I’m an Impostor

Discussion

1. Todd Gardner

   Bravo, thank you. I share your fears, but its lessened that we all have them.
2. Eric Wendelin

   Very interesting read.

   I think the biggest contributors to imposter syndrome are:

   * As we gain experience and knowledge, we become more aware of our faults and…
   * We tend to have the opportunity to work with engineers that may be superior in some way (and we don’t have their skills)

   The best therapy I’ve found is to recognize that everyone provides value in their own way. You and me and others may or may not contribute the best code, but perhaps one can communicate an idea better than most or recognize a certain pattern.

   TL;DR – Don’t ever sweat what people think about your skill set. Ignore them and work hard and you will crush it regardless.
• mal

  Also, the more you learn, the more you realise how vast the field of programming is, it can scary stuff.
3. Alex

   Great article and believe me after working for over 20 years in the business I still feel the same. In such a fast moving sector we are constantly trying to keep up but if you suppress your ego you will always find a helping hand, a sort of Programmer’s Creed-Brotherhood.

   But as the great quote by JK Rowling says

   “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

   So you are successful just by trying and like Eric says we are our own harshest critics.Maybe developers are like George Lucas we keep tinkering with our work!!!
4. Max Sysoev

   Do you remember Socrato’s quote? There it is: “I know that I know nothing”.

   It’s absolutely normal for smart people to be uncertain.

   I want to say that our lack of confidence is normal! Everytime you learn something new, you should make sure that new thing is right. It’s just a simple test, like TDD in real life. Simple way to test something is to look on another angle – objective and unbiased. So you can’t dispute that new thing.

   Test your knowledge and possibilities, so you can be sure and right.
5. Mark McDonnell

   Great write up. I’ve been in the industry for ~16yrs and had a similar career route of working through the agency life, not passing interviews, and finally reaching a big organisation (swap Mozilla for BBC).

   Imposter Syndrome has plagued me my entire career (and likely always will).

   The best thing for me personally is remembering that life isn’t about work. Yes that’s where we spend the majority of our time. But getting home to my family becomes more of a priority and focus once you get into your thirties. This also helps me to filter out the sheer tech noise and to find real programming gems that I know are worth learning more about.

   Don’t get caught up trying to keep up with others and how they like to work. We’re individuals and you’ll end up just getting burnt out.

   Again, great work David. Have another sip from your glass and go enjoy the pleasure of being a family man and play with your son :-)
6. Yehuda

   I read your blog for some time now, but it is the first time I felt the need to say thanks, you gave me order in what I think about the profession I am in and my place in it.
   Thanks!
7. Michael Tempest

   Couldn’t agree more with this post.
8. David

   This is one of the best, most honest things I have read for a long time! I must admit that even though self-doubt can be realy hard sometimes, there is not much that keeps me motivated to push things forward like it.
9. Etienne

   Hello David,

   as a self learner surrounded by seasoned top-notch hackers, you have no idea how reassuring it is to read such a post ! Especially coming from someone I consider to be one of the best teacher around (‘blogger’ doesn’t mean anything) around.

   I think this industry is inherently inhuman… everything go exponentially faster and faster, and trends come and go faster than anywhere else.

   Small wonder why so many developers end up as cooks, carpenters, or any other type of craftsmen. Just to use your brain and hands at something that hasn’t changed for decades and is very likely to remain the same for a good while.

   Anyway, you’ve helped me to take all this a little bit more lightly,

   thanks a lot for that,

   E.
• SekhmetDesign

  You have a good point here, of programmers/developers who develop manual skills/hobbies outside of the Web/IT field: it sometimes is soothing for the mind, and less stressful. I enjoy doing more and more manual chores around my house (like big renovations, gardening, cooking, etc), and I do have a couple of friends programmers who, after a couple of years, left the IT world for more ‘traditional’ and manual work too.

  I think you make a nice point with your comment. Thanks!
• Giancarlo

  I totally agree. I struggle with this syndrome too, and ironically my favourite thing to do does not include a computer! I love playing soccer more than anything. I feel like I don’t want to be in this industry but I also love being a part of creating things.
10. Andy Earnshaw

    You’ve summed up pretty much how I felt for the past few years until I got my current job. I failed to get a job at Yahoo UK after some of the YUI team referred me, but I think that might be because I felt like an “imposter” all the way through the interview and didn’t really sell myself well. A few months later, I got my job here at a large adserving company and I’ve felt my confidence growing more and more each day just with each new idea or piece of code I contribute.

    Reading your post made me feel even better about myself, so thanks for that. It’s probably the most useful I’ve ever found your blog ;-).
11. Jon

    Great post! I have been developing 3 years and I hope one day I can be as good imposter as you ;)
12. Benjamin Lupton

    Thanks for writing this. For what it’s worth, I’ve followed your career for a very long time. I started web programming in 2005, and new of you around then too.

    You’ve always been a fantastic blogger. And from what I’ve found, the best bloggers are not the best programmers, and that is the point. It is the programmers that struggle, that are able to blog about the things they learn, as they recognise their learnings and failures and recognise that other people may be going through the same thing.

    As a comparison, I’m the opposite. Programming comes intuitively to me, I understand things incredibly quickly, and that is also my biggest shortcoming, I never realise when I actually learn something, or that something I’ve solved is actually an issue for other people, I just don’t recognise my learnings or solutions for what they are – until enough people outright tell me. Hence History.js, DocPad, etc – they only came to be, when I realised that other people had problems with something I had already solved – if it weren’t for other people telling me, I never would have realised that.

    However, this hasn’t led to imposter syndrome, but superhero syndrome I guess – a need to always do way better, way better than a superhero status, that I can never actually pull off. If other developers can do this in a month, I should be able to do it in a week. For the most part of my career, that has been possible. Last year though, I hit my limits, hard, and burn out, incredibly thoroughly.

    My point is, that there is value in the shortcomings, especially when you are aware of them. Through the burnout, I’m rebuilding my life, in ways that a lot of your own suggestions here touch on too. I’ve gathered a lot of interesting lessons, that have made me a better person. And it seems the same for you. I’m glad that our industry is so radical in opening up about these things now.

    If you ever do want to talk, perhaps exchange different perspectives, I would be down for that.

    All the best, – Ben
13. Brian Compton

    Thank you, David. Sharing your feelings helps many of us understand our own struggles. I’ve always felt like an imposter though others look up to me. I get the crippling fear of being revealed as fraud. I am not brave enough to talk about it (lest someone confirm it) but your words helped me. So, sir, you are an imposter. You’re trying to pass as someone that’s not quite good enough when you are, in fact, excellent.
14. devpascoe

    This post drew me in immediately. Thank you for sharing and I believe it helps those reading it tremendously just knowing you’re not alone facing the negativity. After 15 years I’m still challenged by these thoughts however have learned to channel it to fuel on my continual progression in our craft. If only code didn’t mean so much to us right? :)
15. David

    For one moment you made me think that you were announcing a retirement and i was stressing out! I was like: “Fuck! I have to delete David Walsh of my search keywords everytime that i don’t know how to do something”

    I don’t know much about development, even if i do it since 10 years almost everyday, but what i really learned with the time is that more you know more you feel that you don’t know anything. When you start with a new language in the first weeks you believe that you’re almost an expert… and after 3 years working with it you still discovering that you don’t fucking know enought.

    The good thing of this market where we are is that there’s many people around the world or even in the same office that can teach you something. I have learned from Senior developers and also of junior developers as well. We don’t have to forget that we never know who will give us the next hand in our daily issues.

    Thanks for the post! A single comment from someone that after many years of Imposter Syndrome just give up and took another way.
16. Luke Pettway

    This post hits home for me pretty hard. I get the same outlined feelings and always feel either behind or not up to par with what others may be doing. Your post makes me look at my situation and realize that things aren’t really how I feel they are.
17. Keith Doyle

    I can’t say how much I’ve had these same feelings for awhile. I got super lucky with getting my first job in the industry with almost zero professional experience which actually makes it worse. I feel like I need to compensate for not having a “proper” education in development and design, etc.

    Thanks for putting this out there for all of us “imposters”! Maybe we should start a support gr… oh wait, we have one, it’s called the Internet.
18. Lindsey Di Napoli

    Man, have you hit the nail on the head. I’ve felt this way on and off for my entire career. I’ve worked with some pretty amazing companies and clients and tackled some seriously challenging issues. I’ve been doing this professionally for over 15 years now and I still can’t overcome the nagging thought that maybe I’m really not that great at what I do (even though logic tells me different as I wouldn’t be employed at an amazing company if I was terrible at what I do!).

    I realize now that it’s ok for me not the be the “best”. It’s ok to ask for help. In the past I had felt so down on myself I’d waste time trying to figure something out on my own instead of just asking a colleague to help/explain it to me. I’ve gotten much better about asking for help, but sometimes I feel embarrassed for not knowing it all. Or gosh, what if I am wrong? Isn’t that asinine?

    I totally agree that blogging is such a powerful outlet. I used to blog all the time, but then life happened! I have dozens of drafts stowed away when I learn something new or create something I’d love to share… but never put time into making those posts come to life. Maybe I should start doing that again!

    I don’t think many of us are imposters, especially you! We may not know everything or be good at all things, but we wouldn’t be able to keep our jobs and be productive members of the community if we really were horrible at what we do!
19. Ivan Tcholakov

    “Every programming task’s efficiency is measurable, meaning our colleague can write a routine to complete the same task and it may be 1300% more efficient, making us feel that much worse”

    Measurable? – This is the biggest delusion in this industry. See the neighboring points.

    If a task can be objectively measured, most probably it is not to be given to human beings anymore. It could be automated.
20. Steve Schrab

    Thanks for sharing David. It helps to know that I’m not the only one that feels this way. Especially when career success ends up making you feel worse instead of better.
21. Sam Keen

    I expect you’re going to help an awful lot of people by writing this. Thanks for your honesty David!
22. Ahmad Awais

    I loved the part where you said anyone who knows about responsive design ain’t an imposter :P
    But yeah, on a serious note, with no self doubt and titled as “Experts”, I have seen first hand how these people destroyed WP Ecosphere.
23. Bob

    I guess I’m lucky I never felt like an imposter. I feel like part of it is I’ve never felt the need to compare myself with others. I go in and do my part to the best of my ability. Part of it might also be I’ve never worked in big tech hubs and never had to worry about living up to a company name. I’ve worked with some damn smart people though, and I always took that as a privilege, not as competition. You gain more faster when you are receptive to others’ expertise and not when you learn more just to keep up.

    I think at the end of the day, it’s not about being “the best” or comparing yourself to other people. It’s about taking things one task at a time, learning everything you need for that task if you don’t already know it, putting your knowledge to use to the best of your ability, and then when you’re done with the task, on to the next one. Use immediate goals to move towards what you want or even need to accomplish. If you freeze up on something, don’t think it’s because you never knew how to do it. Instead, break it up into smaller tasks and get to work on those.

