For new developers – and sometimes even seasoned professionals – this phenomenon can be particularly challenging as you navigate a fast-paced and ever-evolving industry.

But it's possible to overcome these feelings by building a strong support network, learning to accept compliments, and fostering a growth mindset.

In this guide, we'll go through these strategies with a positive attitude, aiming to help you embrace your true self and step into your power confidently.

My Story: From Marketing and Sales to Tech

Before diving into the strategies, I want to share a bit of my journey. A while ago, I started my professional career in marketing and sales, a field quite different from tech.

After spending a few years in the job market, I decided to switch to tech, driven by my passion for technology and innovation.

The transition was not easy. There were countless moments when I felt like an impostor, doubting my skills and wondering if I had made the right choice. But through perseverance and the strategies I’m about to share, I learned to manage and eventually overcome these feelings.

This personal experience has deeply shaped my understanding of impostor syndrome and I want to share it with you. I hope it will help you face any imposter syndrome feelings you have and get the most from your career.

The Power of Sharing in the Tech World

As a new developer, the tech industry can often seem intimidating and competitive, which can increase feelings of impostor syndrome. One of the most effective ways to combat these feelings is to talk about them. Sharing your experiences and feelings with trusted colleagues or friends within the industry can provide immediate relief and validation.

Start by choosing the right people to trust: those who are supportive, empathetic, and likely to understand the unique pressures of the tech world. You may find that many of them have experienced similar thoughts and emotions. Knowing you are not alone can be incredibly comforting and empowering.

When you vocalize your self-doubts, you take the first step toward pulling down the isolation that impostor syndrome often brings. Your peers can offer new perspectives and constructive feedback, helping you see your achievements and potential more clearly. This collective support fosters a culture of openness and continuous learning, which is essential in the dynamic field of tech.

Turn this weakness into a strength for you and your team: opening up about your struggles with impostor syndrome not only helps you but also contributes to a more empathetic and supportive workplace for everyone.

Mentors Can Help

A robust support network is a crucial asset in overcoming impostor syndrome, especially in the tech industry where collaboration and innovation are key. So it can help to create relationships with mentors who inspire and guide you.

In the tech world, mentors can offer valuable advice on career progression, skill development, and navigating workplace challenges. They can share their own experiences with impostor syndrome, providing a sense of relatability and encouragement. And they can help you set realistic goals and celebrate your progress, reinforcing your sense of competence and achievement.

Finding a mentor can be particularly impactful. Start by identifying individuals who inspire you—these could be senior colleagues, industry leaders, or even peers with specific expertise.

Look for mentors who are not only knowledgeable but also approachable and willing to share their experiences. You can find mentors through networking events, online communities, professional organizations, or social networks.

When you find a potential mentor, approach them respectfully and express your admiration for their work and your desire to learn. It’s important to be clear about what you hope to gain from the mentorship and be open to feedback.

Being a good mentee involves being proactive, respectful of your mentor’s time, and showing appreciation for their guidance. Keep the lines of communication open and seek their advice on specific issues or general career guidance.

Remember, mentorship is a two-way street: as you grow, find ways to give back, whether by offering your insights or mentoring others.

Maintaining and cultivating the relationship requires consistent effort. Regularly update your mentor on your progress, seek their advice on new challenges, and show gratitude for their support. This relationship can give you the confidence and knowledge to navigate your career path.

Share Your Path with Other People

Join professional groups, online forums, or tech meetups where you can share your experiences and learn from others. Engaging with a community of like-minded individuals can provide a sense of belonging and mutual support. Platforms like GitHub, Stack Overflow, or local coding bootcamps can be great places to find this community.

When considering what to share, think about your career journey, the challenges you’ve faced, and your successes, no matter how small they may seem. Being open about your insecurities and the steps you’ve taken to overcome them can resonate with others who may feel similarly.

Just remember that it’s essential to find a balance between seeking support and being a supportive member of your community. Engage actively in discussions, offer constructive feedback, and encourage others to share their experiences as well. Make people feel comfortable and not judged while talking about their experiences. They'll do the same with you.

I've given talks at local tech meetups many times, it was always nerve-wracking but incredibly rewarding. Preparing for and delivering talks helped me consolidate my knowledge and communicate my passion for technology. It also provided a platform for networking and receiving positive feedback, which boosted my confidence.

Building a support network takes time and effort, but the benefits are immeasurable. When you know that others believe in you, it becomes easier to believe in yourself.

Me having a talk at a local meetup

Accept Positive Feedback

Instead of deflecting praise, it’s essential to practice accepting it. Learning to embrace positive feedback is a critical step in recognizing your worth and achievements.

When someone compliments you on your coding skills, problem-solving abilities, or a successful project, resist the urge to downplay your accomplishments or attribute them to luck. Instead, just reply with a simple “thank you.” This acknowledgment not only shows appreciation but also helps internalize the positive reinforcement.

Accepting compliments can feel uncomfortable at first, but with practice, it becomes easier. Start by reflecting on the feedback you receive. Consider why the compliment was given and how it aligns with your efforts and skills. Over time, this practice helps to build a more accurate and positive self-perception.

In addition to verbal compliments, pay attention to other forms of positive feedback, such as positive code reviews, successful project completions, or praise from clients and managers. These are tangible reminders of your capabilities and contributions. Keep a journal or a digital folder of these affirmations and revisit them whenever self-doubt creeps in.

Remember, accepting compliments doesn’t mean you’re arrogant. It just means you’re recognizing your hard work and achievements. Embrace the positive feedback as a reflection of your true self.

Focus on a Growth Mindset and Don't Fear Mistakes

A growth mindset, a concept popularized by psychologist Carol Dweck, is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort, learning, and perseverance. Adopting this mindset is a powerful tool in overcoming impostor syndrome, especially in the rapidly changing field of tech.

Instead of being obsessed with the fear of failure or the need for perfection, focus on your growth and development. View challenges as opportunities to learn and improve rather than threats to your competence. Embrace mistakes as part of the learning process: every setback is a step toward mastery.

To cultivate a growth mindset, start by setting realistic and attainable goals. Break down larger tasks into manageable steps, and celebrate your progress along the way. This approach not only makes goals more achievable but also reinforces a sense of accomplishment and progress.

Engage in continuous learning and self-improvement. Seek out new knowledge, skills, and experiences that align with your interests and career aspirations. This commitment to growth helps build confidence and resilience, reducing the impact of impostor syndrome.

You can also enroll in online courses, attend workshops, or participate in hackathons to enhance your skills and stay updated with industry trends.

Surround yourself with people who embody a growth mindset. Their positive attitudes and resilience can inspire and motivate you. Learn from their experiences and apply their strategies to your journey.

Also, don't forget that growth is a continuous process, and everyone’s journey is unique. Be kind to yourself and recognize that it’s okay not to have all the answers. What matters is your willingness to learn and improve.

Conclusion

Overcoming impostor syndrome as a developer is a journey that requires time, effort, and a lot of self-reflection. By talking about your feelings, building a support network, accepting compliments, and focusing on growth, you can gradually diminish self-doubt and embrace your true potential.

Remember, you are not alone in this struggle, and with the right strategies and support, you can overcome impostor syndrome and thrive in the tech industry. Embrace your journey, celebrate your progress, and believe in your ability to grow and succeed.

This article is a result of my own experiences transitioning from sales and marketing to tech. If you ever feel overwhelmed or feel the need for additional support, don't hesitate to talk to a specialist. Seeking professional help can provide personalized strategies to help you navigate and overcome impostor syndrome effectively.

Imposter Syndrome is a feeling of being a fraud or not being good enough to get the job done. It's common among software engineers, developers and designers working in tech companies, especially those not coming from a traditional tech background.

People suffering from imposter syndrome have a sense of inadequacy and insecurity concerning their ability to make a contribution at the workplace. In reality, they may be perfectly capable of doing their work, and often contribute successfully to their tasks.

Imposter Syndrome is very common among people who are new to their role and lack the experience of some of their co-workers.

Throughout various industries, imposter syndrome is very common with highly successful people. Studies have found the two out of five ‘successful’ people consider themselves frauds/imposters. And other studies have shown that up to 70% of people experience imposter syndrome as one point in time or another.

If you suffer from imposter syndrome you may have a sense of inadequacy or insecurity about your ability to contribute. In reality, you may be perfectly capable of doing your tasks well.

