This is a submission for the 2026 WeCoded Challenge: Echoes of Experience
Tech loves to call itself meritocratic.
We like to believe the best ide...
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You're right — and it doesn't stop at the beginner stage. The same mechanism follows people throughout their careers. The judgment just gets repackaged: "not a culture fit", "too opinionated", "hard to manage." Different words, same toxicity.
What you describe isn't a phase of learning. It's a structural bias that some people never fully escape, no matter how much experience they accumulate.
well put, Pascal 💯
that is a really important point.
Sometimes the language just changes as people move forward in their careers, but the underlying dynamic stays the same. What starts as being judged for "not knowing enough yet" can later turn into labels like the ones you mention.
And once those labels appear, they can be hard to shake, even when the person's work is solid.
I’m curious, have you seen that happen around you in teams or organizations you’ve been part of?
Yes, I've seen it — and I've probably done it myself at some point, out of frustration or impatience. I think the impulse to label is very human. The damage stays manageable as long as it stays private and occasional.
The real problem starts when it becomes a shared belief. When the label circulates, gets validated by the group, and turns into consensus. At that point it stops being a judgment and becomes a fact — and facts are much harder to challenge.
That's when the structural bias you describe really locks in.
that’s a really good way to put it.
The moment a label turns into shared consensus, it becomes much harder for the person to escape it, no matter how their work evolves.
And like you said, the scary part is how quietly that shift can happen.
I wonder how often teams even realize they’re doing it.
Rarely, in my experience. And that's the most insidious part — it doesn't feel like bias when you're inside it. It feels like collective common sense. "We all know that Bob is difficult." Nobody remembers where that started.
Which is why it's so hard to fight. You're not arguing against a decision. You're arguing against an atmosphere.
And what we tend to forget — or refuse to see — is that Bob might be us. Or our partner. Or our kid trying to break into the industry.
The bias feels abstract until it's personal. And by then, it's usually too late to pretend it's not structural.
Well said ... can't escape bringing up the whole "AI makes the juniors disappear" discussion which might make matters even worse for people aspiring to join the field?
Yeah, definitely. I think AI risks making this even worse.
If companies expect people to show up already productive, already polished, and already "AI-accelerated," then the space to be new gets even smaller.
That is what worries me most. Not just fewer junior roles, but less patience for being early in the process.
Spot on - you can almost see it as a form of gatekeeping, especially since schools/colleges and bootcamps (formal education) aren't yet preparing people for these new realities (at least not that I know of) - so, people are supposed to scramble learning this stuff in their own private time, while also paying for costs of AI tools/tokens - raising barriers to entry in a way not directly related to innate talent ...
That is a big part of it.
The expectation shifts quietly and suddenly "entry level" means you should already know how to use a whole stack of new tools, pay for them yourself, and somehow keep up outside formal education too.
At that point it stops being just about talent or effort. It starts becoming about who can afford the extra time, money, and access.
Yes, the gap between the haves and the have-nots widening while we aren't looking, it happens all too easily ...
That is what makes it so worrying.
It is not always loud or obvious. Sometimes the bar just keeps moving upward in small ways, and suddenly the people with less time, less money, or less access are pushed further out without anyone saying it directly.
Have you noticed that shift more in hiring, or in how people are expected to learn on their own now?
This is such a profound observation. We often talk about 'lowering the barrier to entry,' but we rarely talk about lowering the cost of making a mistake. The psychological safety to be 'unfinished' is a privilege that isn't distributed equally, and you've articulated that tension beautifully. True equity isn't just about getting people into the room; it’s about ensuring they don’t have to be perfect just to prove they belong there. Thank you for sharing this
That’s a really powerful way to put it, lowering the cost of making a mistake.
I think a lot of people in tech genuinely want to lower barriers, but we often forget that the environment still expects beginners to perform like they’re already experienced.
Psychological safety is a huge part of learning, and without it, “just try things and break stuff” stops being good advice.
Really appreciate you sharing that perspective.
It is a necessary introspection. There are different aspects to measure success . 1) Me and Myself - am I happy at what I am doing - from solving a business problems, enhancing my horizon of knowledge technical, functional, in the domain I work for. It would take care of your job, career, earning to some extent, if not as best as another impressive colleague or class-mate.