    No one would want to expose you as a fraud as long as you get stuff done.
24. TechyDad

    I feel this way too (and blogged about it). I’ve found that the biggest Impostor Syndrome feeder is limited perspective.

    Say someone posts an incredible article showing an amazing new coding technique? He/she is so talented and you’re just a hack waiting to be exposed. What you don’t see is the bone headed mistake that they made just last week that took them hours to figure out.

    In addition, the Internet makes it easy to meet talented people in your field. This can be a very good thing as you can quickly learn from them and advance your own skills. Constantly looking at people who are more talented than you (in one area, maybe not in others), though, means you constantly feel like the bottom of the pile.

    It’s important to remember that there are others out there who are looking at you and feeling like Impostors because they aren’t you and that the people you look up to are flawed humans also and might, themselves, envy some of your talents. It’s a dose of perspective that the Impostor Syndrome tries to make us forget.
• Ashish

  This was a nice thought.
  I completely agree with the benefit of Internet and our field where we get to find talented people, see great work but the aspiration to be better and reach towards the heights of people you are looking upto, also adds to it. This is probably true for every field.

  The bottom of the pile appears applicable to me.
25. ben

    Stay awesome!
26. Weston

    I’ve had a good amount of success and recognition in coding—and nothing in that realm helped with the feeling of being an impostor. I think that’s a part of the problem: we feel like if we just had another technical accomplishment, it would be enough and the feeling would go away: we’d be forced to admit that we are really good, not impostors. That’s all like a donkey chasing a carrot dangled in front of him, never getting closer.

    There is something that helped with with the issue though. I think a lot of the problem stems from thinking of our abilities as largely fixed, which creates a sort of constant measuring of (and concern about) ‘how we stack up.’ There have been some interesting experiments showing that when people instead believe that their mental capacity is deeply flexible, they become less interested in such questions, and focus on what they’re working on instead. And, surprise surprise, these people make big improvements.

    Now, I’m not trying to say, “you really can improve yourself—do it!” but just giving a suggestion for the sort of route that might help rather than what I described as the carrot/stick situation.

    The stuff I was describing above about thinking of your intelligence as fixed or not comes from Carol Dweck’s very interesting work. I’d check out her “Self-Theories” or “Mindsets” books (they have made learning much more enjoyable again for me: when I don’t get something the first time I just look for more information instead of freaking out about it). The other thing that would probably be useful is Seligman’s “Learned Optimism”—check out some reviews.
27. Luciano Mammino

    Hey David,
    I’m following you and your blog from a while now (yes, I am talking about years), but that’s probably my first comment on your blog… I am probably a listener more than a talker :P

    I really loved this post but at the same time I think you are getting it to hard on yourself. In my humble opinion you are not an imposter at all, you are a great developer! Honestly talking you are absolutely above the average. You have an amazing career but you are humble enough to know your limits and constantly trying to measure and overcome them.
    This can be frustrating (I experience it on myself everyday) but it is also the key to get better and better, even if one can never get perfect, especially in this field that evolves at insane rythms!

    The fact that you are calling yourself an imposter is controversy the proof that you are not an imposter, but just an honest one, with yourself and with the others.

    Anyway keep your mood high and keep doing your best because everyone here is cheering for you and, most importantly, gets inspired by your work and your blog posts ;)

    And finally… yes, we should enjoy life more and spend more time away from our screens!
28. Stomme poes

    I feel I agree with Bob.

    Whenever I hear people talk about Imposter Syndrome, I immediately wonder “Do we all believe we’re imposters-but-really-with-Imposter-Syndrome instead of the more likely fact that a lot of us really aren’t that good but in IT most of what’s out there isn’t that good anyway so it’s not so bad?”

    There are benefits to just accepting that you’re not very good if all things really point in that direction (I figure though if you’re getting hired by Ginormous Javascript Libraries or Well-Known Browser Vendors, things aren’t pointing much in that direction).

    Benfits:

    * It’s quite easy to ask others for their opinions/knowledge because I don’t have to pretend I’m better than them– they are better than me so probably have the answers I seek. I’ll even prepend “Explain like I’m 5” or “Say this as if English me third speaking is”. You get to do this without qualms if you accept your mediocrity. They’re usually very glad you asked.
    * The only people who bother looking at my code are “SEO experts” but hey, I’m just thrilled someone actually hit f12 or Ctrl-u. I get to celebrate with a tasty sammich or a beer.
    * I’ve never been “asked” to work anywhere, and this is probably true of a lot of us. This means we know we got where we were either because we interviewed well (okay that could be good fakery there, or just being white), or because the other candidates really did suck worse. No fears that we’ll ever be “exposed”.
    * On top of that, if the company decides to pay you something unreal, you don’t have to feel guilty because hey, it was obvious what and who you were, what you could and could not do, rather than feeling like they thought you were better than you are or could do more than you could. That makes it their decision and if you think it’s too high, you can safely consider it their mistake rather than something you’ll be “outed” on. It’s not your fault if money falls from the sky.
    * When you accidentally delete the entire production database as well as, somehow, all the backups, you know you won’t “get flown to Mountain View to be burned at the stake”. Nobody buys a plane ticket or wastes good Californian wood to can your ass, and as terrible as it was, it was a mistake, something ordinary people do all the time (okay actually I hope not) while the supergenius experts never ever do– so again, as a not-imposter you know nobody thought this couldn’t ever happen. Or maybe they lack imagination. Or have very good automated prevention systems. I hope.
    * I haven’t done that last one… yet.

    I’d list more benefits, but someone on the chat client is telling me my code is crufty as hell and I need to go celebrate with my sammiches.
29. Diego Vilar

    Bravo! Just… bravo!
30. basher

    Awesome post.

    I’ve had 3 careers to date… 1 of which was nothing to do with IT/web… and I’ve always struggled impostor syndrome.

    I guess some of us are hard-wired that way.

    For me it’s a daily battle.

    Thankfully my current manager understands, and that means a lot.
31. SekhmetDesign

    O.M.G! Thank you, thaaannnkkkkk youuuuu, for this post!

    You managed to pinpoint the exact feelings I’ve been having all those years working as a integrator-now-frontend-developer in the IT field. Couple this with the facts that I’m a female developer and a mother, you can imagine how the Impostor Syndrome had slowly embedded in me through time: by contact with other developers whom had more knowledge (or at least remembered better their stuffs); lack of time to update my skills; and changes in life. It finally made me think I should abandon the development field I really love but feel so “out of sync” now.

    Yes, the small ideas you gave to get back into it – and feel less “impostor” – are great ideas (and yes, I am trying to implement it in my daily dev life. Baby steps!). But I would also add another one: try to find a personal project that can combine your hobby/passion with your developer skills, and work on this. Create an app, or a website, that will combine both: not necessarily a blog, but just a site that will combine both together. That’s what I am trying to do: a comic website where I’ll post my comic strips while improving my responsive and design skills, and also some bits of js and css animations (because I want to animate my comic strips). Yes, i think it will help me gain back my confidence, but I’ll also gain new tidbits of dev/design knowledge that will help me later on.

    So, again, thank you for writing this, and sharing it with us :D
32. Julie

    I’ve struggled with Imposter Syndrome for 20+ years…thank you for bringing it to the forefront yet again!
33. Alex O

    Beautifully written Dave, its definitely something the best of us go through constantly; If we felt we were good enough we wouldn’t be as good as we all are now though.
34. Sara

    Honestly, as someone who flunked out of a tech program, left for teaching and then ran back to web development just to keep the roof over my head until somehow a recruiter who called me in for a tech support gig thought to offer me a junior dev position instead… I have soooo much Imposter Syndrome. On top of that, I’m a woman, and I’m not from the popular local tech university. At least one of my coworkers has an attitude about self-taught developers. Some days I just have to remind myself, “Hey, you’re getting paid to LIVE THE DREAM! Doesn’t that mean anything?”

    The great thing about web development is it’s easy enough to prove you have the chops, and it’s easy enough to teach yourself new skills. I can look at what I’ve built and know I couldn’t do that without being legit.
35. Stomme poes

    This showed up in the twitterstream recently: http://lwn.net/Articles/641779/ “The programming talent myth”

    Being in the middle of the bell curve does not equal failure, but we continue to treat it as such.
36. Nick

    Thanks for writing this!
37. hal

    Woww! Dave! Thank you very much for this! I have been having impostor feelings lately in my current position. As it is my first experience as a developer, I am accepted by one of the biggest companies in my country where it is high level going on… and here I am having the excatly same feelings! I must say that you helped me a lot with this post!!
38. ren

    Thank you for posting such an interesting story. I didn’t know about it until now. On a side note, I’ve seen a lot of openings for jobs for English teacher skype at http://preply.com/en/skype/english-tutoring-jobs
39. Joseph Levin

    That was a great article. A lot of it hits home.

    I will say this, David: there is no way you ever can be considered an imposter, from my point of view, since you have helped (and continue to help) so many people to learn. That’s truly aces.

    You have my thanks for that, and I’m sure more of the same from many others who have benefited from your knowledge and generosity.

    Take care!
40. jack

    Not sure whether this is an honest self exploration or simply a boast.

    It comes of as a boast because:

    -he clearly announces his amazing employment background
    -he tells us that he started coding at age 14
    -he lets us know that he’s got a beautiful, picture perfect family

    In between these enormities, the bit about his occasional self esteem issues seems trivial to disingenuous…
• David Walsh

  Per your points:

  – My employment background is hardly amazing
  – Some HTML/CSS is probably almost required in high school these days
  – Yes, I do have a beautiful family — that I will boast

  No one boasts a lack of confidence. The whole point of this post is the contrary.
• jack

  In short, you sir, are indeed an impostor posing as a fraud; I, on other hand, am truly bitter…
41. Markus

    Dude… it’s as if you were reading my mind.

    I got my first computer when I was 9 years old (more than 30 years ago). I started to learn Basic on that. From that point on, I continued to be almost entirely self-taught. For the past 17 years I’ve made a living with web development. I spoke at conferences and got excellent ratings. I taught online courses. I wrote articles for magazines and websites in my profession. I even helped organize two conferences, one of them going into its 10th year now.

    One could say I’ve achieved a lot in my career.

    Still… I suffer from the exact. same. fucking. syndrome.

    And it never stops.
42. James

    I was trying to explain this feeling to a non-developer friend quite recently.

    I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the job and the pace at which things change. I can’t even look back on projects and feel a sense of accomplishment – even after doing this for almost 20 years I’m learning new techniques every week, so every past project “could have been better”.

    The job can often be isolating which intensifies that idea that everyone else is better than me. And more often than not the skillset is so broad reaching that it becomes impossible to be a master of every aspect.