These thoughts are fairly common if you struggle with imposter syndrome:

• “What am I doing here?”
• “I am not a developer. I am fooling myself and other people.” (feels fake)
• “My colleagues are much smarter than I am; I could never match up to them.” (undermines own achievements)
• “My coworkers have told me I’ve achieved a lot, but I feel like it’s never enough.” (discounts praise)
• “I have no idea how I got through the interview process.” (feels only luck dictates results)
• “I will be ridiculed and fired when people realize I am not as smart as I portrayed myself as being.” (fears failure)
• “My IQ is not high enough to work here.” (doubts inherent ability)
• “I need more training to feel like I deserve to be here.”

Imposter Syndrome may prevent you from reaching out when you need help, thus slowing your progression. You can always reach out on the freeCodeCamp forum or on Twitter if you want to chat or need some encouragement.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

The first step in overcoming imposter syndrome is to learn the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.

People with a growth mindset believe that their skills and talents can be developed through hard work, practice, conversations with others, etc. Alternately, those with a fixed mindset tend to believe their talents are set abilities that they were born with.

When you change your outlook to a growth mindset, you allow yourself to take on challenges that may seem out of reach. If you believe that your skills can be developed over time, it will matter less if you don’t know how to do something (as long as you are willing to put in the work).

Many talented, successful people deal with Imposter Syndrome. They even say that - counterintuitively - not only does success not eliminate Imposter Syndrome. Many times, success makes it worse. So, it isn’t something we conquer once. We conquer it every day, every time we take on a project, task, and so on.

More resources to help you tackle Imposter Syndrome

There are many great resources to help you know more about Imposter Syndrome and some tips to tackle it:

• How to overcome Imposter Syndrome
• Clobber Imposter Syndrome with your mental searchlight
• Imposter Syndrome: what it is and why it happens
• American Psychological Association - Feel Like a Fraud?
• TED Talks - Fighting Imposter Syndrome
• Quartz - Is imposter syndrome a sign of greatness?
• HTTP203 - Imposter Syndrome
• Ada Initiative - Is Impostor Syndrome keeping women out of open technology and culture?

Jessica grew up around computers, and her mother was a software engineer. But she didn't take a serious interest in coding until a bit later in life.

After studying photography in college, she held a series of odd jobs before taking a contract data entry position. That data entry job happened to be at a small web dev shop, and while she was there she learned the basics of the trade.

Once she'd honed her beginner's skills for a couple years, she got her first proper job as a web developer working for a small ad agency. She jumped in the deep end, learned a ton of new skills on the job (most of which she taught herself and figured out by googling and asking questions on Stack Overflow), and gradually got over her intense feelings of imposter syndrome.

“When you’re going up against these people who have degrees in computer science and engineering, it really creates strong imposter syndrome. And unfortunately I think the only real cure for imposter syndrome is simply time. Just learn one new thing every day and in time you’ll keep progressing in your skills. Just try to make incremental changes and improvements.”

Jessica realizes that part of her difficulties in learning how to code came from the fact that there weren't as many resources out there online when she was learning. The bootcamp explosion hadn't happened yet, freeCodeCamp didn't exist, and it was a lot harder to figure things out. But she pushed through.

And she gained some important perspective on learning to code - which, she admits, is really, really hard. But after sticking with it for a while, she learned something important:

“Over time, I learned that if I just spent time googling, asking people, finding and reading documentation, I knew I’d be able to figure out pretty much anything. So that realization that I could teach myself was a big confidence boost.”

After about four years with the ad agency, she moved across the country and started working remotely. Which led her to realize she wanted to be her own boss. She also started her educational website and blog, Coder Coder, around that time.

“I felt really passionate about coding – I really love web development. And I think seeing how many other people were struggling learning – I was part of these groups for newbie coders and I saw all these questions I had when I was learning to code. So it stemmed from my desire to help beginners and add my own voice and style to the other resources out there.”

To give herself more time to work on the site and her side projects, she decided to strike out on her own and get into freelancing.

Now, Jessica writes articles for her blog and other sites (including Developer News), posts tutorials and info on Instagram and Twitter, and has lately started live streaming on YouTube. She focuses on CSS, responsive web design, and other web dev topics.

One of her goals for the coming year is to grow the YouTube channel and work on creating super high quality videos with her video editor/animator husband. And she's working on another huge project: a course on responsive web design for beginners. She has all sorts of fun ideas about how to make it engaging, so be on the lookout.

In this episode, Jessica discusses so many valuable skills developers should have, like

• how to teach yourself to code
• how to beat imposter syndrome
• how to be your own mentor
• how to work with clients as a freelancer
• how to get the most out of online tutorials
• and how to tackle the job hunt

among many other beginner-friendly topics.

Regarding the job hunt, and building your portfolio, Jessica offered this perspective:

“First of all, focus on learning the basic skills. Then once you have the skills to create portfolio projects, that’s a huge thing that can help you even if you don’t have actual clients. You don’t have to have an actual working website - but you need to be able to demonstrate to a potential employer what your skills are. Because if they can’t see what skills you have, why would they hire you?”

And she's all about encouraging new developers to keep going and not give up. She knows how hard it is to learn to code - again, it's really hard - and she offered a treasure trove of helpful advice (like setting sustainable pace for your learning, having realistic expectations of yourself, and finding an online community).

Check out the episode to hear all of it first-hand. It's a one-hour listen in your favorite podcast player app - just search for "freecodecamp" and you should find it.

If you have an Amazon Echo, you can just say "Alexa - play the freeCodeCamp podcast."

Or you can listen to it right here in your browser.

You can find Jessica on Twitter here.

Check out her website here.

##

Known knowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns

It’s been almost twenty years since Donald Rumsfeld, the then US Secretary of State of Defense, said:

"There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know. "

This saying is typically used to conduct risk management analysis by splitting the upcoming obstacles into 3 categories:

Known knowns — things that we know (i.e are aware of) that we know. These pose less of a risk, as they are facts we are confident in.

Known unknowns — things that we know (i.e. are aware of) that we don’t know — they imply a risk, but since we know them we can measure the risk, understand it and investigate more to make this a known known.

Unknown unknown — things we don’t know (i.e are not aware of) that we don’t know. These are probably the most dangerous since these encompass what we are not aware of and therefore can’t plan, analyze or take actions to mitigate them. You’ll have to do some thorough exploration to find the things you don’t know that don’t know.

It can get a little confusing when you put it that way, so let’s put it in a graph:

But wait… what about the unknown knowns? this is something Donald Rumsfeld didn’t discuss, but might be the most interesting.

The things you don’t know you know

The unknown knowns quadrant is often overlooked or just misinterpreted. I can easily understand why people don’t see the importance of it and just refer to it as a nonsense contradiction — how can someone not know something they already know?

Well, it turns out that your knowledge is based on many things you are not aware of — instincts, intuitions or other factors you think are trivial.

Think about your mother tongue. You can easily formulate any thought to an accurate sentence. As English is not my first language, I had to study it for years. I had to learn thousands of words to expand my vocabulary, learn the difference between a noun, a verb, an adjective and how to use them to construct a sentence. I had to learn the difference between present simple, present progressive, and past perfect. Even knowing when to use “on”, “in” or “at” is still a challenge for me. If English is your native language you might not even be aware of all these rules, you learned them when you were young and just know how to use them properly. Thus, you may also be unaware of the challenges others face when they try to speak English.

What can happen if you ignore the unknown known?

So far we’ve only tried to understand what these known unknowns are, but haven’t elaborated on why these matter at all. Ignoring the known unknowns leads to a problematic dissonance between facts (what you know) and your awareness (what you aren’t aware of). Ignoring them can be harmful and lead to situations, some of you know all too well:

“Imposter syndrome”

A few years ago I heard about imposter syndrome, and I immediately related to it. I always try to surround myself with people smarter than I am so I can learn and advance. The problem with that is that I always doubted my knowledge and felt like one day they will all expose my “secret” and realize that I’m not as good as I made my self out to be. I was terrified that one day they’ll demand to replace me with someone better. So far it didn’t happen (and I hope this post won’t give them any crazy ideas ?).

In the last couple of months, it was very hard to avoid stumbling upon an article, a talk, or a blog that didn’t mention imposter syndrome. Everybody loves talking about it, sharing their personal stories, and being proud of being a part of an exclusive group that has this syndrome. Well… guess what, almost all of us have it. Ask 20 of your friends if they ever felt like they aren’t good enough for their job or whether they ever doubted their accomplishments — I promise that almost all of them will be able to relate.

