Over the past few years, I’ve watched the growth in Imposter Syndrome articles go up. We went from work either all in at offices or in some kind of hybrid model to be completely isolated and for the most part, having to rely on the person sitting at your keyboard with new thumbs (this person).
It’s no surprise that when isolated we didn’t feel as good as we should at what we’ve been doing all this time, whether it’s leading teams or coding.
I’ve hit Imposter Syndrome at every point in my career — junior developer, senior developer, Architect, Manager, Founder, VP — all of them.
Sorry, it doesn’t go away and the goal shouldn’t be for it to go away, but to learn from it and use it to continually improve.
Me As a Senior Developer
My most vivid memory was when I was hired at a startup as a Senior Developer — but I didn’t know it. The job offer said developer, I ranked myself as Intermediate and was good to go. The first few weeks were a whirlwind of activity where I actually started to feel more like a junior than anything else. We were using the latest frameworks and technologies, building high-performant, scalable solutions that not only were fast had a beautiful and slick UI to boot. All in all, it was a fantastic place to work and I was in love with all the learning I was doing.