That’s a thoughtful perspective. I really like how you frame success around the impact you have on the people who actually use what you build.
Thirty-five years hands-on in tech and still staying curious about new tools is impressive. I also agree with your last point, tech culture highlights a few exceptional stories, but there are thousands of engineers quietly doing meaningful work for decades.
Those careers matter just as much. Thanks for sharing your experience.
This is the part people miss: the safety to be unfinished isn't personality, it's audience. The same person who learns fast with a patient reviewer freezes when the reviewer is evaluating them. I've watched brilliant Nigerian developers go quiet in global open source because the cost of one wrong question felt higher than the value of a right answer.
That’s a really powerful way to put it. “The safety to be unfinished isn’t personality, it’s audience.”
I’ve seen the same thing happen, the environment often decides whether someone experiments or goes silent. When the cost of asking a “wrong” question feels too high, even very capable developers hold back.
Thanks for sharing that perspective.
Thought-provoking post.
At the same time, I sometimes wonder whether tech is actually one of the few industries where beginners can still learn in public. Open source, forums, GitHub, Stack Overflow, DEV — people can literally publish unfinished work and get feedback from strangers around the world. That’s quite unusual compared to many other fields.
The real challenge might not only be access or acceptance, but also how we personally deal with the discomfort of being a beginner. Every developer I know — regardless of background — has gone through the phase of feeling incompetent and exposed.
Learning in public is uncomfortable by definition. But it’s also one of the fastest ways to grow.
That’s a fair point. I agree tech probably gives people more ways to learn in public than a lot of other fields do.
I think the hard part is that the opportunity can be the same, but the experience of using it doesn’t always feel the same. For some people, a mistake feels like part of learning. For others, it feels like it says something bigger about whether they belong.
Where I agree with you fully is that discomfort is part of being a beginner for almost everyone. The difficult part is knowing when it’s just beginner discomfort, and when something else is layered on top of it.
Powerful perspective. Tech often talks about meritocracy, but the reality is that not everyone gets the same space to learn publicly or make mistakes while growing. Creating supportive environments where beginners feel safe to ask questions and experiment is essential for a healthier tech community. 👏
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
That’s exactly the tension I was trying to get at. Tech talks a lot about openness, but feeling safe enough to learn out loud is a different thing.
I agree with you, a healthier community starts with making room for people to ask, try, and be wrong without feeling punished for it.
I mostly agree with the beginner phase. But to me it was the exciting and challenging. I broke into tech luckily when I was young around the time of the commodore 64. I was learning on my own most of the time but it push me trough the rough times. From there it is here we are today so I would concentrate more on the future get a niche and stick with it.
That makes sense too. I think for a lot of people the beginner phase is both exciting and rough at the same time.
And you’re right that having a niche can help a lot. Sometimes it gives people something solid to hold onto while everything else still feels uncertain.
I like your point about focusing on the future too. Did you always know your niche early on, or did that take a while to find?
Spot on. I’ve been trying to bridge the gap in my own writing between academic theory and casual learning, and it’s a tough balance. Not everyone has the background to hit the ground running, and pretending otherwise just creates a higher barrier to entry for people who aren't traditional cs students. This was a really refreshing perspective.
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
And yeah, that gap is such a hard one to navigate. If something is too academic, people feel shut out. If it is too simplified, people feel talked down to. Getting that balance right is a real skill.
I also agree with your point about non-traditional backgrounds. A lot of the barrier is not ability, it is the assumption that everyone started from the same place.
you are right , thank you.
Thanks for reading :)
Interesting perspective! thanks for sharing.
Thank you Varun! And thanks for reading!
This is an interesting observation. When you say some people are not “allowed to be beginners in public”, who do you feel this applies to the most in tech? Gender, juniors, people from non-traditional backgrounds, or something else?
I think it can hit several groups at once, honestly.
Women in tech, juniors, people from non-traditional backgrounds, career switchers, and anyone who already feels a bit "outside" the default image of who a developer is.
The common thread is that some people get treated like they are still becoming, while others get treated like they need to prove they belong before they are given the same patience.
Well said! I love your articles. It is so true
Thank you Benjamin! It means alot!
welcome!
thanks NorthernDev...yeah it's a thing i've noticed as well.. thanks for the great article 💯
Thanks Aaron! And thanks for reading!