If that’s the case, is it really a syndrome? Perhaps people that always feel that they’re the best fit for the job have some “overconfidence syndrome”.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble and make you feel like you are not as “unique” as you thought. If you ask me, you are just like any other person who is unaware of what they know or appreciate the skills they have. If you’ve accomplished something or if people believe you are good at something, then you probably are. If you feel like you were just lucky or that people around you didn’t see you for the fraud that you are, then you probably have some problem in the way you perceive your skills and knowledge. This misperception means that your unknown known area is taking over the known known. You have a lot of knowns (which made you succeed) but the lack of awareness makes you feel like a fraud and is blinding your field of vision to the point that you are no longer able to see the positive qualities in you.

comprehension gaps

A few years ago I was trying to explain what I do at work to a young student- “We do a file sync & share product for SMBs. We have an out of the box SaaS, but clients can also buy S3 storage and install it on-premise”. While all that might sound trivial to people with entry-level experience in the field of cloud, this student looked at me like a deer in the headlights. To top it off, he was also too embarrassed that he barely understood a word.

Honestly, I don’t blame them because there was no way they could have know. This then got me to realize that I was ,in fact, the problem in that situation. By assuming that those terms were just common knowledge, I was ignoring my unknown knowns.

It’s important to note that unknown knowns aren’t limited to terminology. When you talk to grads or less experienced engineers (or other less experienced folks in your field), you may find that they too lack the knowledge that nowadays seems utterly “basic” to you.

Even when working with more experienced professionals, we sometimes don’t give enough context or drop enough details. In my field, I work on certain features for months at a time, adopt a particular team terminology and absorb individualized team practices. When I speak with other colleagues (especially those not in my team), I am entirely unaware of these knowns and assume that they’ll all intuitively understand how my team works.

These types of comprehension gaps often lead to misalignments because everyone tends of interpreting the implicit details differently. Being more aware of small details such as these and being more explicit about them, can reduce confusion and create better team alignment.

Feeling like you aren’t growing enough

At the start of my career, everything was new and I felt like I was learning new things every day. At some point, I started feeling like my learning curve is slowly diminishing. Eventually, it got to a point where I didn’t learn new languages or coding techniques every day because I was already familiar with the operational patterns… Turns out I was wrong about that.

In truth, I was learning a ton every single day. As a senior software engineer, I was doing more work that required “soft skills” such as communication, planning and team engagement. It was difficult to be mindful of these skills, when I only briefly thinking about what I’ve learned.

But even the “hard skills” that I’ve learned are tricky and easy to ignore: When I look back at last months I might only remember that I’ve learned GoLang, but if I dig deeper, I’ll find all those other sneaky unknown knowns which ARE the key factor in advancing my career to the next level.

It’s time to follow the yellow brick road

In the story of the Wizard Of Oz, Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, who wants a brain, the Tin Woodman, who desires a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, who needs courage. They all walk together, experience many adventures and overcome their challenges through the utilization of each others` strengths. When they get back to the Wizard of Oz, he explains to them that the attributes they sought after were within them all along. The way I see it, the journey on the yellow brick road simply cleared their blind spots and helped them see their unknown knowns.

Now it’s your turn.

How to hit your yellow brick road?

Now that you understand the importance of the unknown knowns, it’s important that you realize that this isn’t something that requires further exploration or analysis. All you need to do is give it the attention it deserves by turning the implicit knows into explicit ones. Turn to your intuition and unconscious beliefs; tap into your instincts and mold them into something you can make known to the rest of the world. By doing so, you’ll not only be able to better communicate your thoughts and knowledge to others, but also, help yourself finally raise awareness to your unknown knowns and thereby, become better at what you do.

You also understand that switching an unknown known into a known known, doesn’t require you to study anything new — all you need to do is to call it out and turning the implicit known into explicit known. Turning your intuitions, unconscious beliefs and instincts into something you can write/talk about will help you not only to communicate and share your knowledge with other, but can also help yourself be aware of the things you know and therefore be a better professional.

So what you can you do to reveal your unknown knowns?

Practical Ways of Revealing Your Unknown Knowns

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@enka80?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Nine Köpfer on <a href="https://unsplash.com/search/photos/discover?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utmcontent=creditCopyText)

Write More

Either a blog, a draft or simply a document containing your reasoning behind a certain decision (i.e. why you preferred solution A over solution B). You’ll be surprised to learn that your seemingly simple ideas are far more profound after you write about them.

In my case, just a few days ago I thought about the unknown knowns. I didn't have more than 5 lines about this topic (actually I only wanted to tweet about it, but I didn't have twitter :) ) , but as you see it turned out to be much more than that.

Pursue Public Speaking Opportunities

Speak up and share what you’ve learned with others. Don’t assume that anything you say is trivial. The best talks I’ve heard weren’t necessary given by people who studied a subject field for 20 years, but rather, those who brought forth a fresh new perspective. Remember that it’s possible to hold a five-minute talk about any topic you desire because what may seem “easy” to you requires more context when speaking to others.

It doesn’t have to be at the biggest conference you can think of. Start with a 5 minutes talk to your team — I’m sure you have at least one thing to share with them. You’ll be amazed how many times my peers told me they won’t be able to hold a 5 talk about a topic they thought was trivial. After they’ve had the slides they asked for 10 minutes, and I was going on the safe side scheduled 15 minutes for them. It took about 20 minutes until I had to stop them ;)

Mentor Others

Helping others will provide you with the much-needed proof that you don’t give yourself enough credit. Taking on mentorships will help you realize how much you have to offer and just how beneficial your knowledge is to others. You may not have the answer to everything and that’s fine, but never underestimate the value of the little tips and tricks you picked along your yellow brick road.

When you help others, you finally understand that you don’t give yourself enough credit. You’ll be shocked with the number of things you didn’t think of and can now help others grow and learn. You might not have the answers for everything, and that’s fine, but you can surely help them with tips you’ve learned along the way. You can also help them with the way you analyze situations or the way you think when you hit an obstacle.

If by chance you don’t feel confident to become a full-on mentor, start small. Assist new hires at your workplace, or a couple of students from the local college. I can guarantee that small gestures such as these will have you reaping the fruit in no time.

Track What You Learn

Take a few minutes every week or month to write down the things what you’ve learned. Yes, even those that may initially appear trivial. Don’t put too much emphasis on the prominent accomplishments, but rather, pay more attention to the smaller ones. This can be a new shortcut you learned or a new strategy on how to write better emails. Share your list with your manager at work, or a 1x1 with your team during your weekly meetings. Everything deserves to be listed and appreciated, no matter how small.

Don’t Ignore Positive Feedback

You can learn a lot about yourself and what you are capable of from others. The best way to learn is by requesting feedback, either from your manager or your teammates. People often focus on the negative comments, but that’s not all you should pay attention to. When you receive feedback, make sure to also give space to your strengths and positive attributes . These can help you better understand your knowledge, and shed some light on the progress you’ve made. You might even learn that something that you thought you are not very good at, is perceived by others as one of your strengths, or rather your unknown knowns ;)

Express Gratitude

When someone appreciates your work or compliments you, say thank you. Don’t be too modest, don’t try to explain why it wasn’t so hard, or underestimate your accomplishments — Just thank them. If someone made the effort to recognize your achievement, they have a good reason for it.

from https://twitter.com/cszhu

Ultimately, it’s your road

You don’t have to follow each and every step listed above. Everyone’s road looks different. Pave your own path and take your own road. It’s easy to forget to follow the road you took, so from time to time try to be more conscious of your unknown knowns and turn them into known knowns.

Thanks for spending a few minutes of your time. Feel free to add me on Twitter / Linkedin, or comment bellow

-Alon

Special thanks to:

• Keren for her great work editing this post and after many iterations — turning my ideas into something readable
• Rina Artstain for proofreading, reviewing this article and giving awesome technical feedback

Am I a “real” Software Engineer yet?

This question has haunted me for years. And it seems I’m not alone. Many people experience this same insecurity. They desire to know if they’ve made it. Are they finally good enough?

While “Software Engineer” is the standard title handed out by employers, many in the software community have different standards. And to new programmers joining the field, especially those without CS degrees, it can feel like the title is safe-guarded. Only bestowed on the select that have proven themselves.

Many people refer to this sense of deficiency as Impostor Syndrome, though it goes by many names. Developers experience it in different ways and have differing reactions. To some, it can be crippling, but others might not notice it whatsoever.

In this article, I’m going to recount my own ordeals with Impostor Syndrome. While I don’t pretend to have a cure, I hope to shed some more light on the topic and help others who are dealing with it.

