Impostor Syndrome

I started my first job as a web developer recently, and I feel compelled to share the lessons I’ve learned throughout my glorious week-long career.

Big Kid’s Table

I finally made it. I’m seated at the big kid’s table. I’m one of them. I worked hard and it paid off. Now for the hard part: trick everyone into believing that I actually belong here.

Beginner’s Mind

Let’s face it. I don’t know anything. I shouldn’t feel bad, but I do. I could go on and on about all the things I don’t know, but instead I’ll provide you with this handy reference for things I’ve learned that I should and shouldn’t pretend to know when starting a brand new career in web development.

1. Don’t pretend you like a language that you don’t.
2. Pretend you understand how git works. (everyone else does)
3. Don’t pretend you know how to use vim.
4. Pretend you believe that the person sitting next to you knows how to use vim.
5. Don’t pretend you’d be capable of anything without stackoverflow.
6. Pretend you know how to turn on the light in the bathroom.
7. Pretend you don’t know who people heard crying in the bathroom earlier.
8. Don’t pretend you know the guy that wrote [name of obscure framework goes here].
9. Pretend that FP is better than OOP.
10. Pretend that OOP is better than FP.
11. Don’t pretend you’ll survive without your mechanical keyboard.
12. Pretend there was never a time you forgot to wear pants.
13. Don’t pretend the terrible code you wrote isn’t terrible.
14. Don’t pretend the terrible test you wrote effectively tests the terrible code you wrote.
15. Pretend your code will start working if you just close your eyes and wish really hard. (I mean - really, really hard)

Overcoming Impostor Syndrome

Good luck with that.

Learning to Live with Impostor Syndrome

There may never be a time throughout the rest of my career that I will stop feeling like an impostor. With that in mind, I have outlined a few things I like to keep in mind as I continue to fail upwards.

1. I’m the only impostor at my office. Everyone knows it. For some reason people don’t seem to mind.
2. I can’t speak intelligently about any subject, but my co-workers pretend to value my input.
3. I exclusively write terrible code, but my co-workers seem more interested in building on top of it rather than blaming me for breaking things.
4. I can’t stop my co-workers from pretending that there could be anything I have more experience in than they do.
5. I can’t stop my boss from feeling like I’ll be useful one day.
6. I can’t stop myself from feeling like an impostor.

By Ben Allred

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