My Imposter Syndrome That I faced As a Developer

This is a heart-to-heart conversation with you about imposter syndrome - exposing all of my insecurities as a developer!

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Transcript

Don Hansen: 0:13

Today I'm going to share with you all of my flaws, all of my insecurities that I had when I was a professional developer, some of which I still have to this day. I want to get deep with this. There are a lot of people with anxiety, there are a lot of people with just racing thoughts, and a lot of them revolve around your confidence of becoming a developer, being hired, professionally, working with other people I have. Working as a developer has propped up so many insecurities, some of which I didn't even know I had, and I think that's a really interesting thing that becoming a software engineer allows you to do. It, allows you to discover this stuff. But I think, and I hope this is going to make you feel better when you hear the long list that I've had and I've had to work through. So, oh boy, let's start with my first job. I remember first week I was hired. My boss was remote. I never got to meet him until maybe six months into my employment, and so I never really knew what he thought of me, because I feel like I can sense that when I'm across the table with someone a lot better than even just a video chat. So first week I was given a long list of tasks to do to set up my environment. It was very long, very long, very command line intensive, something I wasn't comfortable with when I first started and I felt like I hit every single bug that you could possibly hit in setting that up and every time I was dreading reaching out to my boss. Or do I reach out to my boss for the fourth time? Do I just ping a senior developer so my boss doesn't know that I'm having this much trouble and he's probably just going to fire me because, like this is the first time, do I just ping a senior developer so my boss doesn't know that I'm having this much trouble and he's probably just going to fire me because this is the first task that I have and I can't even do this. This is poof, okay. So trying to figure that out I'm just going to disable my alerts right now because I'm recording, okay. So trying to figure that out was a nightmare for my first week and I thought I was going to be fired the whole week and I was constantly reminded and reassured that this is okay. And then I found out I was being, or I was, used as a guinea pig for a new process and even when I was told that I'm still like I still should know this. This is crazy. I'm a professional developer. Now they are paying me a lot more money than I've ever earned. I should know this stuff.

Don Hansen: 2:40

It took me a while for that feeling to go away a very long while, and that essentially, was a repeating pattern of me diving into discovering a bug of me uh, or not discovering a bug me tackling my first bug and trying to trace through the logic of the bug. And if it, you know, I'd go through multiple pages just to even understand this tiny little feature. I would constantly question am I taking too long in this? Who is watching me? Is the project manager watching me? Are other developers on the team watching me? Because I got to be judging me Brand new developer on the team, right, and you know, developers have a high. There's a high expectation for developers, especially in a tech-focused company. You are essentially what I would say like part of what drives that business, but you are a very crucial part and, man, I just kept thinking I don't think I deserve to get paid this much. This is crazy. They are going to fire me at some point. And then I was given a feature and then I was given more features and more complex features and I felt like and I really want this to, I really want you to understand this.

Don Hansen: 4:03

Actually, before I move on from this, a lesson that I learned that took me too long to learn was that when a company hires you and you did not lie on your resume you were honest. Holy shit, do they not want to lose you? I felt like I was so incredibly replaceable from the beginning that anyone could do this and that like they could probably replace me within like a week if they wanted to. They had a long list, a pipeline of people that just wanted my position. Holy shit, does it take so much time and resources to hire developers? I don't envy hiring managers in the tech scene. I really don't. They got to sift through a lot of resumes, a lot of applications, a lot of just interest in DMs just interest and DMs and it just becomes spam at a certain point.

Don Hansen: 5:06

I was way, way more valuable than I thought. I was right from the beginning, no matter how long it took me to figure out parts of the code base, no matter how long it took me to figure out the right questions to ask my team in different departments and working, then working with design as I started taking a little bit more ownership of features. But every new person I met I felt like my manager or people higher up were going to ping that person and ask what was their experience like. For some reason, I felt like every new encounter meeting someone in the company was an opportunity for me to make a bad impression. And, holy shit, are people more generous and forgiving than at least I envisioned them to be? And the people I worked with were incredibly kind and patient. And in most tech teams that want to hire good developers, that culture that friendly, positive, constructive culture where everyone wants you to grow like that needs to be there or you lose good developers. I didn't realize that and I looked at every new task, every new challenge as an opportunity for me to show why I wasn't good enough. This took a long time.