Note: All the comments I’ve shared are real comments I’ve found on the internet. Not all of them were directed towards me, but I’ve heard similar remarks. I’m sure you have too.

When it all began

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/IuLgi9PWETU?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="">Danielle MacInnes on <a href="https://unsplash.com/search/photos/begin?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

For me, it started in July of 2016. I had started studying web development as a New Years Resolution. I wasn’t satisfied with my career at the time and was looking for a change. A common origin story that I’m sure many people can relate to.

I focused on front-end development as I had heard that HTML, CSS and JavaScript were easy to pick up. I spent my evenings after work parsing through Treehouse, Lynda, and Codecademy tutorials. The first three months of 2016 passed by like this. By April, my notebook was full of thorough notes and my GitHub contained a few static sites. But I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to sink my teeth into a larger project.

That was when I decided to create a portfolio site for my wife, who was a product designer. For my skill level at the time, it wasn’t an easy undertaking. I struggled a lot and it took the better part of four months to complete.

It’s important to note that while working on my wife’s website, I did my best to surround myself with tech culture. I watched YouTube videos, listened to podcasts, and read blog posts from experienced engineers to keep myself motivated. I daydreamed what it would be like to stand in their shoes. To have a job at a tech company, work on the latest technology, and write “Software Engineer” as my Occupation on tax forms. Silicon Valley made it all look so glorious.

That’s why I couldn’t have been happier when my wife’s website went live in July of that year. I had done it. I had made my first real website that was going to receive real traffic. Could I finally start calling myself something of a Software Engineer?

“Web development isn’t real programming”

Not according to the Internet:

“being a fully competent and complete software is much more … ”

_“Web development is not real programming” — Read more [here](http://joequery.me/code/the-self-hating-web-developer/" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

“Web development isn’t real programming”, “JavaScript isn’t a real programming language”, and “a front-end developer isn’t a Software Engineer” were all phrases I heard often. While I was determined to change careers, I was also self-conscious. I couldn’t shake the thought that the naysayers were right.

If I’d had a Plan B or a stable career to fall back on, I might’ve given up right then and there. Fortunately, I didn’t. For better or worse, I had no other career or skills to fall back on and I had already invested too much time. So I trudged on, with the sunk cost keeping me afloat.

I spent the next 18 months studying software development full time. I quit my job and moved in with my in-laws — which was a journey in-and-of itself. I put everything I had into my career move. I studied Ruby, Node, and some Go and built some small web apps.

By January of 2018, it had been two years since the start of my career switch and I had learned a great deal. I knew the fundamentals, I could program in multiple languages, and I had started contributing to open-source projects. I also had a decent portfolio to show for it. I was excited to finally call myself a Software Engineer.

“Not so fast,” said the Internet.

“software engineer” after 1–2 years? yeah no.”

“If you don’t have a software engineering degree you’re not a real software engineer. ... You only know how to do some code.”

At this point, I had dealt with many doubters. While it still didn’t feel great to hear criticism, I had learned to ignore it for the most part. Furthermore, I had an Ace up my sleeve. There was one final step I could accomplish to put all the doubts to rest: Getting a job.

Yes, a software engineering job. The holy grail. I would have the title, the paycheck, and the acclaim. No more self-doubt. Only deserved validation from an employer.

And that’s what I did. I started interviewing in early 2018 and signed my first offer letter by March of 2018. My official role was “Software Engineer”. That was that, the hunt for acceptance was finally over.

From bad to worse

“You’re still a newbie.. and will be for a few more years at least. Software engineer by title, that’s all.

“I’ve been in software engineering for 30 years. …You haven’t even begun to understand what you don’t know yet. Good luck to you!”

At least that’s what I thought. It seemed the gate-keeping extended even into the realm of employment. But it was over. I was a Software Engineer — I had the W4 papers to prove it. The moment I stepped into the office for my first day on the job, all my worries would disappear.

But that wasn’t the truth. Who knew that adding obligations and deadlines would make one’s insecurities worse, not better?

My anxiety hit a fever pitch the moment I arrived for my first day of onboarding. Slack conversations I didn’t understand. GitHub repositories with thousands of lines of code I didn’t comprehend. Development tools I had never heard of or used. My first week on the job was a whirlwind of stress.

Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to be surrounded by such experienced engineers. My team was full of some of the smartest engineers I’d ever met and they were incredibly understanding. They mentored me and ramped me up to speed. But it was still intimidating as hell.

Many of my coworkers had advanced degrees, some had been programming since they were teens, and others were core maintainers of large open source projects. And who was I? Some guy who learned to code because it looked cool on TV. I felt out of place and the feeling didn’t disappear.

My thoughts began to resemble the negative comments that I had worked so hard to prove wrong:

How the hell did I get here? Was it luck? Did someone make a mistake?

I realized that I didn’t need Reddit to point out my inadequacies — I was quite capable of that myself. It’s true that, with time, I became more familiar with my environment. I began to understand the Slack conversations, the code became more familiar, and I learned how to use the various tools. And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was a stranger in a foreign land. Every mistake I made only served to prove that point further.

I anticipated the day that I made one mistake too many and someone finally asked, “How on Earth did you get hired?” That fear consumed me. I began reading whitepapers, frequenting Hacker News, and taking classes to get a Computer Science degree. All in the hopes that I would finally feel like I fit in. That I was a “real” software engineer. But none of it worked.

Luckily, I found something that did.

Finding my solution

The solution that I found for myself was simple yet terrifying.

Talking.

I had to talk to someone. I couldn’t keep it bottled anymore. However, I was too nervous to ask any of coworkers a question like, “Have you ever felt like a fraud?” Instead, I started with my close friends. But I soon found myself discussing the topic to anyone I could, including coworkers and teammates. Because the more I talked and listened, the more I realized I wasn’t alone.

As it turns out, impostor syndrome is so common that it has become a cliché!

“Another impostor syndrome article …. Walking in to work everyday with a complete mastery over everything you do and write is a problem of its own.”

Many professionals at the top of their careers experience it. Tina Fey, John Steinbeck, and even Albert Einstein. It was comforting to find out that I was in such good company. Furthermore, when talking with a close friend, he said something that struck a chord with me:

“The only time impostor syndrome is bad is when you don’t have it. Feeling like a fraud is a sign that you’re learning. Having anxiety in a new and uncomfortable environment is perfectly normal. The trouble comes when you feel like you know exactly what to do and how everything works. If you find yourself in that situation, you aren’t learning anymore.”

It was in that moment that I realized impostor syndrome wasn’t something to fight or ignore. With the right mindset, it can be a tool. That may sound like some feel-good BS, but public speakers employ a similar trick to convert anxiety into excitement.

This isn’t to say that my insecurities have magically disappeared. Far from it. Whenever I’m given a new project to work on, my panic makes an unwelcome return. My heart rate spikes and my mind conjures up fantastical feats of failure. However, I’ve learned to interpret this nervous energy as a sign that I’m learning and pushing myself to new heights.

When my manager gives me a complicated task, it means that they trust that I can get it done. I may need to ask for help, research the topic, or simply go for a walk to cool my nerves, but I know I’ll get through it. I still make mistakes all the time and that will never change. It’s all a part of the process.

After all, no one knows everything, not even within their own specialty. Dan Abramov doesn’t know flexbox and David Heinemeier Hansson still looks up ActiveRecord methods he wrote himself. If perfection was a feasible goal, Stack Overflow wouldn’t be as popular as it is.

Am I a “real” software engineer?

So after all this time, am I a “real” software engineer yet? LinkedIn seems to think so.

The better question is, “Does it matter?” I haven’t always been passionate about tech and I lack the enticing origin story of a Rockstar Engineer. But I’m here now and I’m here to stay. So to those in the tech community who have strong opinions about my title, call me whatever you want. A software engineer, programmer, script kiddie...

My title no longer matters to me. What matters is what I do. And what I do is use code to solve problems and architect solutions to make peoples’ lives better.

Best of all, I’m damn good at it.

More from me:

Need faster code? Try Multithreading
_There come times in a programmer’s career when they realize that their code simply needs to run faster. Whether it’s…_hackernoon.comA Tale of Two Websites
_The importance of slow progress and self-reflection_medium.freecodecamp.orgBuilding Conclave: a decentralized, real time, collaborative text editor
_Using WebRTC and Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs)_hackernoon.com

Picture this: I’m at work, on a typical Portland Tuesday morning. Unlike the weather outside, the office is bright and warm, and I’ve got my fancy desk set to “standing” (It moves up and down. When you push buttons. Fancy).

