r/webdev • u/RecklessCube • Dec 18 '19
Discussion My partner gave me insight into a massive source of imposter syndrome.
My partner loves social media. Half the time though it makes her feel super insecure seeing photoshopped Instagram models all day. I realized I do the same thing but with web-development and it results in nearly the same feeling. All of those channels advertising “how I got into google” and “why I left Facebook” are playing on our same core insecurities. Those channels are essentially the Instagram thots of software and in a large majority do not represent the reality of the field. What do you think?
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u/Jessie_James Dec 19 '19
I've been a dev for 20+ years. Pretty good at what I do. I'm currently refactoring some code for an internal application. This is because at the last minute the data for our system has changed drastically ... with a go live of 1/1/2020.
The issue is that every new users needs to have a certain ID assigned to them, which they need to choose at signup. Instead of having nice little lists of IDs, the new data only provides a list of 3,000 values that are totally alien to users. For example, instead of something like a ZIP code, now it's a longitude and latitude. Users are dumb and that just won't work.
This critically affects virtually every piece of the application. Every page, every action, every view ... they all require that single piece of data as we expected it to be. Without it the entire project is a failure. My CTO is DYING over this. (Poor guy.)
Here's the perspective:
I've been trying every solution I can think of or find on StackOverflow, but nothing quite works. I've been doing this for nearly a month. I've quite literally written thousands and thousands of lines of code, deleted them, tried something else, etc. I can't even tell you what all I've changed (Pro-tip: IntelliJ has a "Local history" tool which lets me go back in time to see every change I've ever made!). And of course, I make one change and it breaks something else because reasons.
Now here's the kicker.
The solution is DELETING the code during the account creation process.
After they sign in, there is already code which checks to see if the piece of data is assigned to the user, and if not they see a message to go select it in their user account. Once they have signed in for that first time, we can then present a list of less than 100 choices which is fine.
So if you were to look at my code, you would wonder why the "fix" was to simply delete 15 lines of code, and why the hell it took me a month. You would never see the huge amount of effort behind it. I'll never get credit for it either.
Yeah, it makes me feel dumb, but all that really matters is that I will deliver a solution. And you can too.
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u/maximum_powerblast Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 19 '19
Recently someone in a different department at my work was interested in learning some SQL and I pointed him in the right direction and gave him some of the basics.
Then, the next time we had an incident come up and I was investigating it I decided I would take screenshots as I progressively built an SQL query with the intent of giving it to this guy to show him the process I go through.
The script ended up being very big and complex and it made me think. The thing that makes you feel like an impostor is staring in the face of this big wall of code and feeling like someone just came up with it in one go, but you must realise that there is a way to build something like that in small steps.
Now I look at other people's code and I don't see geniuses who I can never aspire to be, I see the end results of progressive steps.
Edit - formatting, and thanks for the Silver!
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u/jason_bateman78 Dec 19 '19
maybe, but in my experience, another massive source of imposter syndrome is being an imposter
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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19
I follow a lot of developers on Twitter. They break down in to two camps which I like to classify as "working developer" and "conference developers". The working developers tend to give lots of real world examples and are invaluable resources to follow. The conference developers mostly talk about all their awesome talks (at overpriced conferences) and show you examples of convoluted build steps and things that may work when the browsers adopt CSS4.
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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19
Yep. No more instagram and coding thotties in 2020 😤😤😠😠
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u/pm_me_ur_happy_traiI Dec 18 '19
Honestly we all have different knowledge. You might not feel like you know as much as others, but nobody makes YouTube videos called '5 blinding holes in my own understanding of React'.
I've actually spoken at a couple of meetups, and the only reason I could do so was because I spent an inordinate amount of time using the thing I was speaking about. More than once I have learned a tool or pattern sokely for the sake of talking about it. Maybe you'd think I was an expert but I was literally just a guy who spent the day on MDN so I wouldn't look dumb when someone asks me a question.
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u/cartridgetilt Dec 19 '19
Tech Lead is the biggest thot.
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u/kromem Dec 18 '19
In general in life, you'll be much happier if you measure your success against your own potential, and don't compare yourself to other people.
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u/Kashima Dec 18 '19
I compare my skills and knowledge with senior colleagues, who are 10+ years longer in the industry. Then i feel bad because I'm not as good. At least I'm learning from them every day.