Don Hansen: 6:43

I don't know when the shift happened in my confidence I think it was sometime in my second company but this took a long time for me to finally realize how valuable I was as a software engineer. Realize how valuable I was as a software engineer. I feel like, if I don't know, if you guys are worried about this. I don't know if you guys are worried about even are you hireable if you can build full fledged applications? I like I don't know where this anxiety starts in some people, but I think a lot of people face this at different points in their learning journey and even very long into their development career. Wherever it starts. For you, the only solution literally is just time. So if you feel like you are still encountering feelings of imposter syndrome, it's just time. And producing results and getting that feedback and repeating that over and over and over and over, and then you feel slightly better and better and better and better and better.

Don Hansen: 7:56

I was blown away after my first company by how little I knew going into my second company. My first company felt like a cakewalk compared to my second company. I went from having about a year of experience thinking, oh, I'm getting out of this junior level developer position, I'm getting more comfortable, and I got tossed a different stack even in my first position and figured out most of it before I left and, man, I felt pretty good, like I was making progress. And then I got humbled so much the JavaScript developers or just the developers in general, because we didn't necessarily have all JavaScript on the backend. If I remember correctly, just the developers in general were just brilliant and the JavaScript developers in general knew way more about JavaScript than I thought you could know. And that's when I got introduced to the book you Don't Know JS or that whole series, and they highly encouraged me to read it, which was one of the best reads at that time in my career that I've ever read and it deepened my knowledge of JavaScript. It deepened my knowledge of the flaws of JavaScript and, more importantly, I was incredibly overwhelmed.

Don Hansen: 9:23

Not overwhelmed, I was very insecure about my knowledge with CSS. I don't know how these developers remembered every damn property and could pinpoint every solution right away that I had been working on for two hours. Every time they would show me the solution, I'd be like how the fuck did you do that so quickly? Like that's what I would think of my head. I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's I get that, like I would. I'd be so insecure because the knowledge gap was so different and they didn't think about this. This is all in my head. I thought about the knowledge gap. I thought about trying to be that awesome engineer, just like they were.

Don Hansen: 10:14

All they wanted me to be was humble and cool to work with. Like that's it right If I'm humble enough to learn and drop my ego and pick up what they're doing? Like the only thing holding me back with my growth up until this point was my ego. That is it. I put that aside and I grow and the team loves me Love is a strong word. They tolerate me but they want me on the team and they enjoy working with me.

Don Hansen: 10:39

It was just ego and I had a battle with ego. There were plenty of times where I, just like you know, sometimes I'd get code reviews that were a bit more candid, which the code reviews I got at the first company were very kind, not as candid, and I felt like I grew a lot more from the code reviews at my second company. But I had to overcome just being told like no, this is just wrong. Here's why this is a better way of doing it rather than being given a softball, like when I look back at my code reviews with my second company. That kind of is a softball. They were very helpful, very constructive, but the comparison between the first company and second company, I'm like holy shit, like they are blunt. This is good, but man, I gotta. I gotta just like take this in stride and put my emotions aside and just like grow from this. Um, you're like. I got different forms of feedback that did check my ego and to this day I still have a bit of an ego with coding. I still can take it personally.

Don Hansen: 11:47

And one thing I've had to learn is I have to look at intention when you're communicating with other developers. They're just going to be dicks and they're going to just be people that want to get straight to the point and help you grow as fast as possible, and you have to know how to differentiate between the two and I think I've gotten pretty good at that. But for a long time it was just a reminder of man, incredible skill gap, incredible skill gap, month after month after month. And this is crazy. And I realized and I started questioning like, do I even have the memory to do this? Maybe it's my memory? And I realized and I started questioning like, do I even have the memory to do this? Maybe it's my memory. And one thing that I learned is they just remember all this stuff because of years of experience in doing it. It just got reinforced and even if they forgot it. They pick it up that much quicker.

Don Hansen: 12:33

And I felt like for some reason, I had to remember everything, every piece of syntax. I had to remember like I needed to come to these solutions quickly, because I should be able to remember all the tools that I had in my arsenal to be able to solve that problem. And every time I Googled something, every time I looked something up. That was a weakness. It wasn't, but it took me a long time to realize that. And then I put more time into it and I gained more confidence.