I’ve got my Spotify coding playlist going and am tapping my foot as I work.

Yup, that’s basically me

I’m in our app, doing something completely unrelated when I spot a bug that’s currently in production. Not an app-crashing bug, but a priority nonetheless.

I file a ticket. Then, I have a realization I haven’t had before: I can fix this. Without needing to bother anyone else, without raising a general alarm, I can go into our codebase and figure out what’s going on and actually FIX it.

At that moment, this song comes on:

The universe is concurring, it seems. I switch to my console and get to work trying to figure out what’s going on.

To further the mood, this is the next track:

Oh, I’ve totally got this.

Minutes pass.

Hmmm, the error seems to be in our API. A 401, huh? It’s in our backend, which isn’t really my strong suit (I mean, technically, none of this is my strong suit).

That’s OK, I’ve still got this. I think.

And so morning turns to afternoon, as I drill further down and follow the breadcrumbs to find the culprit. I get as close to it as I can: the one function that’s causing all the fuss. The one function that works in every other case but the case I hit.

The one function, which I didn’t write, and can’t quite figure out on my own.

I might not have this.

By this point, my fancy desk is firmly in the “sit” position, as I slouch down, then sit up, hoping that viewing angle is a key component of properly understanding the code in front of me.

This is where, if the Spotify AI was as god-like as I’ve been envisioning it, some slow, sappy violin music should come on. Alas, the music stays upbeat as my mood sinks further down: I have to ask for help.

As much as I wanted to solve this puzzle all on my own, the reality is that I’m a recent code school grad six months into an awesome job where I spend 90% of my day learning, as there’s still so much I don’t know.

I’m also lucky enough to work in an environment where asking for help is never frowned upon when needed. I know I can’t fix most bugs on my own, though I seem to be getting closer to the answer than when I started.

I also realized at that moment that over the past six months I had become a real, capital-D Developer.

I hit a bug. I logged it. I tried to tackle it on my own. I narrowed down the problem to one function in one file. I asked a coworker more familiar with that code for help, and he quickly pointed out that I needed to pass in a single Boolean as a parameter to keep the error from happening.

Half a day of work, and adding one word as a param un-broke the function:

true

At the end of the day, I have a fix PRed (sent the fix pull request), and though it took long to get there, I contributed something to the codebase while learning several dozen new things in the process.

I’m a Developer.

It’s pretty sweet (queue the epic music).

My actual desk. I like it even better.

One thing I like the most about being a developer is learning. But to learn something, you must admit that you do not know it.

And sometimes it can be difficult.

Some time ago, I was asked to deal with a linear regression. I was panicked. I had no real idea of what it was about except that it was mathematics. The problem is that I was convinced I should have known that.

I was blaming myself: “But why do you have a baccalaureate (high school degree) in literature instead of a normal baccalaureate like everyone else in your profession would? And why have you preferred studying literature rather than computer science at university? If you had chosen normal studies, you would have known what is a linear regression. You would have known how to deal with that. You have no right to be here. You are an impostor”.

Then I did what I do when I am panicked: I called my sister. She has a “normal” baccalaureate.

“Hi little sister, can you explain me what is a linear regression please?”

She answered me that she had no idea what it was and that she never learned that in high school.

I was relieved. I still did not know what a linear regression was, but I could confess without shame my ignorance. I took some time to understand it and finally dealt with it.

You could say that this story ends well. I am not so sure because I should have confessed my ignorance before calling my sister.

Sometimes, I have the impression that I am not in my place. I feel I am stealing the job of someone else, someone with “normal” studies. Consequently, I am afraid of being exposed.

I know that I am not the only one to get this feeling of being an impostor. There are many reasons you can find yourself in this situation.

I was recently working with a brilliant person with many capabilities. But she was sure of being an impostor because she did not know this framework or this thing in Java, leading her into trouble at work.

If we step back, there is no shame if you do not know something. The most important thing is to admit it.

First, it is impossible to know everything.

Then, if you have not learned something, it is probably because you were doing something else instead. If I did not know until now how Kafka was really dealing with messages from producers, it is because I spent several months learning stuff about Spark. This stuff helped me to pass a certification. That is not so bad in the end.

It was also because I finally recognized that I knew so few things about functional programming with Scala that I decided to follow online courses. Again, that is not so bad.

Saying that you do not know is a way towards progress.

I cannot help thinking about Socrates and this fabulous sentence:

The only thing I know is that I know nothing.

A philosopher — drawing from me

One of the greatest philosophers (for me, as for many) presented himself as ignorant. I believe recognizing yourself as ignorant is a strong way towards self progression and raising the bar.

When you recognize what you do not know, you do not have prejudices. You can learn peacefully. You are not narrow-minded. You are ready to learn everything.

Therefore, I am happy to have learned the concept of linear regression even if at the beginning I was totally lost.

I should have said the truth peacefully and directly: “I know nothing about linear regressions but it is okay. I will learn it”.

Peaceful landscape — picture from Vincent Sebille

_The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge. Source_

Introduction

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language. Animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms. Jane Goodall, George Eliot.

_[Source](https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref=cwln5040" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Background

“What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.” — Jane Goodall

It has happened nnumber of times to me in the past. My brain has had a question, but I have always stopped it from slipping out, thinking I would make a fool out of myself. Only later would I realise that somebody else asked a similar question and got applauded for asking such a wonderful question!

Do you relate to this situation?

It’s been more than a year now, and I am getting better at asking questions, in fact, sometimes I have way too many questions to ask. Thanks to the Outreachy internship, I have overcome my imposter syndrome! Also, these days, usually I am on the other side of the table while handling interviews or pull requests, and I have some advice on the importance of asking questions and how to ask them right.

“Animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.” — George Eliot.

_[Source](https://www.millgatehouse.co.uk/product/science-questions/" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Rule #1

Don’t make assumptions.

I cannot stress enough on the importance of open communication, asking questions whenever relevant and avoiding any silent assumptions. This rule applies to your normal day to day work, talking to your colleagues or undergoing an interview process.

_[Source](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nakedpastor/2010/03/cartoon-deep-and-happy/" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Rule #2

Think deep

Life throws at us many options and it is very easy to get lost and lose focus in life. At times, it is also very important to ask relevant questions of ourselves.

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions:

• Why are you doing it
• What might the results be, and
• Will you be successful.

Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead. Chanakya

_[http://artpictures.club/vago.html](http://artpictures.club/vago.html[/caption]" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Rule #3

No question is stupid

If you are like me, then I totally understand how hard it is to push yourself to ask a question.

No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don’t ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Once you start asking questions, innocence is gone. Mary Astor

Examples

Based on my experience, few real world examples explaining the need to ask questions.

_[Source](https://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=146601" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

#1: When using an acronym

A common scenario is when one person uses an acronym that might not be very common. You can politely ask the person to abbreviate the acronym rather than making silent assumptions and thereby ending up with a different conclusion.

_[Source](https://www.clipartmax.com/middle/m2i8K9m2b1i8H7i8_differentiated-homeworks-for-gcse-aqa-french-cartoon-homework/" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

#2: Maintaining your homework log

Another scenario is to silently note down points when you are too shy to ask questions openly. You end up building a homework log for yourself, and spend double the time to get answers for the very questions which could have been answered instantly, if you’d had the courage to ask in the first place.

Research shows this is a prevalent case with under-represented groups and people of colour. As a woman of colour, I myself, have done this n number of times when I have been too scared to be framed of not knowing anything. This is a clear symptom of having Imposter Syndrome.

_Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want or need to know. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. Don Miguel Ruiz_

_[http://www.jobiety.com/ace-your-panel-interview.html](http://www.jobiety.com/ace-your-panel-interview.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

#3: During an interview

While there is enough advice available on preparing yourself for an interview process and the questions to ask, I too would like to stress the importance of asking a few relevant questions when given the time. As an interviewer myself, I really like when interviewees ask questions.

_[https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/git.png](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/git.png" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

#4: Issues and pull requests

Dealing with the OpenSource world gets better with experience. I can still recall the days when I was new and everything was too overwhelming. Naturally, I was too shy to comment on an issue or pull request and used to spend a considerable amount of time before I made a public statement.

Get a mentor or practice with your colleagues reviewing each other's pull requests in a constructive manner. Trust me, this gets much better over time.