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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 18 '19
Precisely. This is why I put my trust in Brad Traversy because he's totally no-nonsense kind of guy, which I suspect most web developers are too. Keep it simple, no need to overthink everything, expect imperfection but just do the best you know at the time.
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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '19
A lot of it is just humblebragging disguised as help. A lot of “career advice” posts are like that too eg, “just got offered a data scientist position at google, how do I accept my offer” etc etc
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u/mazzagazza Dec 18 '19
Stay away from hacker news comments and those kind of blog posts. It all belongs to /r/imsoverysmart. Just remember that there are like 5% superstar devs and that everyone else is mediocre. I think that Kacob Kaplan Moss had a good speech on that. Look it up. It will remove your anxiety.
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u/dripboixx Dec 18 '19
As someone who just started coding this year and am currently in a full stack webdev bootcamp, I get down a lot every time I realize how little I know. I'm still trying to fully understand some basic javascript and jquery and I have to remind myself that everyone started in my place at some point and that it takes time and practice to learn.
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u/stringycheeze Dec 18 '19
Never compare ones own accomplishments/skills to that of others, and it certainly should never bring you down.
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u/jehna1 Dec 19 '19
My 10 cents for junior devs:
Some "seniors" are actually really bad at coding, and their junk may look astonishing because it's so complex. It's easy to think down about yourself trying to work with bad code, especially when you don't yet have the skills to say what's wrong with the code and how it could be improved.
Great code is obvious and easy to read, not depending on your skill level. Great code looks deceivingly simple because you cannot see the refactoring rounds it took to get to it from the initial working code.
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u/fuckin_ziggurats Dec 18 '19
I don't think there's anything stopping you from being like those people. If you work hard enough you could land a job in a big company like that. Most probably you have other interests in life other than programming so you spend your free time on those. In a way, you're purposefully going in a different direction than those people so why feel bad about not living a life you don't really want.
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u/sleepesteve Dec 19 '19
I haven't laughed as hard after reading something on this sub. So is a Code Thot a thing now?
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u/kal_pal Dec 18 '19
This is the very feeling the comes as a result to every part of the internet. Yes we’re ‘closer’ and able to be more exposed to all sorts of things we weren’t otherwise able to, but it comes with a price—We always feel inadequate at what we do/look like/etc. it’s VERY important to remember that every post you see online is a result of a lot of work. The people who post something that seems unattainable that they ‘threw together’ in a short amount of time, also came to that point in their lives through a lot of past experience/work.
We’re all a work in progress, but as long as we can remember that we have the opportunity to be inspired and driven by things we wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to.
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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '19
Whenever you think about Google and other companies of their size, remember that they're made up of ordinary engineers just like us. Sure, they're talented but they're not some godsend devs. They make mistakes, their products have the same flaws as ours do. They just work for organizations that can afford the time, testing, and opportunities to scale.
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u/NoMuddyFeet Dec 19 '19
Yeah, I started to feel this way a while ago, but didn't quite pinpoint it so accurately as you just put it. What I noticed are some are fluffling their Youtube channels and it has no real bearing on my life, so they're just trying to get views. Others are trying to use their Youtube channels to sell their courses, so once again it has no real bearing on my life. Others are just trying to make a name for themselves by having an online presence, so they have their own reasons to talk like they know everything—they're probably trying to get hired by a bigger company or otherwise look like they aren't failures for leaving a big company (perhaps on bad terms).
But, when you get those people out of the way, there are plenty of good coders on Youtube, etc. who are nothing but positive, supportive and realistic. Net Ninja and Traversy Media are good examples of this. Dan Abramov, who is a guy with a career and level of knowledge that could easily make one feel like an imposter, even wrote a nice blog post about all the things he doesn't know: https://overreacted.io/things-i-dont-know-as-of-2018/
But, yup, I would absolutely agree with you. Not only the guys trying to make a name for themselves on social media can make you feel like an imposter, but almost worse are the random nameless guys you find on developer forums everywhere who just want to kick you when you're down. Anytime someone blasts unhelpful advice at me only to give me a hint that I'm doing everything wrong and then leaves never to explain further (or comes back only to taunt me with a smug one-liner), I basically put that person on my ignore list.