Don Hansen: 13:11

And then I and this was in the first company too, but I would interact with different departments and then sometimes you get a bit of like is this my fault, is it not? I don't believe in ownership of faults when it's not your fault. I think that's dishonest and I don't want to be dishonest. I want people. That is holding true to my values. But the other part is forcing myself, before I ever spoke up, to be a little bit more critical if I could have done something better before I spoke up. Now I'm giving like I'm saying how I fixed this problem of, you know, taking ownership when I need to take ownership.

Don Hansen: 14:06

But you know, those first two years I didn't take ownership when I should have taken ownership in some situations and I was quick to blame in some situations. There are some situations where, like the other person was so, they were so humble and it got me to be humble and it was. That was easy. That's the easy conversation when something goes wrong between departments and then you get people that are not as quick to take ownership, that are quick to blame, and when they do that, then I get a little bit like my ego pops up and no, no, it's your fault. You told me this, right. I had many instances of that that I had to work through and it got better. It only got better when I got to know the other person.

Don Hansen: 14:56

I feel like this is such an important part of growing on a team. It's just building trust with the people that you're working with. It's such a natural way for that ego to drop. It's such a natural way when you know and you can trust they have good intentions for you. But I didn't know that at the time and it took me probably until the end maybe not the end, but it took me a while to really start getting my ego in check and not blaming other departments right away. Sometimes it was their fault, sometimes it wasn't, but the wording like, even if I shift my perspective, the wording could be better. Like, even if I shift my perspective, the wording could be are going to look at me as a bad developer, a developer they can't work with.

Don Hansen: 16:04

I don't know why I had this mindset and, holy shit, was it freeing the more I admitted. Fuck, I forgot. I'm sorry. Okay, you're right, you did tell me this. I think I should have asked this follow up question, this clarifying question. That's probably my fault. I could have done better there, and it's so often when you do that, if you've done this working in positions, you can, when your ego drops, the other person's ego drops. It's easy for me to say this. What I'm saying is true. It's much harder for me to implement. This Ego is just one of those things that you're going to battle for a while if you have it. Some people have conquered it sooner in life than I did, and these kind of things are still things I have to check myself on. Sometimes. These things aren't things I've solved necessarily. I continue to work on them, but I'm at a much better place. I continue to work on them, but I'm at a much better place.

Don Hansen: 17:02

It took me so long to finally find my value in a company and that wasn't until my third company and then my third company. I remember having to deal with neurological problems that were like my body literally would like twitch and jerk in like I. It was weird and it took me a very long time to figure out. I was taking a pre-workout that was causing that I had an electrolyte imbalance. It took me a long time to figure that out and all I could think about was my health. And when I did that, when I kind of had that that personal thing that came up that just mentally sucked my energy out of me, I couldn't make a lot of progress with my code. I had trouble balancing my personal life. I had trouble shutting that off and focusing on my mind and getting in that flow state and I had trouble shifting my thoughts. My thoughts controlled me. And my third position is when I truly realized how little control I have over the emotions that are attached to my thoughts, and meditation really helped with this.

Don Hansen: 18:23

But I didn't discover that until later, and so then I started like the first two positions were fairly easy because I didn't have major life circumstances come up that would cause me to go into work and just not want to be there day in and day out. It caused me to go into work and just not want to be there day in and day out. And then my insecurities crept in because I wasn't making progress. And I wanted to make that progress. I wanted to do well, I wanted to contribute to the team and I think those are very natural, yeah, but it just I had a hard time balancing that and I feel like it took me a while to realize and I looked at my all my old managers it took me a while to realize that I I was too much of a people pleaser. I felt like I wasn't really focusing on myself enough. I wasn't focusing on a good work life balance. I wasn't focusing on my health. I wasn't focusing on my fitness. The team didn't cause me to do that. I did that right.