Conclusion

Having said all that, while we have to get better at asking questions, it is also equally important to be in an environment which fosters the culture of asking questions and giving encouraging answers. Below are a few pointers on how to achieve this:

_[https://twitter.com/princi_ya/status/1072987101644378112](https://twitter.com/princi_ya/status/1072987101644378112" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

1. Do not make fun of others or shame them for asking questions
2. It is ok to not know the answer to everything
3. Be humble in accepting the above fact
4. Learn new things while discovering answers to unknown questions
5. Share your learnings

I would be very much interested in knowing your thoughts and experiences on this subject. Please share your feedback. Thank you ?

Have you ever felt like you don’t know what you’re doing? Have you ever felt like everyone is going to find out any time now that you’re a complete fraud? Have you ever thought you somehow managed to convince everyone you’re smart and know your stuff?

Welcome to the club, my friend! You suffer from imposter syndrome, and you’re one of us! Yay!

_[Credit](https://www.etsy.com/listing/539166512/funny-print-little-miss-imposter" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

I don’t think it’s hyperbole to state that the very best of us suffer from imposter syndrome. At this point, I’ve come to believe that it’s part of the human condition, mainly if you work in any creative field. If someone claims that they don’t suffer from imposter syndrome, they probably have an ego too gigantic to admit it. And you know what? Suffering from it is okay.

_[Credit](https://astrobites.org/2018/03/02/overcoming-the-imposter-syndrome/" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

I’ve suffered from crippling imposter syndrome over the years. So I wanted to talk about some of the ways I’ve tried to tame it and how it has helped me become a better person and engineer.

This was one of the issues of my newsletter “Life Reliability Engineering.” But I thought it deserved space of its own as a blog post.

Write your accomplishments down

I can’t even begin to stress how much this has helped me. Having a handy list of tangible professional achievements that you can refer to when you feel like a fraud works wonders.

Write down your accomplishments — small or big. Write down stuff you’re proud of, stuff you didn’t think you could do but did anyway and things like that. Spoke at a conference? Got a scholarship? Started a new job? Shipped something at work? Write it all down!

Go back to it when you’re feeling like crap. Remind yourself that if you were a total fraud, you wouldn’t have been able to accomplish all this in the first place.

Remembering that it is in your head isn’t enough, because your brain won’t recall it fast enough when it’s in imposter mode. So writing it down is important.

Accept and revel in the fact that you’re not the smartest person in the world

(Side note: how, if at all, you can measure this and what does it even mean????)

I guess everyone has their own timeline for this. Finally accepting it is, frankly, so relieving. And it has positive side effects! I’m nearly constantly striving to work with folks who’re smarter than I am, and accepting this has enabled me to learn better (and more!) from them!

Don’t be that person who is constantly trying to prove they’re the smartest person in the room by putting other people down. Nobody likes that person. Being humble and ready to learn from other folks helps you grow better and faster. It also makes you a good co-worker.

Surround yourself with people who recognize your work and worth

This one is a hit or miss in the sense that you don’t really realize the importance of doing this till you actually do it. Spoiler alert: it’s magical.

Being surrounded by folks (friends/co-workers/community) who recognize and/or reward your work and reassure you of everything you bring to the table from time-to-time is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

It’s truly hard to overstate how big a difference it makes. Invest time in this. It’s very hard to find these folks, but once you do, make sure you stick with them.

Everyone excels at different things and it’s NOT a zero-sum game

This point is sort of tangentially related to the second one but still deserves its own space. There is no superhuman person out there who is good at everything. That’s simply not possible. Different people have different areas of expertise and that’s a very good thing! It gives all of us something to learn from one another and balances things out.

Maybe your strength is someone’s weakness and vice-versa. Someone else being good at something that’s not your area of expertise doesn’t take away anything from you. If anything, it gives you a chance to learn something from them and improve. Recognize and celebrate that.

Don't compare yourself with people who have a lot more experience than you

Comparing yourself to someone who has been around for a long time is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. It’s a recipe for disaster, so don’t do it. It’s a bad idea.

If you’re someone who is just starting out and you compare yourself to someone who has had a decade-long career, then, of course, they’re gonna be doing way better than you! Simply because they've been around much longer than you have. Of course, they’ve put in a lot more effort than you, built a solid network, spoken at major conferences and what not.

(I’m not claiming that everyone does this, but simply picking one of the most common parameters people tend to size themselves up against).

This is doomed even before you start doing it. Whenever you start doing this, take a step back, pause and think: is this a valid comparison? Do I need to be comparing myself to anyone at all? Am I happy with where I am? Because that’s what matters in the end.

Realize it’s a waste of time and energy

I’m a firm believer in healthy introspection, but more often than not, this isn’t healthy. Obsessing over this doesn’t really get you anything when all is said and done. Mostly there are no concrete takeaways. You end up being miserable and down, feeling like a fraud and no matter how much you do, it’ll never be enough.

You don’t need or deserve to feel that way. Following this chain of thought is probably not a good use of your time because it doesn’t do anything to actually help you fix anything. Your time will be better utilized in doing or thinking about something more meaningful and actionable. Acknowledging that can at least help you not descend down the “thinking rabbit-hole”.

Final thoughts

I can go on writing about this topic endlessly because I’ve battled with it a lot over the years and I know it’s not a battle that’s going to end any time soon (or possibly ever!).

So, for now, I’ve been trying to devise ways to deal with it so that I don’t waste time doing this. Instead I put my energies into being the best software engineer I can be. ?? It has been working out well so far.

This has been a long post. I sincerely hope this will help you deal with random bouts of imposter syndrome as well. ✨

Ever have that feeling that maybe you just didn’t measure up at your new developer job, in your boot camp, or on a help forum? A sickening feeling that maybe you are in over your head? How often do you compare yourself to someone else… someone… better? Welcome to Imposter Syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome is a fluctuating state of feeling out of place, under-qualified, a fake or a fraud. An imposter. At any moment, your secret will be shouted out for all the world to hear, and you’ll be humiliated forever. Have you had an experience like this?

"People come from different economic and social backgrounds. They are all in different fields, at different levels of their careers, and they all have different talents and abilities…" Dr. Pauline Rose Clance

Yet, I found it fascinating, and at the same time, familiar, that the research on Imposter Syndrome does indicate that the more successful you are, the more likely you are to be impacted by Imposter Syndrome — and that success can be defined many ways. But if you are experiencing success why would you have a need to feel like an imposter…? We’ll get to that.

Here’s one of the biggest problems with Imposter Syndrome: most people don’t tell their stories out loud. They don’t acknowledge how they are feeling, and they don’t say “I feel like an imposter.” Which means some of us are in deep denial thinking it is somehow normal to torture ourselves day in and out. To make it impossible to enjoy the success that we’ve truly earned.

Acknowledging this feeling gives us a break from the constant onslaught of planning our next possible success. Further, we’ll likely share our story with someone who had no idea that they, too, were suffering. That is completely liberating. We have to tell these stories to find a way to work through them.

So I Will Share One of My Imposter Syndrome Stories

During mid-October, I was attending the Connect Tech annual conference. Last year, I was a random attendee thanks to a scholarship from Women Who Code Atlanta. This year, I was to be a speaker. I had a 50-minute slot for my talk with teacher and mentor, Toby Ho, titled, “Don’t Suck at Teaching Code.”

But that’s not what made me different. I was also the keynote speaker on the first day of the conference in front of more than 1,000 people. But not for one minute did I think I deserved the keynote slot, and often thought that there had been a mistake. I kept waiting for Pratik Patel, mentor and conference organizer, to take back his request that I would be his keynote for this year. I checked weekly to see if the Connect Tech website had been updated because only that would make it real.

Imposter Syndrome had me in a choke hold, and I found myself wondering how many people would think I was a fraud. On the day of the address, the first thing I thought was that no one was going to show up or fill the room for me — instead of thinking how thankful I was to have this opportunity and how proud I was for all the hard work I did to prepare. So deep was I into the weeds, that I gave that same presentation on three separate occasions to make sure it would be PERFECT.

Let’s go back to the research on success. I had been highly successful in reaching my goal to be a keynote speaker at a major technology conference, yet I was still in a state of denial. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t a fluke. I seemed to be working harder and harder to speak at another conference — but this time, an out-of-town conference where no one knew me because maybe then I could just relax.

Do you see a trend? The more success I earn, the harder I work, and the more I work. Extra projects, more blog posts, another conference, volunteering… it doesn’t stop. The “imposter” truly wants to succeed and enjoy the success, but Imposter Syndrome tells us something different. It tells us that it’s a cycle and you must keep at that cycle. It’s like never getting off of a ride at an amusement park. You like the ride, and you do get tired of the ride, but you keep riding. When does the cycle end? When you consciously take the reins and use the following strategies everyday.