    But, no matter how burned out, I always feel a sense of quiet joy in the job. It’s sometimes a kind of ekphrasis – transcribing something visual into another language – even “getting” the most simple thing right is rerwarding.
43. Mark

    You are truly a humble man David. Thanks for sharing your story.
44. Ville

    That was spot on, and really good points of advice. Thanks for writing this!
45. Ramsam

    Awesome.
46. Alex Muraro

    Nice article, I think it perfectly capture the feeling most of us have, possibly even the more skilled among us.
    Thanks for relieving some of that weight!
47. Casey Dwyer

    Great article, very relatable. Thanks for sharing!
48. Rafael

    Great reflection David! and beautiful family :)
49. Kevin Chisholm

    One of the most honest things I’ve read online in a very long time.

    I’ve been a fan of your blog posts for a few years David and I have learned a lot from them.

    GREAT post!

    Kevin Chisholm
50. George

    Thank you so much David! I get really nervous since I’ve only been doing this for a few years. I can do some stuff but when I look at against the unlimited amount of things I SHOULD know i get really intimidated and get really sad because I feel like I can’t do anything with a computer. Thank you for saying what I often think. I’m going to continue to learn, continue to blog, and to always remember the other things and people that bring me happiness.
51. Janardhan

    A true and honest article. As a front end developer i’m in the same boat, i’m sure most of them are .
52. Alfred Ayache

    It’s incredibly hard, and courageous, to bare your soul like that, David. It’s also incredibly helpful to others. So thank you.

    I also find the hiring process to be brutal and hurtful, and contributes significantly to imposter syndrome. You give up an entire weekend on a programming challenge for a job interview, and they don’t even give you a follow-up interview. And precious little feedback, to boot!

    It’s a hard-knock life.
53. KJ Price

    So true. Spoke to me directly. Thanks!
54. Maura

    I’m a marketer and I’ve worked at companies like MySpace, CondeNast, iVillage, tumblr and you captured exactly how I feel daily. How the hell did you do that?!
55. Bojana

    A great post. I am fighting this kind of battle in my mind every day. As a woman in mens’ profession I feel I have to prove myself even harder. I agree that the best relief comes from small victories – successful deploy, efficient optimization, helping a co-worker solving a problem…
56. Alex Muraro

    Issue is, it’s never enough
57. T

    I am getting ready for a new job at a big firm, which has agreed to pay me a kings ransom to go from contractor to full time staffer. I gave them what I thought was an absurd salary demand just to avoid being faced with this job, and they called my bluff. Even after completing many projects for them as a freelancer, that they seem more than happy with, I can’t shake that fear that they will find out that stackoverflow and caffeine are the only way I make it through a day. This is my first go as a non freelancer, to which I don’t even know how I managed to make a decent living at that. I have my first kid on the way and I am leaving my daytime IT job security blanket. In front of my Wife I paint on the confident smile, while in my head all I think is WTF did you get your self into.

    I was looking up your article on how to update Node with NPM for the umpteenth time when I saw this article, and thought wow even you feel this way, maybe the majority of us do. This article sparked a thought that I hope helps anyone else in a new employment situation. We all got here following our own paths, and wether we are self taught or not; we would not do, what we do for a living if we haven’t at least proved to others that we can, even if we can’t prove it to ourselves. Every new opportunity is just another chance to prove it again. Were probably not experts at anything more than learning how to make it through todays challenges. Thank you for your candor.

    -T
58. Dan

    Its the nature of the ever changing beast that is development. I have felt these feelings since I started way back in ye olden times of ’96. Its what drives me to learn more and improve, it keeps me from becoming stagnate, until I become independently wealthy. :)

    Embrace it! Love it! Use it! But do not succumb to its self-destructive nature.
59. Tim

    While I know of – and subscribe to – your blog, I don’t know your content well enough to tell if this is tongue-in-cheek or not.
    I will applaud you for writing it and pull a quote from a compelling podcast I heard a while back: “We are ‘expert enough'”.
    Thank you for sharing.
60. mtness

    Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

    Thank you.
61. Luis

    Just wanted to say thanks for this article. I can very much relate to the “impostor” feeling and I thought I was probably the only one. Good to know I’m not alone and thanks for the advice on how to overcome it.
62. maurits

    Wow! Very open and honest post. I always love reading your blogs, but this one is exceptionally good. Thank you for publishing it.
63. Luke

    Sums up all my feelings about my career in a single web page.

    Eloquent, insightful and brave.
64. John Wickham

    I really want to thank you for sharing this. I think (hope) that everyone at some point has experienced this; I know I am right now.
65. Sofia

    Dear David Walsh,

    6 months ago, I was working on a hospital. I’m a Medical Doctor in Pediatrics. Although everyone recognized me as a really good doctor, since the college that I felt that I didn’t belong there. In this case, maybe it was true.

    Meanwhile, I discovered code. Coding make me happy, a new world on my fingertips! It was decided: I was leaving the clinical practice.

    In the last 6 months my full time “job” was going from noob to ninja in web development, specially in javascript – MVC frameworks, transpilers, build tools and tests.

    Guess what? I’m happy, but didn’t put my portfolio online until last week. Didn’t apply for a job. Didn’t ask a question on stackoverflow.

    You know what? This is called perfectionism. We are never satisfied with our knowledge. But, this is actually a good think if we can deal with it.

    Your blog post reminded me of that. Thank you. In the medicine world, it is incredible rare someone express this kind of feeling, errors or weakness.

    I believe this is a great industry, and can be a lot of fun. Plus, it’s just software :)

    I’ll never stop being and thinking like a medical doctor, but from now on, I’m a web developer.
66. Oj

    Hi David,

    Only yesterday I had this feeling, that I am not doing enough and I am not good enough. And I happened to came across your article.

    Thank you for sharing your life.
67. Nicolás

    Been there, done that! thanks for sharing.
68. Trevor

    Hey David, this might be super late to the party, but I thought I’d add my two cents: a lot of this sounds like the Dunning-Kruger effect

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

    Which is to say, a psychological classification for “I know what I don’t know”. If you feel that way, that can be more of a positive thing than not. I don’t mean to belittle self-esteem or self-worth issues at all by saying this. However, in my opinion, if you were able to get yourself just a little closer to the middle on the spectrum of “I am great” vs “I suck at everything”, you’d really be in a good spot as far as keeping yourself on your toes.

    Of course, that’s not to say it’s easy. You said it yourself, this is a disproportionately competitive industry due to the Internet’s ubiquity. I struggle with these feelings a lot myself. It’s very much not easy, but it’s almost like the saying “pain reminds you that you’re alive”; if you feel like there’s more to learn, whatever you do you’ll just keep improving!

    Maybe this was a bit of a mixed message, but hey, everything about the human psyche is. I hope you can find it at least somewhat motivating, though.
69. Dusan

    I cannot recall writing this. Hm…
70. Kas

    It’s so nice to hear to other people are feeling exactly like me. I am a junior front end developer, and when I look at all the cool websites using the latest cool technologies, and I feel like I should know how to do all this, forgetting that I’ve only been working for a year now. Thank you so much for writing this post, it gives me hope that I can get where I want with my skills and my career eventually :)
71. Zac

    I’ve followed you for a long time as a figure of where I’d like to be so hearing something like this from you helps a lot. Thanks for sharing man. It helps.
72. Steven

    Thank you so much for this article. I am currently struggling with this feeling without being able to define it. You just made me understand what is this feeling and how to deal with, and I am so impressed and glad to read all these comments.

    Thanks for sharing.
73. Frederick

    Thank you for your testimony, sometimes already felt that way. very good fuck post too!
74. David

    Thank-you!
    This is something you only get to read on certain forums about starting out with programming. It’s amazing to read this from someone who’s work I really appreciate and also admire.

    Again, thank-you.
75. Gwen

    David, thanks for the article.

    You described what i felt and am often feeling since decades working in IT and Webdev.

    Hard to struggle with this, perfectionism leads to depression and that feeds the Impostor much more.

    But good to read that im not alone with this problem.
76. Colin

    I’m always reminded by some great words from Steve Jobs when impostor syndrome is lurking.

    https://youtu.be/UvEiSa6_EPA
77. Diego

    Thanks for sharing David! I’ve struggled with this my whole adult life as well. In a way it’s made me push harder but I’m ready to start feeling more confident and content with my skills. Good luck with the journey, congrats on all your success, and you can overcome this!
78. Mssr Frakenstein

    “Sometimes asking questions to colleagues or even via an IRC room felt like it was a trade-off between not getting an answer or getting stabbed with the answer.”

    That’s because they were assholes, and were encouraged to be assholes. Not because you were a noob. ;-)
79. David

    I’m entirely self taught and been developing for a few years now and while I can see how much I have learned, I find myself squarely in “holy crap look at all this stuff I don’t know” territory. I’ve tried explaining my imposter fears to my colleagues and fiancée and everyone just looks at me gone out. Thanks for writing about this, and for everyone who’s commented that they feel they same. Now I can just be an imposter, not an imposter and a freak ;)
80. Zach

    …Realize that people who consider themselves “experts”, and don’t go through waves of self doubt, are idiots that are so arrogant to not know what they don’t know…

    This.
81. Thomas

    As a second year CS student, I’ve been feeling this way ever since I started coding. There’s always something I just don’t know, and the more I get into this field, the more I feel lost. I honestly don’t even know what I know at this point.
82. Michael

    I am thinking of this all the time – I am glad I am not alone. :)
83. Enrique Ramírez

    I’m a college dropout, self-taught front-end developer, delving in the depths of backend development for the first time. I’ve never felt more as a fraud. It is exciting, it is fulfilling and it is incredibly insightful, learning all these new things. But I just feel like a monkey on a suit, trying to look professional. I landed my current job as lead developer with not nearly enough knowledge but somehow managed to keep it for the last 3 years. As lead front-end developer, I’ve made it my duty to help my colleagues write as little code as possible by writing a somewhat robust framework that solves most problems and let them just focus on the one at hand, which is somewhat successful. I’m currently writing a prototype for a project, learning everything while doing it. 15 days in and I’m almost done. I have side projects with a functional real-time chat application that one day I want to present to my company for internal use (a slack/skype alternative). And despite all of this, I feel like an impostor. I’ve never felt more like one.

    You asked us to write what might help us overcome this feeling. To me, it’s been reading this. Knowing that I’m not alone. Knowing that I may not be as huge as an impostor as I feel. And, perhaps the biggest one of them all, as you put it: there’s a real world outside of this hateful, illuminated screen.