Don Hansen: 19:32

When things got rough with both work and both my personal health, I realized the fix was focusing more on solving a lot of the issues that I had in my personal life, because I carried over into work way more than I realized I did. I thought I had that under control and I didn't. So that's when I started to prioritize mental health. That's when I started to prioritize fitness a little bit more. But that balance of my personal life and my work life always caused me to question am I doing a good enough job? Anytime I would slow down. Anytime I wouldn't hit deadlines down anytime I wouldn't hit deadlines. And I realized, like the second, I stopped trying to please my manager and the team and sometimes I just had to take a week off and shift that focus on my mental health. The second, I stopped trying to please everyone and start balancing my life. Then my work got better.

Don Hansen: 20:38

Um, now I do think, like, like it took a while to deal with the health issue and I think my work could have been much, much, much better. But it did get better over time when I took care of my personal health. But I realized that I'm always trying to please other people and I think that is the root to so many of my insecurities and I've gotten much better with that. But I cared about what people thought I did for way too long and it held me back as a developer, winded, um, talk about, like, my, my health and my, my mental health. But it wasn't until I started focusing on my mental health and my fitness and my diet, until I started doing better as a developer things. I was able to process things more clearly, my memory was better. I was I. I I had a better perspective. Every single interaction that I had was the result was better. They liked working with me more. Now I don't think this was kind of a gradual fix and I went from worse to better. I think there were waves of it and I would have to.

Don Hansen: 22:07

And I think, like kind of as we go through life, you're probably going to notice that a lot of your moods, a lot of your drive it can be seasonal I don't know if you've ever noticed that, but sometimes it isn't because of external circumstances. There's probably a bit more involved with it, but sometimes you're going to have big dips in motivation, excitement and energy. Sometimes they're going to have lulls, sometimes you're going to be a little bit depressed, sometimes they're going to feel a little anxiety, right, and I think you have to look back or at least I had to look back and realize this is happening again. It's because I'm not taking care of this, it's because I'm not taking care of this and I really think and I want you to hear this I really think most insecurity, most imposter syndrome comes from an imbalanced life. It comes from not taking care of your home, not taking care of your responsibilities, not taking care of your, your health and your mental health. These things have affected my ability to code more than anything else. These things have affected my confidence. These things have affected my outlook in life, just my happiness, my fulfillment, my confidence that I'm actually going about that I want to achieve in one year and three years and five years. Everything gets better, significantly better, when you take care of your personal stuff.

Don Hansen: 23:49

A lot of people say imposter syndrome is normal. As a developer, it's normal and it shouldn't be, and I think that's the wrong way to look at it, to call it normal. It's extremely common. But the root of imposter syndrome comes from your personal shit. It comes from your childhood. It's not a developer thing. I promise you, imposter syndrome is a signal that you have things to work on outside the dev world, significantly more than just growing as a developer, because everyone is trying to grow as a developer more and more and more and more, and all you hear is that imposter syndrome is just normal. I have it to this day. Sometimes I think people are being a little bit humble to try to cushion it for junior developers, but there are a lot of people that actually still have imposter syndrome and it's because it shouldn't be normal, because they should have been a little bit more critical of where it stemmed from. And I'm telling you this because a lot of people have imposter syndrome and I think you can really ease that.

Don Hansen: 25:05

Feel more confident about your trajectory as a developer. Feel more confident that you can be a developer, that you're hireable, that you're valuable, that you don't have to let your manager define how good of a software engineer you are, that you don't have to let anyone else define who you are or the value that you bring to every interaction that you have. It comes from inside, it's internal, and I started getting more confident with that as I dealt with my personal shit. That as I dealt with my personal shit. So I can't give you a template or a guideline to be able to make you feel better about all of your anxiety and insecurities you have about becoming a developer, because it's unique to you and maybe you don't want to hear that, but it is. It takes work. It takes a lot of work. But time and reflection you combine those. Time and reflection you combine those.

Don Hansen: 26:00

You're going to make phenomenal success in your career. You're going to feel good about the direction you're going and you're going to realize you are going to never be perfect. You are always going to have flaws. Some of these flaws will never leave you. They're just going to get better, and that's okay. It's literally just about forward progress and momentum. But that's not going to get better, and that's that's okay. It's literally just about forward progress and momentum. But that's not going to happen. You are not going to solve that by getting better at code. You are going to solve that by dealing with your personal shit.