Curb the What if

Everyone goes through days where they ask themselves, “What if?” For example, What if I fail the whiteboard test? What if I don’t get the job? What if the traffic makes me late to the interview?

I can make a list of What if’s. But no more. As of today, you and I get ONE what if a day. That’s it. Use it wisely because you can not go through the day wondering about all the possible things that could go wrong.You know why? Because there are a million things that can and will go right and you should celebrate that.

If you limit yourself to just one What If, you might allow yourself to celebrate the successes of the day. Wow — I got a great parking spot. I finished the project two days early. My boss bought me coffee. Do you feel the smile on your face widen? It should.

Set Reasonable and Timely Goals

In Educational Psychology, we create four categories of goals: career, long term, short term, and today. Imagine if we only made a career goal. It would take precious time to achieve, and could be years. Your motivation to reach that goal might slowly dwindle and feel unattainable.

But what if we had four goals — that long term career goals, and then a long term goal — not as long as a career goal, but maybe finishing a graduate course or publishing an article based on your research? Now, in just two weeks you could complete 3 whiteboard challenges, and read the next chapter in your JavaScript book. If you can do all that, what could you do today? A few FreeCodeCamp challenges? Help someone in a forum?

Stop for a second. Every time you complete those goals, cross them off. Don’t get a new piece of paper. Show yourself what you have accomplished. Feel the success. Celebrate that you are one step closer to completing all of your goals. And when you finish one, add another goal in that category. Every day let that success wash over you because you can do it.

Create a reciprocal support group

Mentoring is a huge part of the growing process in learning code, but you need to realize that not just any mentor will do. Reciprocal mentoring is powerful. It means that you and your mentor are equals and support each other in various ways.

Here’s an example. One of my best friends has been a programmer for over 10 years. I had only just started. That was an unequal relationship and oftentimes, I felt like giving up — she knew everything, and I felt defeated.

But I had something else. As a former college professor of 10 years, I’ve written books, chapters, blogs and presented at conferences. My friend never had. We agreed we would mentor each other. The pressure instantly lifted. It’s been a few years now, and neither of us needs the type of mentoring we thought we would need, but both of us are highly successful, and I believe it is because we treat each other like equals.

Believe the Praise

When someone tells you that your code was clean, say thank you. Smile. And give yourself an internal high five.

When someone tells you that was an interesting way to solve that algorithm, give them a high-five.

In other words, believe the praise. Many of us that suffer from Imposter Syndrome do not hear the praise. We nod our heads and say thank you, but we don’t believe it and we forget it immediately. No more. Repeat that praise to yourself. Repeat it again. Say thank you, and mean it. Smile, with the broadest smile you can muster, and nod to yourself. Who knows, maybe you can cross something off of your goal list. Even if you didn’t, you hit a milestone, and you need to be proud of yourself.

Will Imposter System stop simply because you stop asking What if questions, set goals, find a mentor, and believe the praise? No, it won’t. Not right away. But the more you practice these techniques, the closer you are going to be to shutting out the noise of Imposter Syndrome.

Impostor Syndrome is real, and it plagues new developers. We get all the way through a tutorial, bootcamp, or even a degree, yet we still shy away from sharing our code. We fear negative feedback on our code’s quality. No one suffers more from this than self-taught developers. Because we don’t have any “real” or “official” experience or training, we consider our code to be sub-par.

I was there a few months ago. I was working through Harry Percival’s Test-Driven Development With Python_. E_ven though I was following right along with the tutorial, I was self-conscious about sharing my code. Even though my app was working as expected, I didn’t want to share my progress. I didn’t want someone to call me out on some obvious mistake to which I was oblivious. I wanted other people to enjoy my product, but I didn’t want them to see how poor of a developer I was.

After taking a break from my own project, I started looking at some other projects on GitHub. I found a few that had a little image on their README pages.

Now, being the noob that I was, I thought this was simply an image that Linus Torvalds handed you on a flash drive when you graduated from “Real Developer” school. Never once did it cross my mind to click on it. I thought it was a static image hosted somewhere in the repository. Later on, I stumbled upon a project that displayed that the build was failing.

Why would someone take the time to add an image that says their build isn’t passing? Why go through the effort to take down the other image, put up this one? An image that says your project is broken and display it for the world to see? Out of sheer curiosity, I pulled up the raw format for the README. I saw this code:

[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.com/username/projectname.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.com/username/projectname)

I was savvy enough with markdown to recognize that this was a clickable link. So I clicked the button and it took me to Travis-CI. All at once it made sense to me. This button was not updated by the project developer, Travis-CI updated it. It’s a dynamic button.

My First Badge

So, once I found out about the build badge from Travis-CI, I had to have it for my project. After all, my whole project was about writing and using tests. So why not have something that ran them automatically?

So I set up Travis-CI to run my unit tests when I pushed changes to GitHub. Right at the top of the page where Travis-CI runs them, there is the badge. I clicked it and got the markdown. I added it to my README. I navigated to the project page on GitHub and VOILA! There was my first badge. I was hooked!

The Hunt

I enjoyed that the badge was a clear sign of the current status of my project. I wanted to learn more, so I went on the hunt for other badges. Another common badge I found was code coverage. The coverage report could be sent by Travis-CI to a tool called CodeCov. You could get a badge indicating the coverage of your tests, which correlates to how well your app is tested.

I also found License badges, and it only made sense to have a license badge if I had a license. So I chose a license and added it to the repo. Getting the badge for that took a quick Google Search, and I found this gist with all the common license badges.

Coming from a security background in the military, I know that most vulnerabilities come from out-of-date software. As a new developer, I know this also goes for software that your software depends on. I heard about PyUp through Michael Kennedy’s Talk Python to Me podcast. When I navigated to the site, I saw the words I’d begun to love seeing, “Free For Open Source”. Being on the hunt for new badges, I was in luck. Sure enough, they provide a badge, so of course, I add it to the README.

Finally, I discovered that you could have a badge for style. I’d messed around with Black before, and I found an example of the style badge and I knew I had to have it. For my own integrity’s sake, I wanted to ensure that my code was always compliant with Black’s style. I found out about pre-commit, which I could use to format my code before even committing it. After diving down the pre-commit rabbit hole (which also runs my code against bandit for security and sorts my imports and requirements), I felt confident adding the Black badge to my README.

The End Result

The first result of hunting badges is that I have a better quality project. I added a license to my project, ensured my dependencies stayed up to date, and kept my project style compliant because I wanted the badges.

More notably, I am more confident in my project. I can speak about it knowing that there aren’t any gaping holes in it. I know I’m a lot less likely to receive feedback on my irresponsibility in regards to security or my lack of style compliance.

To put it simply, I feel better about my code because I have those GitHub badges.

Does any of the following sound familiar?

You constantly worry that you are not good enough.

Look at the developers around you. They seem to have everything together. Their code is cleaner than yours. They debug much faster than you do. They merely glance at documentation before knowing what they need. They are confident. They enjoy coding.

But you, you are worried. You worry that you don’t know enough about the framework and the language you are using. You worry about introducing bugs. You worry about catching up with the hottest technologies. You worry that you are not talented enough. Things don’t come naturally to you. You think to yourself: “Maybe I’m not meant to be a developer.”

If any of these self-doubting thoughts sounds familiar to you, you are not alone. Google “self-doubt developers”, and you will find over 2 million results in less than a second.

I was you.

For a period of time, I also experienced intense self-doubt, wondering if I would ever “make it”. It happened in college when I was practicing and preparing for job interviews. Each day, those algorithm problems made me feel like a complete failure. I was stressed and worried, as much as you might be now.

Eventually, my practice paid off and I received multiple job offers from prestigious tech companies. Along the way, I learnt two important lessons that changed my view of programming and eliminated my self-doubting thoughts. I’m sharing them with you now. Hopefully, they help.

Lesson #1: Learning programming is exactly the same as building muscles

To learn to play soccer, you need to go to the field and play. To build stronger muscles, you need to go to the gym and lift those weights. To learn programming, you need to sit down and code.

After lifting weights, you will feel sore and tired the next day. When stuck on a programming problem, your brain will (literally) hurt and you will get frustrated.

You won’t give up working out simply because of feeling sore. You know it’s part of the process. But when you get stuck while programming, you might start doubting yourself, wondering if you are talented enough. Because: (1) you think getting stuck is your fault, (2) others make it seemed effortless.