    Thank you.
84. Manuela

    Amazing post. I’ve been able to manage dealing with the never-ending Imposter Syndrome by learning from the “fake it till you become it” mantra that Amy Cuddy emphasizes in this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en

    Thanks for sharing!
85. Katie

    I just today learned that the way I’ve felt for years has a term, “impostor syndrome,” and then I stumbled onto your post — it took my breath away. Change a few words and rework a few sentences and I could have very well written this post myself (on a much smaller employment scale.) Knowing that there are others who feel as I do, and especially in the same tech environment in which I work, is simultaneously intensely shocking and infinitely comforting. I’ve had relatively few bone-deep “MY PEOPLE! YOU GET ME!” experiences in my life and this is one of those times. Thank you so much for writing this! May we all feel less imposter-y.
86. Stephan

    “… Oh boy… hopefully my comment will be good enough… are these proper thoughts on the topic…” (methinks)

    I’ve been there. I have no finished academic degree in anything (studied computer science but didn’t finish) and now am in upper management of a mid sized IT company and my immediate colleagues have PhD’S and stuff and ask me for expertise on topics I have no education in.

    Web development is the meanest thing for the low self esteemed: A new .js every five minutes. Everyone does functional programming now in a language that was so laughed upon 5 years ago, and videos are trying to explain to me what a monad is.

    I know two things:

    The others are all imposters as well. This is the internet. We’re not ourselves. These are projections made of dreams and fears. Same applies to many real life workplaces.

    No true imposter stays in a job for three years. Your fuse wouldn’t be that long. So you’re at Mozilla for 3 years, trust me, you’re valuable, you earned it.

    Thank you for this post!
87. Thomas

    Awesome Article! Thank you very much ;-)
88. Christopher Pitt

    <3
89. Timothy

    Oh man David. This was hard enough to *read*, I can’t imagine what it was like to write. Excellent words though, and yeah, we’re all in this together. You’re one of the people who makes me feel impostor, David, so I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry that we’re all in the same boat. Wotta weird world we live in. Thanks for your bravery in posting this.
90. Leo

    “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

    ― Bertrand Russell
• Timothy

  Ha, he liked that topic I guess:

  “One of the painful things about our time is those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

  — Bertrand Russell
91. Antonio

    No you’re not, you’re modest, that’s all. I think we all feel that (I know I do), specially when given good jobs, in big companies, with good people, and when you get to write a book and get a lot of followers.
92. Raj

    So thats what it is called “imposter syndrome”, i definitely feel as described in this article. Currently i am working on an external facing application, basically i had to build it from start. I must confess, the more i thought about it, the more daunting it looked. So i just dove in and have been working on it for the past couple of months, I have learnt a lot about full stack application development.

    PS: I am the only developer working on it and i only have a year of experience in software industry.
93. Matt C

    Thank you so much for this post. I’ve felt alone in my impostor syndrome. This inspires to say F that feeling and keeping pushing forward.
94. Zee Impostor

    I’ve been looking anywhere I can for solutions to impostor syndrome but I haven’t found anything that can help me. I think it may be because I am an actual impostor in my field. I’m in graphic design.
    I’ve been working as a designer for 12 years, but even though that’s my official title, I can only loosely consider myself one.
    I’m on my third professional design job. My first was designing ads for phone books, a low-end job for people who can’t pass for a real designer, but even there, I was constantly being brought into the boss’s office to talk about how I needed to kick it up a notch. Somehow I managed to stay employed there for three years and then went back to college to get my BFA.
    While I was at college, I built a relationship with LogoWorks, a design sweatshop that I’m too ashamed of to even put on a resume now. I wasn’t employed with them, I was just freelancing, and thankfully since I was in school at the time I don’t have to account for the time gap in an interview. LogoWorks has a reputation for being cheap, classless, a plague on the industry, and a rip-off producing work that is of zero value. That reputation was probably worse then than it is now, but it gave me a little money to get through school so I went with it. You got a meager $25 for submitting at least two comps and then you got a larger bonus if the client chose your comp from a lineup of comps from 1-4 other designers.
    I did okay at first because there wasn’t much competition and clients would choose just about anything, no matter how bad. But eventually more and better (but still not very good) designers signed on and I was pushed out.
    Then I graduated. I could maybe use this as some sort reaffirmation that I have had some success, and I felt good about myself at the time, but I think everyone in my class graduated with straight As because the grading for these design courses was rather subjective. Most of time you slid by if you just turned in something—anything—for each project.
    I was hired a few months later at a small production studio and I was ecstatic. The place seemed cool and it seemed liked they only hired fairly strong talent so it made me feel re-affirmed.
    It would be about a year before my creative director would admit that he only hired me because they were looking to implement an automated ad system and they needed someone to design the cheap, generic ad elements to use in this system. I had phonebook experience, which didn’t make me a good designer, just a fast one, and that was all they needed.
    They implemented the ad system, but all of the clients who used this system eventually dropped us and I was kicked down to doing odd jobs most of the time (archiving projects, filling in text for sign systems that had already been designed, examining video for errors, changing garbages, etc.)
    Occasionally they would let me design if there was an unimportant client that wanted lots of options for a small project and they needed more submissions to fill the sheet. I don’t think any of my design concepts were ever chosen by the client for any of these projects, but why should they be? My submissions were just to fill space.
    Eventually this company tanked because the President made some bad decisions and I had to find something else.
    I was a wreck. I was unemployed, by this time had a family to support, and had a thin portfolio of absolutely pathetic work.
    So I was very relieved after five months of searching to finally get an offer for a design job with the company I work with now, at $11,000/yr less than I was making before. It was an in-house job (meaning I would design for the company’s brand and products rather than for clients) and it’s not a very design forward brand. In fact it’s fairly mediocre design-wise. Even so, I haven’t exactly managed to impress the marketing heads or the marketing VP, so now I’m back to odd jobs.
    I spend most of my days here wrapping designs that somebody else created onto digital images of blank packages that somebody else photographed. Meanwhile the guy on the other side of the partition from me, who shares my exact same job description and is three years my junior here, is designing the packages.
    I’m fighting back tears as I write this. I’m forgetting how to design, (provided I ever really knew how to begin with) I’ve lost all confidence in myself and I’m losing hope fast. Could I be a real impostor, and if so, what can I do about it?
• No Not an Imposter

  Hello, I hope you read this, but I’d like to tell you that you shouldn’t judge yourself based on how others judge your designs!

  In every field there are those who are exceptionally talented and those who are just do things by the book, and that’s totally okay! You just haven’t found the company who truly appreciates you.

  I think you should consider working full time on your own, freelance on websites like freelancer.com and fiverr.com. It really doesn’t matter how your superiors feel about your work- now you just need to face your customers!

  Show off your work and the customers who appreciate your work will come to you. You could start making a name for yourself and use this in your resume for your next job!

  So what if you’re known as the one who does bad designs – you just need to find people who appreciate your type of design and pay for it and you can feed yourself and your family! LogoWorks may have a bad name like you said but they still exist for a reason! Go along with that.

  I also think that you probably never ever let your true talent show due to a lack of confidence in yourself.. You know how it is when you feel like an impostor and keep dwelling on it in your mind, you truly behave and produce work like an impostor’s.

  Stop judging yourself based on your work. You are much better than that. You are a responsible person who takes up the responsibility of taking care of your family and much more. Most of all, so what if people think your designs suck if you can bring in the money?

  There’s so many ways around this! I wish you all the best! :)
95. Guest

    I have this, coupled with severe anxiety. It started about 4 months ago. Iv’e officially been in the professional capacity for about 6 years. I really feel like this is going to end my career. Help!?!
96. Zak Clayton

    You are an expert in your field. You have a wealth of knowledge that you share and teach to those who are trying to learn. In that sense you are literally an expert by definition.

    Keep up the good work :)
97. John Genoese

    An elegant, beautiful articulation of the effects of Perpetual Novice syndrome, which is endemic to any field like ours where we are often judged not by our general experience and know-how, but rather by our level of intimacy with the framework-du-jour.

    Well done, and hearty thanks, from someone who’s been in the field of computer programming in one form or other for 40 years.
98. Richard Keller

    I feel you! What has helped me lately is to remember to be patient. Good ol’ imposter fucking syndrome.
99. Spirytus

    Wonderful post, and timely too.. got last stage job interview today and feel like I’m not nearly good enough for the job :/ Also noticed this gets worse and worse, the more I learn the more realise how little I know.
100. Sam

     After starting with website development in 1998, i have only recently learned the phrase Imposter Syndrome. Your post is very real in my life, and after reading it, and going through the reason Why Not, this has helped a lot (albeit not resolved most of these feelings!). The constant cycle of “theres always more to learn”, and more and more (not that there shouldn’t), but this never ending cycle has effectively left a lot of anxiety in my life. Recently a colleague shared the term Imposter Syndrome and, click, I instantly identified with it. I’m now working on what my core strengths are in website development, and what aren’t. And being happy that i have the skills to clearly measure, filter, and recommend what is strong and important for business, and what isn’t. And am more than happy now to help non-computer users (with patience) and explain and translate difficult computed tasks clearly, where others can’t. Thanks for your post.
101. Phil

     So it’s not just me? Thank you for an informative read that I can relate to on so many levels.

     I’m just about to take a new job that’s a big step up and the Impostor Syndrome is biting again. 15 years of doing this successfully at both small and large companies and it still bites at the confidence.

     Good luck to you David.
102. Ravi Kasireddy

     wonderful article i got to see and i’m very thankful to you cause it’s made me more confident at my current skills to get more in the near feature…
103. Felix Michael

     Very interesting article and highly inspiring. While going through the post, I realized that it is perfectly normal to feel that you are an impostor, you accidentally got this far, but the truth is that this exact same feeling urge you to do better every time you fail.
104. Jack Sparrow

     Thank you David, every time I face a overly challenging task as a developer, I feel like an impostor. Knowing that my hero’s faced the same challenge in their lives makes me realize this too shall pass and I shall overcome this challenge.

     Thank you again and keep writing.
105. victor

     thank you for this post.i’m battling with this right now
106. Bryan

     It’s easy to feel this way.

     I remember I once lost a job interview because I tried explaining that 3D orientations actually need 4 bits of data to be properly described. The guy looked at me like I was an idiot. I explained that even with euler angles (rotationX, rotationY, rotationZ type stuff) you may have 3 numbers, but there’s a 4th implied bit of data (order of rotations) and if you change that order of rotations being used you can get a different end orientation even with the same 3 numbers! Hence: the 3 numbers weren’t totally describing the end orientation by themselves. Then I tried to explain how true number only representations (like axis-angle and quaternions) of 3D orientations all need 4 pieces of data, etc…He basically gave me the “sure they do, buddy” nod and the interview was suddenly over.

     Long story short, even though I knew that I lost the job because I was, in fact, so much more knowledgeable than the interviewer that he couldn’t comprehend what I was talking about…I STILL felt like crap afterwards…like I was the one that didn’t measure up. Even though I knew it was the opposite that had happened it didn’t change how I felt to know that my knowledge had been deemed not even worthy of finishing the interview…and it sucked.

     Anyway, my point is to show how ridiculously easy it is to feel that way. Even when you’re the one that’s on top knowledge-wise, you can STILL be made to feel like crap. So try not to take it too hard when you start to feel that way. It’s unavoidable in this field.