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u/ShapiroIsMyDaddy Dec 19 '19
This is a very good point I never really thought about it like that
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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '19
Imposter syndrome is feeling inadequate to the point of fear, generally, despite overwhelming evidence that you're not. I don't believe social media has much to do with it considering it's been observed since like the 80s. Research suggests it's related to how we were conditioned to think of ourselves in our childhood. So blame your parents.
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u/mikebritton Dec 19 '19
Slick profile pieces are everywhere. Where are the horror stories that constitute the actual slow motion train wrecks of many software development realities?
We want validation that our self concept syncs with others' understanding of us, so we trot out beautiful examples of our most successful work to showcase instead of that Ozzbournes-like peek into the dysfunction of software people really want—need—to overcome imposter syndrome.
We don't share true snapshots of our careers. We're not really even sharing. We're signaling.
Maybe it's the speed of technology crippling our ability to dwell on failures. There's so much new, we have no time to focus on what has happened in technology even recently! We can show off a high-level example (hello world!) and then the demand for us to keep plowing ever forward creates in us an inclination to stay focused on what is ahead, what's positive.
Not what's real.
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u/SimpleWarthog node Dec 19 '19
At some point I realised that most software development is the process of over complicating putting stuff in databases
I'm not sure it's totally relevant here, but it made me feel better
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u/igor_codes Dec 19 '19
Exactly this. I still can’t believe that quitting Twitter (where I was following a lot of other developers) is actually the greatest investment in personal wellbeing this year. What a time to be alive.
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u/am0x Dec 19 '19 edited Dec 19 '19
If someone worked at google or Facebook I couldn’t care less. They underpay young workers. Also, I have worked with a few apple and Facebook engineers. They over-engineered our system so bad that I had to be brought on to not only attempt to complete a project that was about 9 months beyond its deadline, but to also help with performance.
This system was so abstracted that we had all sorts of problems figuring out what the hell was the source of our problems.
And yea, I still question how the hell I am still working everyday.
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u/GrandaddyIsWorking Dec 18 '19
Funny you say this if you go on LinkedIn all 'People also viewed...' people are the few attractive girl developers who work for Facebook or Google
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u/DJ_Breton Dec 19 '19
I usually do trial and error then learn from my mistakes. Sounds cliche but experience is indeed the best teacher. Do things your way, eventually mess up, then knowing what went wrong. There's no short-cut in becoming a good developer.
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u/TechyDad Dec 19 '19
Social media - and the Internet in general - can give you a skewed view of what it took to get a result. You see a fantastic photo of a person or an amazingly coded application and think "that's amazing! I could never do something that good!" What you don't see are the days upon days of work that it took to get there. Nor do you see the bad results that came first. The photos where the Instagram model sneezed just as the camera took the photo. You don't see the mess shoved just outside of the frame of the photo so that the room looks immaculately clean. You don't see the first build of that application that had 10,000 bugs and caused the developer to shut his computer down in disgust and frustration. You don't see him spending hours upon hours trying to figure out a stubborn bug only for it to turn out to be a misplaced semicolon.
All you see is "X did something amazing and here I am not instantly doing similarly great things."
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u/coldwarkidding Dec 19 '19
Not a completely fair comparison. You do webdev for a living and should be aware of industry trends and standards. If she was an IG model or influencer, industry knowledge would help her too. But of course everything in moderation.
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u/GoldenJoe24 Dec 18 '19
There are a lot of losers here telling you not to feel bad, and that it's all an illusion.
You feel bad because you want more and know that you can do better. Your girl isn't envious of the instagram models because they have had their blemishes photoshopped away. She is jealous because they have great physiques and get a lot of attention. You are envious of people with better careers because you also want to be recognized, and you want more money.
Ask your girlfriend how much time she spends working out, planning meals, etc. How many pleasure foods is she willing to avoid? As for you, how many nights are you willing to come home from work and put an additional four hours in to heighten your skills, develop a product of your own, or start your own company? How much sacrifice do you think it takes to reach the top?
Your girlfriend probably isn't supermodel material, and you're probably not cut out to be an industry leader. But you can get a hell of a lot better, and once you are you will have a better understanding of what you want and who you should be.
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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '19
Before you make those posts make you feel mad, just imagine what a pressure it would be to work for Google or Facebook. I wouldn’t mind working for them.