1. Getting stuck is part of the process.

Maybe no one has told you that, but it’s absolutely normal to get stuck during programming. It happens even to senior developers. A big part of programming is about figuring out why what you expected to happen didn’t happen. If you agree that expecting a child to be able to walk the first time he or she stands up is absurd, why would you expect the first draft of your code to run perfectly without any bugs?

I remember times when I got stuck for so long that I wanted to bang my head against a wall. I know it’s hard and frustrating (especially when dealing with issues related to dev environments). But hang in there. Dig into the issue. Ask Google. Ask a friend. Take a walk. You will eventually solve it and move on. And as you gain more experience, you will gradually get stuck less.

Next time you get stuck, don’t give yourself a hard time. Remind yourself it’s not your fault. It’s normal. It’s part of the process.

PS — Setting up a dev environment might be the most difficult part of programming.

It’s very common to get stuck and spend days on setting up a development environment. These are moments that might crush your soul. You try to follow the instructions step by step. But random errors keep showing up in every single step. The instructions make it seem easy, but it’s not. It’s not your fault getting stuck. 99.99% of the people reading that tutorial get stuck. The remaining 0.01% are the lucky ones who happen to have the exact same operating system setup as the instructor.

It’s unfortunate that the first step of learning to program is also the most frustrating and soul-crushing part. When you see errors you can’t understand, just copy the exact error message and Google it. (Putting quotes around the error message or just search the first half of the message might help.) Try different solutions until you find the one that works. And move on.

Pardon me for repeating: getting stuck at this stage is not your fault. We ALL do. And I promise programming will become a lot more fun once you get past this stage.

2. We confuse “genetically smart” with “appeared smart because the person has spent tons of time on related subjects”

During my last semester in college, my friends were amazed by how well I did in the Advanced Data Structures & Algorithms class. I made it seem effortless while they were struggling.

What they didn’t know was that months before the class, to prepare for interviews, I had spent countless hours practicing coding challenges, which covered the exact same topics as the class: dynamic programming, depth-first search, breadth-first search, etc. It appeared effortless only because I had already been through these struggles.

When I first self-taught these concepts, I would spend hours staring at a problem and couldn’t figure it out. When I gave up and looked up solutions online, I struggled to understand them. When I finally did, I felt even more frustrated because I doubted I would ever be smart enough to come up with such a solution myself.

Sometimes even when I encountered the exact same problem again, I might’ve still had no clue on how to approach it. I would get so stressed that I had to take long hot showers to calm myself down.

So believe me when I say that I know how it feels to doubt yourself and worry that you can’t make it. I have been there before. And I can assure you that you are not alone. Many great developers have been through the same thing. (Here is a podcast about this topic.)

Next time you are struggling while people around you are excelling, don’t think it’s because you are not talented enough. Most likely, they just have more exposure to the subject, or similar subjects, than you. Their brains have built up the “muscles” to handle this type of subject. After you get through your current struggles, you will appear smart and effortless as well.

It’s all about reps and sets.

You build muscles by exercising them. The more effort you put in, the longer you train, the stronger you become. Learning programming has the exact same process. The more time you spend coding, the more proficient you will be. You reap what you sow.

Lesson #2: Focus on your craft, not you

Stop thinking about how good or how bad of a programmer you are. If you are in the bottom 5% of your team, you want to get better. If you are in the top 5%, you still want to get better. No matter how good or bad you are, there are always people in front of you and people behind you. So why waste time thinking about it?

Instead, focus on your craft. Stop asking how good you are. Ask how good your code is. How can you make it better, faster, more readable? Surround yourself with engineers you admire. Read their code. How is it different than yours? What are the trade-offs they are making?

If you already work as a software engineer, someone is paying you to write code. You should pause and reflect on it, as it means a lot: someone either believes in your coding skill or sees your potential. The only way to live up to that potential is to focus on your craft and improve it relentlessly.

Action Item: Start keeping track of small wins

When was the last time you got stuck and weren’t sure if you could solve the problem? How did you eventually solve it?

Open a new Google Doc and write it down.

Next time you doubt yourself, take a look at the doc and remind yourself: if you could solve that last problem, you will solve this one as well.

Use the doc to keep track of challenging problems you overcame and what you learned from them. Always, always celebrate these small wins!

Leave a comment and share the last time you got stuck to remind those who are currently struggling that they are not alone. ?

Want to read about my career in tech? Check out my other articles.

Have other questions related to programming?

Please shoot me an email: sihui@sihui.io

“Wow! Your software business sounds amazing, Andrea. So, tell me…do you code, too?”

Every time I’ve heard this question over the past six years, it’s grated on my confidence.

Nevermind that I’ve built websites from scratch.

Nevermind that I’ve developed a business around modernizing codebases.

Nevermind that can confidently describe techniques like reducing cyclomatic complexity, refactoring duplication, using branches in source control, or Test Driven Development (TDD).

To most people, I simply don’t “look like” a software developer. Hence, the dreaded question when people meet me: “So, do you code?”

Me and my business partner. He never gets asked if he knows how to code. Me? All the time.

As a high achiever, I’m particularly susceptible to Imposter Syndrome, and the area in my life where I feel most vulnerable is my technical skills. So, when someone asks me if I code, it feels like a punch in the gut. Even though the answer to this question is a clear “yes”, I still feel like a fraud sometimes.

This year, I decided no more. I resolved to shake this idea of not being good enough for good and get serious about finding a program to help me achieve my goals. This proved to be more challenging than I originally thought. Here were my criteria:

1. No relocation. My family is too important. I have small children, and I’m still nursing one of them. We have a lot of family in town and rely on them for child care. Moving outside of my hometown simply wasn’t an option.
2. Self-paced. I own a business and running that comes first and foremost. Getting an accreditation is a nice-to-have, not a must-have, for being successful. I needed to find a way to fit this program into running a business and raising young children.
3. Current technology. Owning a software business actually gave me a good insight into what colleges are teaching these days. Unfortunately, most curricula are woefully behind the times. I needed to make sure what I was learning was applicable to the problems I was seeing in my business.
4. Work on real-world projects. I do best when I’m learning with a real problem that gives real benefit. Theory is great, but it only goes so far.
5. Sense of community. As an extrovert, it’s been a real challenge to lock myself into a room for eight hours a day to hash out a problem. I knew if I was going to be successful, this program had to tie into a community of other students that I could connect to.

After a lot of searching and trial and error, I enrolled in FreeCodeCamp. This had all the features I was looking for with the added benefit of being absolutely free to students. After six months of going through the program, I’ve been thrilled with the progress I’ve made. Here are some of the things I love most about being a student at FreeCodeCamp:

1. Seeing the big picture. I’m a strategist, so I do best when I can see the big picture first and then dive into the details. I love how FreeCodeCamp lays out a detailed map of their entire program. This gives me a sense of progress.
2. Built for people like me. Quincy Larson, who leads the team over at FreeCodeCamp, has written about his experiences with Imposter Syndrome. Many of the features of FreeCodeCamp came about because Quincy was dealing with some of the same challenges I was.
3. Really well-run. Quincy runs a tight ship. I’ve been amazingly impressed with FreeCodeCamp’s communication and the sense of community they’ve created. They’re transparent and share valuable information regularly. They have lots of engagement points so it keeps me going even when I feel like quitting.
4. Small and frequent wins. Each module in the beginning has a very discrete task. This helped me move quickly and build my sense of confidence. It also helped me spot patterns and get lots of light bulb moments that just didn’t happen with other programs.
5. In-person connections. It’s great to have the online community, but I love how FreeCodeCamp also encourages people to get together in person. Last month, I coordinated an event at a local co-working space. Thirty people showed up and I was able to mentor people who were just starting. Teaching is one of the best forms of learning.

As I started making my way through the FreeCodeCamp program, my confidence grew. So much so that I decided to get a tattoo of a JavaScript function on my wrist for my birthday this year. Now, when I start to feel like an imposter, I look down at my wrist and realize that I can be anything I want. My life isn’t defined. This confidence boost is usually just what I need to lean into the discomfort of learning something new and focus on solving the problem.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some code to write.

Andrea Goulet is the CEO of Corgibytes, a software development shop dedicated to modernizing codebases. She speaks frequently about the challenges that come with being a woman in the software industry and enjoys hosting FreeCodeCamp events at her local co-working space. She loves watching her kids explore the world and is a sucker for a good physics documentary. You can recognize her by the JavaScript tattoo on her wrist.