     And yes, it’s actually been a little therapeutic writing this…
107. stephen

     Wow is all I can say! You hit it right on the head. I am three years into this business. I came out the Bay Area on a hope that I could make it out here. I had tried many places just to get my foot in the door, and often times when I made it, at the first attempt to whiteboard, my mind locks up with, “this is where they find out that you don’t really belong”. I work for for a big company out here now, but every day I feel the same way. Tasked with solving difficult problems and not having the answer immediately makes me feel like I just don’t belong. What’s funny about this is, your blog is one of three that I turn to for answers to some weird issue I may be trying to find an answer for. Thanks for the good work, and it’s good to know that there are many of us out there who really feel the same way.
108. scott

     Whoa! I really needed this today! This sums up (perfectly) how I’ve been feeling of late and many times throughout my career. And to think, I was just trying to learn something about the fullscreen api. :D
109. leenull

     Thanks for sharing this article! I can totally relate. A while ago I came across this article by Scott Hanselman, which addresses the same issue, also in a awesome way. http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ImAPhonyAreYou.aspx
110. Brady Clifford

     Good reminder…
111. anonymous

     I was the director of a program at a prestigious University and I felt like that every day. I was admired, marvelled and cherished and deep inside, I felt like an imposter. Sometimes, I would give talks, presentations and I would feel good, but that would wash away after a few sleeps. Same feeling when I got my PhD. Basically, my whole life, I feel like certain lucky co-incidences have made me become who I am. Not that I deserved any of it. Because I am a failure. I have been on TV, newspaper etc., and I would look at my pictures and see hollowness.

     Now I am in my basement and trying to build something. I want to re-earn all those honours when I feel like I earned them. From medical science to business to coding … I have done it all .. just not good enough that make me be proud of myself.

     You are brave that you shared your story. My story is in my head.
112. Kristofer

     Woah, this article really hit home with me.
113. Daragh

     Great post, and very resonant – I dug deep into my own struggles with Impostor Syndrome in the post below – I offer some of the solutions I found myself!

     http://www.thehappytechie.com/mindfulness/how-mindfulness-meditation-stopped-me-feeling-like-a-fake/
114. kingsley

     Thought it was a local syndrome. What a relief. Thanks David
115. Narek

     Thank you for this David. I feel every word. Also your ability to articulate the Impostor Syndrome is impressive.
116. Richard Chiriboga

     No Way! but a great read.You have no idea how you have helped me indirectly. Before I came to do web development for the big beauty brand I am at now, I was doing freelance as well as doing web development for a small shop where I was the only developer and everytime I ran into some issue, for some strange reason you had posted about it a day or two before. You became my go-to when I was in a bind. so thank you! you are no importer if you help others the way you do.
117. Cal

     Thanks for this post. It helped me feel a little better.

     I’ve got an internship at a small embedded shop. I’m expected to have a product done by the end of the month. I spent all last month just trying to learn enough that I can start writing code.

     I worry I should quit because I really like the people and feel like I’m cheating them. I worry I’ll get fired because they’ll figure out I can’t get it done.

     After wanting this so badly for 20 years, I’m one class shy of my degree and questioning whether I can even make it as a programmer.
• Eric

  Thank you for writing this. I started programming when I was 12, before the Internet, and am now 47, with 26 years of professional employment as a developer. I’ve developed and led projects in COBOL, Unix/Oracle, Microsoft PC and 3-tier client-server technologies, enterprise Java, small-stack Java, and now Ruby and JavaScript/CSS.

  I still have Imposter Syndrome, and it gets somewhat worse as time goes on. I see kids out of college for just a few years doing great work and think “Am I that good? Was I ever? Did I used to be better?”

  Then sometimes I’ll answer some questions the kids have, and feel better. And they’ll express some insecurity about their work, and I’ll feel at least not so bad. And a lot of your suggestions are very good ones.

  Keep in mind that the people most of us don’t like to work with are those who can’t acknowledge error, or in other ways can’t learn.
118. RCdevLabs.github.io

     Thank you for this. I’m tempted to say that those who are afraid of being an Impostor, are those who have more likely a chance to be a great programmer.

     Maybe because the Impostor Syndrome have two basic consequences: 1. either you give up and stop coding. 2. or you force youselve to grow, learn and perform better.

     Love from Brazil.
119. André Jaenisch

     you for this.
     It is helpful for beginner like me who failed in study and now start as self-taught web developer.

     It reminds me on what Christian Heilmann [wrote about Imposter Syndrome](https://www.christianheilmann.com/2015/09/24/of-impostor-syndrome-and-running-in-circles-part-1/).

     Yes, it is way too much to learn. But I can see, that professionals working for years in that area can learn new stuff from me O:

     That motivates me. As long as I can stay open-minded, everything will turn out fine.
120. Prasanna Joglekar

     Hi David!

     It’s an amazing article reflecting all my fears. Your blog helps me try new ways and techniques.
121. Cesar

     I don’t exactly feel like an impostor, but I always feel like a big fish in a small pond, at work I’m seen as “the guy”, but despite the fact that I love to code, I know I’m far from that level.

     I never had done anything for a Mozilla-kind-of-company or submitted a single commit to any of the tools/frameworks I have ever used, I swear I have studied how to make frameworks/tools and how to be a better developer (and I have improved in the process) but I’m always severals steps behind those high-level gurus.

     From time to time I go to sites like stack overflow to see if I can help someone with their questions and get sad when all the questions I have the knowledge to answer are already answered and way better than I would have ever considered.

     Same goes with blogging, despite I have a lot of knowledge and experience, I have real trouble thinking of some topic that isn’t covered already and better explained.

     Once someone asked me why I haven’t sumbitted a job application for Google, it was extremely painful to explain him that I was a decent coder, but I wasn’t good enough.
122. Herbert

     This the best article I read today.
     The photo at the end of your article puts it ALL in the proper perspective.
     We struggle and try hard – but don’t forget to try smile and shrugging from time to time, cause when all’s said and done…
123. FWT

     Wow, there was some strong perspective that was conveyed in this article. I’m not a programmer/developer but it’s the design of things that sometimes attracts me to projects and I feel that I can learn how to go about accomplishing said project…it just needs to be interesting enough to me though.

     David
124. Jason Rundell

     Hi David. This article’s title hooked me and little did I know it would frame exactly what I’ve felt ever since I worked at a place with a culture which amplifies this syndrome you write about. I have also felt it when I go to interview: I have no post-secondary education so I have to highlight my experience and actually bring a portfolio of work with me (you feel like an imposter to those who have gone to University!).

     David, I am willing to bet you also felt this magnifying effect while at Mozilla. The pressure of your colleagues and feeling like you’re walking on glass – they’re just waiting to pounce on your mistakes. It does make you better. It’s a different type of spark of fire to challenge yourself with this pressure to impress (or just get through a review without feeling like you have the logic of a 3 year old) – rather than the old spark of just wanting to know how to do THAT THING your self.

     I think working in this type of culture can be harmful – especially if you never really end up making friends with a developer you look up to (or get reviewed by), or finally feeling like you’ve earned their respect. Yes, it can spur you into bettering yourself, but too much of it for too long can make you very bitter about our industry and the people in it. I think if I had stayed at the company where this culture persisted, it would have lead me to feeling that every other developer is better than me, or that it’s always a competition.

     We definitely always need to learn new things (not for lack of wanting), and we’ll never know everything, but yes(!!!!!) we are valuable to any team, we’ve cut our teeth, and we can do ANYTHING that THEY can.

     There’s always going to be critics.

     Thank you for writing this, David!
125. Nick

     David, this article really hit home and thank you so much for opening up about all of these feelings and mind sets. Personally it’s nice to know i’m not alone.

     Thank you again for all the amazing articles and insights you provide they are all greatly appreciated.
126. Vicente

     Hey, I have no idea how I got here (I might have been reading something about the html5 video tag on your blog), but this really hit a nerve… in a good way.

     Thanks.
127. Sneha

     Hi David,
     These are the inner battles for so many of us. Thank You for putting this post! You said it right! A lot of us are in this together and that we all should find something to be happy about. I remember a quote to pull up myself if I am doubting myself: Its ok to try and fail, but its not OK to not try! You may have victory or at least a lesson.
     Thank you,
128. Don

     This is a fantastic post. I have this feeling most everyday, having stumbled into my programming career a year ago almost by chance (coming over from Network Security).

     It is comforting to know that other, more experienced people in my profession share the same feeling.

     Thanks, and great blog!
129. Ginger Coolidge

     Fantastic post, as I type in services I am hanging out my shingle for on my website, I’m looking over my shoulder for someone to say “WTF? You think YOU are going to hired for that? Do you actually KNOW anything?” I’m always convinced the next guy/gal can code circles around me and is an absolute expert at the ridiculousness I was trying to discuss and articulate. I’m so right there with you. Rock on….
130. Colton Colcleasure

     I find it funny to read something like this coming from you, David. I spend an ungodly amount of time practicing and studying (16-20 hours a day, right at this desk) and the community I interact with the most, the novices, pass around your posts like the bible. More experienced developers pass your words down to us, as well. You’re a pretty big deal.
131. Shreya

     I am equally surprised and relieved to know many developers, including the great David Wash, feel this way. Thank you for writing this!
132. Steve

     Wow, that’s a real brave post. Well timed for me. I have an interview for a job I really want next week. I’m totally feeling I will be seen as an imposter, that somehow the two phone interviews I managed to convince them I know what I’m doing.

     I’m 48 and it scares me that I’m still feeling like this after all the years in the pre-web days and the web all of 20 odd years. Everyone seems smarter than I, I never seem to know the new JS library that the great sounding job requires experience in. I feel that at my level of experience I should ( or I feel they expect) know a heck of a lot more. I’m expected to mentor and train those around me for hecks sake.

     So I am going to try to go into the interview with a braver heart and knowing that I can add something for this company and they need to show they want me. Though I don’t think I’ll Skype the CEO and beg them to tell me they want me;-) maybe I’ll ask this question, “what do you see in me and why do you think I should take this job?”. I’ll just have to try to really accept a positive answer to that rather than let the imposter inside me tell me “see they know you are a fraud” regardless of how much praise I get.

     I wish you all the best David. Thanks again for the post.
133. Rob

     Thanks David, I have referenced your blog for help many times over the years, so you certainly are no imposter in my mind.

     I agree it is the way our profession is, the sheer volume of stuff we need to remember to do our jobs is like no other industry, I think it is impossible for the human mind to master such a vast amount of knowledge that changes at such a pace that every few years you become a dinosaur if you don’t relearn.

     Not to mention aside from technical ability, we also need to be incredibly articulate to understand business requirements that change more frequently than the technical landscape.

