with that comment. Let’s meet? :)2 -
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 -
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 -
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.2 -
many many times in the past I had this impostor syndrome in various situations but I never lost faith in my dev skills!
you have to be humble to realise that this situations are fine and that you will learn something from it (not necessarily tech things, but also how life works). Also you have to realise that development as everything else in life is just never ending learning endeavour! When you accept all of that, impostor syndrome goes away forever.
It's been around 3 years since I felt like impostor for the last time because I accepted who I am as a person.
It crawled up on me last week in a different way - I was thinking of myself - what if I am just really good at googling things and understanding how those things work but I am also very capable problem solver so I can understand the principle and apply it to my code.
Then I realised - ok, that's what programmers do! So that's the story of how the impostor syndrome actually become confirmation syndrome!
Folks, believe in yourself, be forgiving to yourself as we all were there, give yourself some time as people don't become good developers overnight - and this is OK.3 -
There is like a dozen shows streaming on how actual impostors imposted the shit out of people.
I never claimed to be the heir of a machine that can make art out of deposits of a single drop of blood to dozens of people on dating apps.
I never said that I can double their bitcoins by harvesting carbon monoxide and recycling plastic into endangered fauna, expanding the mind of humanity.
I never got private-jet levels of money to do something I knew to be completely impossible from the beginning.
If I ever feel like an impostor, I could honestly say that make for a very lousy one.
I guess I've got impostor syndrome squared - I feel like I'm really bad at impostor-ing, but people could be thinking that I am better at pretending to pretend to be something I actually am.2 -
I recently started work as a Senior Software Engineer at a top company, I can't help but have this immense impostor syndrome...I just feel like people at work are closely anticipating my failure...it's fucking crippling.5
-
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 :/9 -
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 -
Getting past my impostor syndrome
Finishing a project
Having a few hundred users on my projects
Having fun in the mean time. -
I hate my brain.
Got a compliment, my brain automatically rejected it and judged it.
Then it started to judge the judgement. Then the judge^3.
Then go all the way to the recursion.
For the last few days my brain is making me lose focus on everything because of this.
And the most fucked up thing is, I am paranoid of my own brain, so I really judged my memories and shit. I think I am losing my mind, my uni doesn't have consulting for students either nor I have money.
Any advices from ppl who went to a psychologists will be appreciated. A lot.13 -
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. -
I’ve been self-employed for the past three years. Though I did spend my first year out of college working for a three person, now-defunct startup, I’ve never had a typical 9-5 (or more like 10-8 nowadays) and to be honest, never really wanted one. Lara Schenck, LLC is a profitable business, and every day I do work that is enjoyable and challenging. I make my own hours, take vacations when I want to, and run everything on my terms.
While that’s all awesome, what you don’t get from working independently is the team experience. I base my work on teaching technical literacy to non-technical designers and content producers so that they can better communicate with developers. The theory is that if a designer understands why it’s a bad idea to request 18 fonts, and if content producers know why it’s not trivial to edit the titles of a set of related posts, life will be easier for everyone. At least that’s my theory, and the assumption on which I’ve developed my business.
Lately though, in a bout of the good ‘ol impostor syndrome, I’ve been feeling like, wait, how can I be telling people how to work on teams if I’ve never really worked on one? I’ve always been the ‘Lead UI/UX/Visual/Web/Front-end Designer-person-thing’, and have never worked for a larger company with separate teams for product, UX, marketing, content, frontend, backend, etc.
So I felt the urge to look for a job, and a seemingly perfect one fell into my lap. It was for an awesome company, and it sounded right up my alley skill-wise. The title was ‘UX Engineer/Interaction Designer’. I usually balk at the the term “engineer” (perhaps for good reason) but considering the presence of “designer” and the nature of the job post, I wasn’t too bothered.9 -
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
-
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 -
Doing a technical assessment. Slightly different stack than what I am used to!
- NGINX instead of Traefik
- Kubernetes instead of Docker Swarm
Just because the stack is different, anxiety / impostor syndrome is kicking in. I'm proud of myself for commanding my brain and body to execute:
While !done:
- google,
- find simplest straightforward tutorial
- implement
The chemicals inside my body are all over the place. I really want to move out of my current job!! -
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 :) -
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 -
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'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 -
I failed at university, spent too long there without ever graduating. I learned a lot through self-study, though. The only company I worked at was an arrangement with a friend whose company needed people, so I stepped in, but eventually I deserted the job after the company went out of money and I went two months straight working without getting paid. Now I feel apprehensive of putting that job experience in my resume because I didn't come out of it in good terms with the company. I have many unfinished projects but keep them private on GitHub because I feel like the code is too bad to show off. How do I even get a job, now? Should I just quit the industry altogether? Aaaaaaaaaaaaa
Right now I'm just self-studying some things I had wanted to do since college (namely computer graphics and trying to build a game engine) but never actually got to study formally because I kept failing at the prerequisite courses because I always kept distracting myself from my studies and just not putting enough effort. Anyway, I'm willing to listen to your advice and your judgment alike. I feel somewhat confident that I can actually do a good job, but I also don't feel confident enough to apply for jobs since I always feel like my skills are lacking. I know about impostor syndrome, but at the core of it is the matter: is this impostor's syndrome, or am I in fact *actually* consistently bad and incompetent? Rationally speaking I tend to feel like the latter, yet I know the only thing I can do is to try and be better. I guess.
Anyway, completely unstructured thing, just me venting off my frustration and desperation in a place where at least people will read it and possibly offer some advice. Thank you for reading this far.4 -
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 -
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 -
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
-
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 -
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 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
-
$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;
} -
"Oh, i know exactly which file this snippet goes in! I'm glad the author of these docs didn't waste a precious few extra seconds to tell the reader where this is supposed to go."
- An excerpt from "I'm Not an Impostor, and Other Lies Developers Tell Themselves" -
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.5
-
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 -
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...3 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
I understand that impostor syndrome is an occupational disease among devs... But what does it take to overcome it?
Any good stories/advice?6 -
Be me, a ret***
Already 3 months in a new position. (check my previous rant)
Storm have passed for a while but another storm is brewing.
C levels are having disagreement with each other.
Caught in the crossfire as one the of C's hire.
Have some chit chats with both side of C, each telling different stories.
C#1 told me there was a demand from C#2 to force tech guys (not defined who or how many) to resigns.
C#2 told me there is no plan to close the whole tech team. But there's a distrust brewing in the tech team especially on the C#1
Be me, C#1 hire...
Me telling them IDK what their real intentions are but there's a high probability for my reputation to be tarnished on the job Market.
I've always had good review amongst peers and confident I did and do a satisfactory job for my previous employer.
Be me:
Resorted to flexing my connection to high ranking (think of C suites) reference who I've worked and have good relations with.
Connected them to my C#2.
Dunno how the C#2 thinks of me and what my value to C#2 are.
Don't know what the future hold for me.
Tried doing one interview but topics of my reputation comes up because of me jumping to executive position without having "Manager" ever in my resume.
Got a bit too defensive on that and it might eff up my chance to have a backup ready in case I urgently need to jump ship.
Depression and impostor syndrome hits like a truck every day.2 -
!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 -
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 -
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...
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