I gave this reply to another thread:
I used to be terrified to going to meetups, because I felt like a real developer when I had Google/Stack Overflow/docs etc. But in the nakedness of "standing around and talking", I felt like the fakest developer on the planet.
It helped to try and look back to a past self where I knew even less and realize how much more I knew now compared to then.
And eventually, weirdly, I stopped feeling this way altogether. Now I'm just a plain old real developer...like I always was.
I thought it might help others dealing with impostor syndrome.
Happy coding!
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This felt really great to read, thanks for putting this out there! I know there are devs that donβt use Google as much as others, but there isnβt a single dev I know that doesnβt use Google at least sometimes.
Iβm definitely thinking about going to a meetup now. Thanks for posting this!
I started this It industry with html . I thought those IT guys actually byhearted everything and working. So for the interview i byhearted most of the html tags. I am full stack dev now. Till date those are the only tags i can write without internet.
This may sound elementary but hear me out. The word developer means (as a noun) one who develops. Develop means, among other things, to start or to improve. If you start to build or improve on your own or someone else's social skills or a social project one might say you work in social development. If you were to write software (or even take other written code and combine it) I would say it's appropriate to call yourself a software developer.
What most people are asking when they ask "am I a developer?" Is really "would a large enough body of people who know or become aware of my work, work being the tasks you perform for money or not, and the details of my work consider me a developer or at the least approve of my use of the word developer when describing myself?" The answer to that question is always "who cares". If you are focusing on getting a job than I would say you should care but only in so far as it lands you the job.
Be honest about where you are at however or the job won't be a good fit (good advice for any profession) but you should rise above the need of others approval of what you call yourself and call yourself a pink elephant if you want.
I'm considered a developer in the classical sense however I find it to be a reductionist point of view because as I see it writing code is the least amount of work I do, designing or finding solutions being the most. When you are looking for developer work what businesses are really looking for are people who can think critically and solve problems not an expert code writer.
Thanks for sharing this! You definitely hit the nail on the head for me. It's warming to know there are others out there who feel the same way :-)
Itβs all true!
:) I'll always consider myself a junior developer especially now that I'm in leadership roles. Though...it's been tough dealing with the imposter syndrome when I go to interviews and I'm rejected because I don't know time complexity or when I ask, "How is this relevant if I'm not expected to code and I'll have senior engineers whose responsibility it is to ensure the team knows how to write performant code?"
It's tough but like anything else, I'll refresh myself over the next few months and land with a company where I can make the most positive impact as a servant leader :).
Keep sharing and spreading the good energy, buddy.
Y'all fake it till you make it. Literally. Build. Things. Period. It doesn't matter whether you sell out an MVP for a bazillion dollars to Google or leave your code in your basement for only your cat and dog to see.
Be brave. And if you feel as stupid as me sometimes, which you do of course: If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.
I feel like I don't know anything. I'm trying to learn everything. It's killing me! I'm stuck in everything learning and building.
Iβve posted this before: a simple little CRUD app I made to help with impostor syndrome: impostorroster.com/
enjoy!
I develop multimillion dollar nodejs apps for living... And finding myself Googling how to setup Express using typescript - every project
Why bother with stuff you could easily pick up in the docs. What matters much more in the end is to have sufficient understanding of the bigger picture, architecture of your product and all the interdependent moving parts.
I'm into an on and off relationship with web and backend dev for 15h years now and still feel like I don't know shit at times. Until.. I get things done and thoughts finally materialize into something remotely tangible. :)