     And to top all of that we have to work with morons that have egos and like to spend their days getting one up on their colleagues to try and prove some sort of intellectual superiority.
134. bubba

     Interesting post. I’ve never really worried about ‘keeping up’ because its just not possible (and certainly not anymore). IT is too broad a field to know everything.

     Working in IT for 20 years so far (after studying IT/Soft Eng at college) You get to see that there is little point obsessing over the latest newest thing as it will be pretty much obsolete before you’ve mastered it.Know the fundamentals of software engineering and dont sweat the small stuff. I suppose front end web dev is a bit of a hot house and the unfortunate thing is that you often may not get to build anything lasting because its all scrapped at an accountant/ceo’s whim or out of date in a year. So don’t sweat it. There will _always_ be someone smarter/quicker/better. You cant win, might as well try and enjoy the ride. Incidentally…. Heres the secret to dealing with it… YOUR Boss has self doubts, His Boss has self doubts, _EVERYBODY_ has self doubt. Its how they deal with it that makes the difference.
135. Lewis Cowles (@LewisCowles1)

     > “Users can be very dumb but it’s still the developer’s fault for not making something easy enough!”

     No!

     Stop babying users! Some of them really are sub-normally thick. It’s not your fault. This isn’t because I’m an angry developer, it isn’t because I lack a skill everyone else has; it’s because anything outside yourself you cannot ever be 100% responsible for.

     Think about it, you wouldn’t blame yourself for it raining, or for your kids falling down and scraping a knee.

     Cut yourself some slack and accept that people and their behaviours are things outside of your control. Write docs and produce content to encourage others to use your software within limits; (I’m looking at you if you want a date input to accept every type of date conceivable). Sure listen to users; that can’t hurt, you may both come to the conclusion there is an enhancement, but don’t take their failures onboard as your own unless you had prior knowledge. You will hopefully be better today than yesterday, and in almost every case you’ll certainly know more by next week. It’s not your fault you cannot time-travel, are missing a tardis and are not the relative of a deity.

     The more I hear about this imposter syndrome, the more I think it stems from an entirely unhealthy attitude, and unreasonable expectations both internally and from those IT professionals are surrounded by.
136. Lautaro

     Hi, I really enjoyed this post, it’s very honest and true. :)
137. Dan Allen

     The reason I came to your blog today is had picked you out as a role model. It’s so great that you wrote this article about imposter syndrome, because now I think you are a good guy, whereas before, I assumed you must be one of the blowhards from the world of non-doubt. I wanted to learn from you anyway. I am glad you are a regular guy like I wish I was.

     I know some people who will appreciate and learn from this as well.

     That article you just wrote, about how most projects you work on these days involve using a json project file for managing dependencies. That made me feel I am incompetent and you are liar Turned out I am incompetent, but you are not a liar. I have had bad experiences with projects that use that sort of dependency manager. Specifically, Google Recapcha distributes with a ton of dependencies that are not needed. I can tell your use of the dependency manager is legitimate.
138. Adrian

     I have recently started a new job at a very large tech company working with some very clever people and seem to have been overwhelmed by feelings of the imposter syndrome lately. I’ve been developing for 20 odd years now and been through a lot of roles; permanent, contract, I’ve even run my own consultancy company. Its tough to still battle with these types of feelings. So in a nutshell this post has cheered me up no-end. Lovely job!
139. Carlos

     You’re no more an impostor than any of us who have jumped into something new. You’re just brave enough to admit the fears we all feel when we do something we haven’t done before
140. Zae Vega

     Thank you for sharing this words, so sincerely and transparent. I think that, no matter how experienced we are, we all have experienced this kind of doubt feeling when it comes to “Am I good enough? “, “Do I know the lastest techniques and languages?”, and “Is this way to solve the problem, the best way?”. There´s nothing wrong with keep learning, asking event the dumbest questions and not having all the time all the answers.
141. alex

     I don’t think non-doubters are idiots as you wrote. Maybe are just people with normal self-esteem that have the memory to remember all the years of hard work in front of their monitor, 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week, instead dating or having fun outside (extreme sports, etc.). I’ve been a developer for 20 yrs now and my moments feeling as an impostor add to about 3 minutes.
     But maybe I’m too arrogant to not know what I don’t know. However, this is my opinion.
     Nice article though. And many other cool articles on your blog.
142. alex

     PS: I think you working only on top companies is part of what led to your syndrome. More experience with beginner/medium level developers in the team would have cured this for you. ;)
143. Patrick

     Just never forget that even the biggest artists (e.g. Eric Clapton and many others) have stage-fright, or however it is called.
     This nervousity and unsureness of being up to the point when going to stage… and once they’re up there and after the first notes a trance sets in and every fear is forgot, the center of focus blurs

     css{blur:100px;}

     , the routine and experience pushes forward

     for ($i=0,$i<theEnd;$i++){}

     and before they even notice, the gig is over and the initial fear seems somehow childish?

     Why should we programmers be/feel different?

     Cheers! ;-)
144. Dmitry

     Cheer up! Your imposture helped a lot of people in this world!)
145. Lucy Barret

     Great article must say. Anyone who will read this will feel like it’s their own story.
146. A

     Thanks for putting all this out there. This is something I really needed to read. I, too, am a self-taught web developer at age 14, albeit was working since age 17. Am now 32, married, and could use more money to support my family. I love my current job and I feel like something higher paying would require a leap in skills and knowledge that… is just not me. Consequently the impostor feeling has been suffocating to the point I can barely function at work as of late. Until reading this article I didn’t even acknowledge this internal struggle has been going on. It’s bizarre how one can go through motions to reaffirm we’re damn good at what we do, yet once again get stuck with this “impostor syndrome.”

     I suppose what scares me is the world does seem to want more of an engineer, do far more in far less time, far less (no) room for error, perform far faster for every machine and to scale, and so on, and that it’s a demand I was never meant to meet. While I’ve met every unprecedented challenge ever given to me, this was always done on-the-job, not off, so that next level thing… it just feels so daunting, like it really exposes the imposter syndrome like never before.
147. Raf

     This is one of the Best blog posts I have ever read! I have been struggling with it too, it’s much better now than it was in the beginning though. ~9 years prof. webdev. Keep up the good work!
148. Asad

     best work…best write up…all the best and ennjoy the gems that you have at home.
149. Prefect

     You very well encapsulated the arrogance and entitlement that can prevail in the field. Irrespective of your specialization, there’s always someone who will have a provably better solution and can do it faster. Tomorrow that person can be you. It all comes down to being humble in your craft and be open minded with your peers.
     Thank you for being brave enough to bring this subject to light.
150. craig lerr

     Do you know unity3d? i am doing gaming using unity!
151. Sam

     A little late to the party, but this has been a very relevant post and hit me at a personal level. Thanks David, you hit it right on the head. :)
152. Yusi

     gosh this was a moving post :'(
153. Joel

     I just read I must say that I never felt so identified , I have 28 years and not so long ago started writing code , this wasn´t my line of work but I discovered that I really love it. Unfortunately there´re days where I want to leave everything and go back to my previous job due to my lack of confidence and days Fighting a kind of depression that even prevents me from sitting in front of the pc .
     Finally , I just want to tell you that you have inspired me a lot and you made ​​me want to fight to the end , hopefully a happy ending.
     Cheers from Argentina
154. Randy

     David, this is a great post I have to say that I think a lot of people identify with this. I am changing careers after 14 years to web development and even in my last career I felt like an impostor on many many occasions, you come across people who have answers to questions you have had for years, you are asked a question by a customer or boss that you havent ever even though of or come across before, you are stuck on a problem for hours and find that the first thing you should have looked for was the solution but you passed it over because its never that thing.
     But one thing that you have to remember is that everyone is an impostor, very few people are experts, even the manufacturers and top level people in many industries struggle with their role. Just because we dont have every answer doesnt mean that were impostors, it just means that were people. All we can do is our best and not misrepresent things, ourselves and our products.

     Someone told me once to be great you dont have to know all the answers, but you have to know where to find the answers.

     I have lived my life by this statement and I think it has fueled me past many impostor moments in my career.
155. An Impostor

     Big Ups for the article.
156. Matthew Kaye

     This entire article rung sickeningly true to me. It’s two hours into the work day, and my GUID code has, seemingly of its own accord, decided to create them with a return carriage key before, and the entire quotation system has knackered itself.

     That was three weeks ago, and I’m still struggling with it.

     I know the company is losing out on big money from it, and I feel directly responsible. After reading this article, though, I can kind of appreciate that it’s a horribly crowded boat of self-loathing and personal doubt, which makes me feel a lot better.

     Well, back to work – absolutely fantastic article, appreciate the motivation. I really needed it! :-)
157. Lyn

     Thank you for this article David. As a middle-age newbie to coding, I am already hooked on coding, but definitely have concerns about being an “imposter” as I progress through my semi-self-taught learning process. With all your skills and background, to continue to feel as an imposter, makes me realize that it must just be a part of being a developer for most of us. Truly appreciate your raw transparency……very refreshing.
158. Eduardo Pelitti

     Awesome, beautiful and inspiring article.

     I too have felt as an impostor many times, a little bit like Di Caprio on Catch me if you can (though he passed the bar exam!).

     Thanks for this!
159. Al

     I’m fresh out of a masters in IT. A conversion course I did after deciding to change careers. I have an interview for a graduate position next week and I really do feel like an imposter. Don’t know what to expect when it comes to technical questions.
     This article has filled me with some hope that even the experienced guys feel like imposters sometimes too!
160. Laberg

     Awesome article! I feel the same way. I am getting paid for doing something I feel I am not very good at. But knowing that I’m not the only one doubting my skills comforts me a lot! And seeing that people more experienced and talented than me are affected the same way too shows me that no matter how good you are, you can still be able to doubt your work. It’s normal. You are concerned by doing things right. But I agree you have to give yourself credit and remember the times you have been able to help someone with some computer/code related problem. You are more worthy than you think, especially if you are reading this article, it means you are trying to improve yourself and that you are anxious of not letting people down!
     Read blogs like this one, follow online courses, try answering questions on dev forums, don’t be afraid of asking for help to your collegues and interact with other people about your field, you will see you know more than you think you do!
161. Eli

     I just came across this post looking for the answer to a question I had, and it explains how I feel exactly. Thank you for putting my daily struggle into words.
162. Joyce

     David, I was very surprised to read this from you. You have always struck me as a very confident and competent developer. I got into web development after a couple of other careers in unrelated fields, so the imposter feeling came very naturally to me. I’m a year and a half into my third web dev job and have done very well over the past few years. I have found that the imposter feeling diminishes significantly when I am open with my colleagues both about the things I do know and feel confident about and the things I don’t know. A team of honest people who draw on each other’s strengths can tackle and succeed at anything. Thanks for this post.
• David Walsh

  Thank you Joyce! I hope you’re well!
163. Rick

     It’s not unusual.

     When I first got into this field in the 80’s, I went from a geology degree to a cross-platform graphics company (you could do that back then.) I remember sitting at my desk thinking, “What am I doing here? These people all know what they’re doing. I barely have the concept of an object library down…”

     That said, it wasn’t long before I was considered one of the top developers in the company. During a review, my boss said I was ‘talented’. I guess that was a compelling enough argument to keep me around.

     My career since then has spanned a lot of technologies and languages. People seem to mostly like me – as a contractor, I’m typically extended until the client runs out of money or some organizational change causes the contract to end.

     Imposter? I dunno. But, I know there’s always something else to learn and I love learning it – it’s why the field fascinates me and always will as long as humans are still writing code.
164. Beny

     Thank you for this!
165. SomeDev

     I never use my real name on the internet because I’m afraid my employer will see me post questions that will get me fired. Meanwhile reflecting on your points I’ve been employed in the industry for over 10 years starting fairly early in my life… But this coming from you man… I’ve been following you for a LONG TIME, you’re not even close. One point I would really like to make that I think you should add to *Why We Feel Like Impostors* is.. Watching video tutorials on code, ALWAY take with a grain of salt because that video WAS edited. Meaning debugging takes more than 2 seconds, and they didn’t run that once and have no errors.

     (Meanwhile, I post this as I’m working at 1 AM because I think I’m going to get fired which never happens. The struggle is real. )
166. sammy

     I feel exactly like you. I’m an aspiring web developer starting in the field of javascript and I feel the same way. But I’ trying to overcome my fear and posts like yours have given me some confidence. Thanks!
167. Casey Dwayne

     Just to add, I think part of the imposter syndrome has to deal with design. The work developers do goes largely unseen outside of the development community.

     Most of my conversations with the non-tech crowd goes something like this…

     “What do you do?”

     “I’m a web developer.”

     “Oh, so you design websites?”

     …

     Development is one of the most challenging and rapidly evolving industries in human history. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, but you should never feel like an imposter! I’ve been reading your stuff for years. Being self taught is not a bad thing. It allows you to think outside the box, and means you have a desire to constantly improve.

     I hope good things continue to come your way.
168. Sean

     David, I just came across this post and it blew my mind. I truly thought I was the only one who’d ever felt this.

     I’ve been in my profession for 10 years since graduating with a BSCompE and ME.. yet from Day One I’ve been waiting to be “found out”.

     The last several months I’ve been hitting C# for the first time, feeling way “behind”. Then when I mustered up the courage to email an expert colleague (25+ years dev experience) about a question I had about a C# behavior I was seeing in my project, he replied.. “Interesting. I don’t know.”

     It reminded me that yes, I was stumped, not because I was lacking decades of expertise.. but because the understanding and ability that I never give myself credit for had come to a legitimately “interesting” brick wall.

     Thanks so much for this post!
169. Younes

     Hi David,

     Thank you so much for writing this post and for your honesty about these kind of feelings. I totally relate to this post and I feel that it expresses the struggle some of us go through!

     I hope more *famous* community members blog and share about failure times and the struggle they face to keep up with the job expectations.

     Thanks again
170. Christine Schatz

     Thank you for this and for saying promises and async are hard! You don’t hear a lot of engineers admitting that. :)
171. Steve Gonzalez

     Hi David – this is such a fantastic article!

     In your writeup you’ve stated “… after a few interviews (and the feeling that I blew them), gave me a job offer.”.

     I just wanted to reinstate and confirm that you are in fact correlating your experience interviewing with Mozilla to giving the interviewing team fellatio while interviewing. Is this correct? If not, I apologize and look forward toward gaining clarity on the situation.
172. Barry

     Thank you for your thoughtfulness and courage to share these thoughts. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” You have lifted me, and I believe so many others. Thank you again, David. – Sincerely, Barry
173. Dina

     I just switched careers and so I’m totally new to the world of web development. Just did an online technical assessment for a job which I probably screwed up. Then I’ve been obsessing over how i could have done it better and wondering if I am even cut out for this. Went to Google to look for answers about how to salvage the botched assessment in a follow interview and somehow stumbled upon your blog post. It was eye-opening to read and helped calm me a little. Thank you!
174. Rob

     Fantastic article that I’m sure many of us introverted developers can relate to.
175. Gabriele

     Yes you are, probably.
     I don’t really know you, I just read this post but from what you write I *do* feel that you are an impostor.

     You wrote blogs and taught other people things that you didn’t really know, you consciously over-promoted yourself through your whole career and it seems that many people believe you are a lot more knowledgeable than you actually are.

     Not every developer feels this way because not every developer do these things.
     There are not just “over-prometers who maybe just avoid expicitly calling themselves experts” and “self-proclaimed experts who really know nothing”, there are also very knowledgeable persons or even experts that don’t over-promote themselves and stay humble because they are aware they don’t know everything.
     Web developers do fall more easily in the former two categories, though, which is probably why you got so many sympathetic replies.

     Maybe you had decent reasons for doing it (family… money….) but yes you _do_ seem to be an impostor.

     —

     The cure is to stop over-promoting yourself and start to note down everything you’re uncertain about and look for every information available about it. And no, it’s not all in blogs, most of it will be in books and specifications.

     Or just not care about it, you may be ripping off some nerd but you seem to have a nice family. Just get back to not giving a shit and maybe brag about this with your friends instead of writing another smartass blog post. Your way is probably smarter than us losers’ after all.

     —

     BTW, I’m NOT an expert about you, it may very well be that I’m entirely wrong. I just wanted you to read at least one reply not licking your ass.
• Developer

  Dear Gabriele,
  I’m NOT an expert about you either, but I can tell you are a dip.
176. Marco Barayan

     Thank you so much. This is indeed a great article. It’s an encouragement for me as I experienced self-doubt and I felt like I don’t belong to this industry.
177. Rodrigo

     Thanks for writing it :)
178. Marcio Clume

     Great post! Thank you so much for translating in words this hard and constant feeling! And to encourage me to “find a way to smile!
179. Sandeep

     Stunning… I am a wreck. I have spent a lot of my profession discussing data security, even went so far as to get two bosses degrees in the subject, I know and consider what dangers exist or how I would endeavor to exploit frameworks or procedures.

     It is all scholarly, hypothetical. Truly I have taken numerous specialized courses in the info sec business, have a couple of accreditation, however it is a greater amount of an I can recall X or Y, yet would i be able to really “DO” it? I fear the disappointment that in the event that I attempt the hands on that I will come up short and be perceived as a fake.

     There is quite recently such a great amount out there to discover that I get overpowered that I abstain from making a move since it might demonstrate that I dont know anything about security and shouldnt be endeavoring to direct others.
180. Steve

     I couldn’t agree more with the concept of blogging to ease the sense of impostor syndrome. I decided to blog largely to address this very issue, hoping that if I post something dumb somebody will correct me and I’ll get better. And if I happen to post something that helps somebody else then, great!

     The key concept for me is this: I want to get better at what I do. And the best way to get better is to put yourself out there for the chance to learn from others.
181. Mark Rabey

     Thanks for this. I think I needed to find this post today. I love your list of ways to snap out of it. I used to blog so much, but lately I felt like even that was “fake”. The odd post trickles out here and there, but I have so many “drafts” that I just gave up on, or didn’t hit “publish” because of some sort of silly fear. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in this!
182. Dave

     I can totally relate.
     I commend your honest sharing.
     As you can see, this is not an isolated problem: its an isolation problem.
     What changed in me was when God revealed to me that life is about who I am, not what I do.
183. Ted

     I think a lot of this “imposter syndrome” stems from feeling the need to project oneself as successful, knowledgable, “an expert”. This tendency isn’t new to history, of course, but I have a feeling it isn’t helped by recent or semi-recent developments such as

     1. Facebook, Twitter, other media that encourage topics centered around self; facilitating these sorts of projections by presenting other people’s projected selves (all successful, happy) for comparison.*

     2. The concept of “branding” applied to self (and many other similar concepts / trends in business).

     I think it’s definitely unrealistic and unfounded that anyone should feel like they have to be infallible or all-knowing or afraid to make mistakes–at any level. Especially in such a convoluted, ever-changing field like computer science (and particularly web development). I saw someone mention they felt like an imposter because they used StackOverflow… well, I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly program nowadays without reading SO or similar resources, especially if you’re juggling half a dozen languages / frameworks / etc. as is often the case nowadays.

     * To a lesser extent technical blogs can fall into that category (no reflection on you), especially ones that were primarily created to help the blogger land a job and look like an expert. But, on the other hand, there’s plenty of blogs whose primary purpose is to help the blogger learn / articulate their knowledge and help teach people.
184. Thomas

     It’s like you were writing about my life. Thank you so much for putting words to this problem for me. I have struggled with this my whole life with working at places that everyone was older than me and wouldn’t listen to me because I was young. Now that I am older I still fill like that younger guy that gets judged by everyone around me, by a measuring stick that is set by me. lol.

     This article is helping me a lot.
185. Carl-Erik Kopseng

     Thank you for writing this. Your thoughts are much aligned with what I have been thinking myself: both feelings involved and the reasons for thinking so. I think the essence of this will always stay true in our profession, and there will always be times when we will think this of ourself. Thank you for the tips on overcoming this hurdle to mental well being.
186. Luis

     You are not the only impostor… WE ALL ARE!!!

     Truth be told: none of us is doing what we truly are suppose to be doing, and subconsciously we know it, but it comes down to the conscious mind as “guilt” or that impostor feeling…

     Have you ever taken the time to observe (with no ego present, no judging, no inquiry, no good or bad… just observing) how your breath… the air goes in, then out. Sometimes fast, some other times slow, and then very slowly.

     Have you ever try to observe calmly how you walk? How you first put one foot forward, and how that foot lands on the ground, and then how does your leg feels the tension of stretching it and putting the weight on the foot, or how the rest of the body feels at the time you step? and Have you done it for at least 15 minutes?

     Have you ever stopped to see your child sleep and observer how they breath, and how wonderful they are, and with your “mind’s eye” pretend that you are reaching deep into their thought to see the simplicity and humbleness of their way of being?

     Have you ever stopped to watch your wife (or husband) while she sleeps… and think that in a blink of an eye we will be old… and then gone… and how wonderfull it is that you have her next to you? Of how wonderfull it is that another concious being in this ocean of life has chosen you to be her partner, the one who will protect her and help her in life? Of how wonderfull it is that she feeds you and keeps your clotes clean, and how she goes to work to help with the income…? of how wonderful it is that she LOVES YOU?

     Have you ever…?

     If not, now you know why we are all impostors.

     Working as a web developer, programmer, or any other job for that matter, DOES NOT make you a real person… it will never give you the fulfilling that an impostor lacks. NEVER. Those jobs are only mechanically physical (and even a job where you mainly use your brain is physical) jobs made up by us humans because of our cravings, limitation, and selfishness… and in a some very few instances, when seeking true knowledge… true understanding.

     Go ahead, keep doing what ever job you do in society… all jobs will make you feel like an impostor… BECAUSE those jobs are shallow and do not bring you closer to your inner self.

     But, if instead, you realize that no matter what job you have, you will do your best because it will allow you to have the income which will allow you to protect what truly matter most in your life, then that feeling of impostor will disappear… Why? Because now the “job” has become an important tool to help you protect and love what matters most in life…

     When our time comes to die, you will be happy and fulfilled if you put your effort and conciousness in what truly matter during every menial task of job we ever do… if you clean toilets, it was an honest job that you performed honourably and with the purpose of helping and protecting your love ones… if you are programmer, make sure that there is no ego of selfishness because you are doing that job to honour and protect what matter most in your life… if you are the president of the country, the same… a job is only a tool… not a destination or a “life” fulfilment…

     I also work in the computer field (programming, we development, etc), and I have also cleaned floors, washed dishes at at restaurant, I was a handy man, a driver, a mechanic, a security officer, a baby sitter, a secretary, a computer technician, a musician, and a teacher for a public school among other things… each one of those jobs was important. They were important because I was performing them… not some one else instead of me… and I was not being a hypocrite nor dishonour myself or the job by doing “wrong” thing… that would have not only dishonour the job, but also the effort I gave in and the “love” ones I was protecting with those jobs…

     I’m almost at the end of my time here, and I have leave a good life… “MY” life… a life with my sights on what truly matters most… jobs were only a tool, and they will always be just that. Loose sight of that and then we will let greed, selfishness, competition, and control over other to set in our life…

     Have you ever gone for a walk… and very attemptively absorb the presence of your wife or your children, their very own unique and peculiar way of “Being”? Have you “sense” where that dog on the street looking for? Have you ever felt the pain of an older person trying to get up a chair or when trying to cross the street…? IF you had, then you most likely were right there helping them… otherwise, you didn’t feel a thing.
187. Sean

     David, I’ve been reading this blog for years. You’ve helped me countless times. Thanks for that, and thanks for this article. Keep kicking ass (just not your own).
188. Serge

     Oh David, you are amazing! It’s actually uplifting to read your post! I almost had tears. I’m a developer but I believe this applies to any field, whether you are a doctor, a lawyer, a prime minister or an artist. Thanks.
189. Michael

     Thanks for that David. In not so many words, I’ve asked the same questions of myself – and accused myself of being an impostor as well. Then I think about all the times I heard someone say “it’s not possible” as incentive to achieve the impossible. Doing things that nobody else has done before is a definite confidence boost.
190. Joe

     Brilliant post, David. I feel that this is something most developers suffer from. There is always somebody faster or more knowledgeable in your team and with the transparencies of PR’s your every shortcut or mistake is available for the entire team to see. I can’t think of any profession outside of surgeons where your work is so scrutinised. But, it is lucrative and can be extremely satisfying when you get it right.
     Keep up the great work.
191. Curls

     Addition to the the list — indecisions.

     I was noticing that though I wrote the code, there are so many other ways I can consider revamping it.

     That plethora of options, leads to so much constant self-examination of one’s code — that you wind up insecure.

     Is it easy to understand by other programmers? Designed so it’s easy to maintain, and expandable? Is every last way a user can approach it, considered?

     Those three are very hard questions, before other people even see the code. It’s trying to do massive amounts of consideration of factors, most of which aren’t even known yet (how it will be used in the future) or known to you (how user will for sure approach it).

     Along with that, every moment of the day has to be focused to be useful. Rote doesn’t exist much.

     So it’s fun… but there’s what you’re saying…
192. igmuska

     You have’t fail yet, you have to write a book that in three years will be outdated after two popular editions – both complete rewrites lol now that would be imposter syndrome
193. Ashish Singh

     Thanks a lot for sharing this! Being a full time freelancer, this feeling of not being there is constantly present. Working on something and with your skillset, just mastering them needs a lot of hard continuous work. Then there are creators of libraries that we use and looking upto them, there is just no room for comparison. There are many questions: – what have I created and offered to the community? Can I create something good enough that can match the level of competence that exists out there?

     I’ve been doing my bits to get over these feelings by just doing the best I can in the jobs I do, following the best practices, learning and improving the code as I progress in this journey. For the contribution bits, I’ve been making an effort to answer questions on Stackoverflow, raise pull requests in the projects I use (have to do more on this).

     About getting confidence, direct feedback from the client for a project says it all. Makes me feel that I am good enough to deliver on the job as well as the capability to get the job in the first place. But there are times when you don’t have jobs. This is the time where I’ve been pushing more on the learning and contribution side. It makes me happy and brings satisfaction.

     Also, understanding the bit that work is just a part of your life, luckily I understood it in the very beginning of my professional career when I was working with a tech company and it has been such a helpful thought! It has shaped my life and helped me take decisions to follow and take out time for other things that I am passionate about.

     I think I am finding my way to cope up with this feeling and hopefully will come out of it.

     My wife says – “Comparison is the highway to disappointment”.

     I feel it is true when we keep the comparison with others, and in the long run when we burn out, it is sheer disappointment. The same thought can also be used to game your level up, learn and be the better version of yourself. I feel comfortable with doing comparison with myself and knowing that I’m improving helps.
     Being inspired and awed by work of others is going to remain and continue but a goal to be like them, reach the place they have is no longer an aim.

     I’ll follow my own journey.
194. Gyanendra Chaubey

     Holy s**t. This is me ..just everything you discussed perfectly resonates with me
195. Daniel

     Great post! May I join the imposter club with you?!

     Keep posting, I love your site.
196. peter

     Great post,
     Also great to see that you have a nice family that can make you smile, i currently feel a bit the same way, i am a senior angular developer, i help allot of my colleagues when they have questions, even preparing a rxjs workshop, still never feel it will be good enough, i feel like i lack the knowledge to ever be the expert in some domain and despite of you i don’t have a nice family to make me smile
197. Priest

     Thanks, I’m a self-taught web developer and your article have made me to realize that my ideas might not be stupid at all.
198. Mary K

     I can’t help thinking after reading all this, you are not an impostor but I definitely am. Really. I don’t even have the college degree or even one college credit. I’m so intimidated by others in my profession and that isn’t helped by the fact that asking for help on the internet, such as sites like Stack Overflow, I’ve encountered so much SNARK from people just for asking a question, so I am afraid to ask a question when I really need help. I have 20 years of experience with ETL and data warehousing yet I feel that at any moment someone will find out I’m a fraud. It’s very depressing.
199. Vita Markman

     Thank you for sharing this.. I can say so much more on this topic and my personal horrid journey though it every day , but for now I will just say THANK you . It makes it easier to know one is not alone …
200. Erez

     Thanks for this honest post
201. John Mathew

     I chanced on this article when reading about serialising strings in PHP. I’m glad this article exists, I was drawn to it simply cause I felt what I felt. This is not the first time I have felt this and it mostly won’t be the last either. But I’m sure it will be easier to deal with, having known I’m not the only one who feels this.

     Thank you for daring to be vulnerable so that others can grow to be better.
202. Walter Westinghouse

     Wow! That was the coolest thing I have ever read! Thanks for sharing that, dude.
203. Julien

     for what’s worth, i met this article few days after it was published and later posted it on facebook as a “oh, someone feels like that too”. that post still comes back every year by the “on this day” feature, and every year i read it again, and still i feel the same. i guess the feeling never goes away.
204. K Nousu

     This post I know is old by now, but I wanted to comment all the same. I work only peripherally with code – JS/HTML/CSS – out of necessity, as I am an online ops mgr and I spend most of my time in GPT/DFP, working with publishers’ sites when they are either using, implementing or revising their tag structure. But as it happens, I also was recently tasks with creating a responsive iframe to deliver a native unit into a pub’s page, as we were calling the content via a frame from their end. Your consise blog post on that subject gave me EXACTLY what I needed in order to deliver style variations into my template for different aspect ratios, even though my knowledge of ANY of this is relatively skeletal, I get it enough that with guidance like yours, I could work it out for the client on my own without need to hassle the devs. So first, thanks for that. I also wanted to say that in our industry – which is sometimes as cumbersome, crazy and messy as yours – the feeling of never knowing enough is prevalent, even after 15 years. I work for someone who is the opposite, who “knows so little that she thinks she knows it all” and it is really frustrating, even if I know deep down she appreciates the fact I can bring a more tech-friendly eye to the processes we undertake. As a sidenote – my husband is adev, and him also being the introspective type, suffers from this same feeling – we’re all noobs, really. But the thing is, that’s okay. Just as you alluded to – it’s when we think we know everything that we are setting ourselves up to fall. Be humble and open to learning, remember that none of us can know everything, and we will surely be okay.
205. No One

     It used to be that years of software development experience really meant something. When code bases would last for years and a deep understanding of it was a real asset, kind of like a surgeon that has inside the body many times and really knows his way around. But since tech stacks change roughly every two years, you will never get the chance to become truly experienced in anything. Plus the fact that our code bases are rewritten every few years as well. It creates a perpetual “catch up” to stay productive, always feeling like you never really get to gain traction.
206. I no da wey

     I think people with imposter syndrom expect to much of themselves, a lot more than others actual do.
     I think what can really help is, get regular feedback from coworkers and customers. It makes reflecting on your own skills a lot easier. You might find something unexpected or people value something you take for granted in your skills as extraordinary.

     Another thing I think is good to remind ourselves of, is, staying playful like children. Children fail all the time and improve. When I learned programming as a child, what kept me going was curiosity and imagination of thinks I could build. I did not think of my failures as something bad, it is just the way how it goes.

     At work it can help a lot to create a culture of helping, so that it is just a normal thing to help each other and learn alongside from each other. Of course this depends a lot on the culture in the country and in the company, if this possible or not.
207. Caveman Py

     Nice, encouraging, comforting read. Hopefully your inner dragon and its voice have been slain by now, or at least that voice is much more muted today than when you posted. Imposter Syndrome, aka self-doubt, can be a deeply ingrained orientation–a literal framework–within our head-space especially if we were raised within a very critical, never-do-well environment as a child. That and not being breast-fed. Yeah those two are probably related. Thank you: first for having the courage to initially post this; second, for not deleting this post every time that f**king inner-dragon’s voice roared at you that you should delete this. If the dragon had won, myself and countless other readers would not have benefited as I have today five years after you originally posted. Cheers!
208. Vijay

     Thank you for daring to be vulnerable so that others can grow to be better. That was the coolest thing I have ever read! Thanks for sharing that, Buddy.
209. Joy Nwaiwu

     Wow! This is by far the most beautiful thing I’ve read this week. Thanks a lot for sharing.
210. Claude

     Thank you for sharing this. Great article. Heartwarming!