How To Beat Imposter Syndrome In Tech

have you ever felt like you were just hired by mistake like there had to have been some type of error in management or hr because you just don't feel like you belong almost like you've been playing pop warner flag football this entire time and now you're suddenly expected to play in the nfl if you have been through imposter syndrome or currently going through it now you know exactly what i'm talking about it's the worst feeling in the world hi my name is jeremiah peoples i'm a self-taught software developer and about a year into my software development career i applied to work with vmware in los angeles as a full stack software developer making some space satellite application somehow someway i guess i got accepted so i went out to los angeles for six months to work on that application in the full stack capacity so i hopped off a plane in lax so when i landed i longboarded straight into work and then i realized i don't really know how to be a full stack software engineer i only had experience you know manipulating the front end without even react so i was a bit uncomfortable so to say i was uncomfortable and and out of place uh is an understatement so now i had to learn on the job react.js didn't know it my sequel didn't know it graphql kotlin all these things i had no idea how to use i just had to do them and not only do them but do them in the company of amazing engineers that guy over there he used to work for google that guy over there he's wearing a patagonia sweatshirt i don't know what that means i guarantee you that individual codes that good good patagonia never fails and for the cherry on top of the cherry they all use mac os i've never i've never used mac os before and i was having to look down to copy and paste and you know how embarrassing that is to be the most junior person having to look down to copy and paste i couldn't couldn't even deal that same day someone said hey man you're kind of slow on the keyboard i bought i bought a mac that same day 1500 dropped it took it home practiced copy and pasting because i was not gonna look like a fool on the keyboard i thought wouldn't it be nice if i could just fix all my problems buy a macbook pro and be flung out of imposter syndrome i wish day in and day out for five weeks i try to learn all those languages frameworks and libraries and i just i i just couldn't i felt defeated every single day i would come back to my apartment i would curl up in a little tiny ball and i would just look at the ceiling and be like is there a way out of this being self-taught doesn't matter oddly enough apparently it doesn't matter your background they didn't really care that i was a self-taught developer i try to keep it to myself a bit because i know these guys went to prestigious universities in southern california and i was just self-taught so i tried to keep the information to myself but when it finally came up it was so simple he was like yeah by the way uh what college did you go to uh udemy where the website oh cool hey what feature you wanna work on today what and we just we moved on after that it was it was such a non-factor that i was like wow this feeling of imposter syndrome is definitely in my head because these people don't care they just want me to write nice code it doesn't matter that i'm a software developer that learned on udemy they just want me to write nice code okay it's been five weeks of feeling like complete trash garbage at my job but this feeling of imposter syndrome i'm understanding is primarily just living in my own head if it's living in my own head that means it's my problem and my job to fix it because no one else is gonna come in here and be like hey man you're worth it you're good enough every single day they're not gonna do that so the task was how do i get myself out of imposter syndrome it was the simplest mindset switch that was finally able to get me out of imposter syndrome and i thought about it like this back when i was about about that big knee-high to a grasshopper it was 2007. that's the year pop lock and drop it came out for for reference i was playing flag football i loved it i was enjoying it but i wasn't really the best because i was that big like every kid though i had role models i had sports heroes for me it was devin hester and reggie bush and walter payton i wanted to be like them so bad so every sunday when reggie bush and devin hester were playing i would sit down in front of the tv and just watch but i wasn't just this little kid who wanted to be a fan i wanted literally to be them i even grew my hair out to match devin hester's dreads and to be them though i'd have to study them so every time they did a move or a juke that i couldn't do i would write it down on a little notepad i would go out in the backyard and i would practice that move until i could do it and it was a part of my arsenal i did that method of studying their moves and adding them to my arsenal for 10 years and at the end of that 10 years i wasn't saying i'm like a reggie bush or anything but i was pretty darn good leaps and bounds better than when i first started in 2007 playing peewee flag football and that was the switch that flipped in my head that finally made me realize okay this is what you need to do except now i didn't have to wait until sunday to take notes on the best in the industry they were literally right there with me pair programming so every single day i would keep a microsoft to-do list open and every time i heard a move not a move every time i heard something that i didn't know recursion binary sort i would write it down on my little list and then at the end of the day i would come home to my apartment and i would study that so that i could add that new skill to my tool belt and become a better developer every single day the things i saw in common between playing pee wee in 2007 flag football versus being a junior software developer is that everyone starts somewhere no one's expecting a person just starting out in industry to be just as good as the people who have been in industry for 10 years i'm not gonna be a walter payton uh peyton manning a devin hester when i just start playing football we are also not gonna be the greatest software engineers when we're just a year into our careers looking back on it now it's so ridiculous that i even tried to make that kind of comparison imposter syndrome fades over time like everything in life practice makes perfect and if you're going through it right now ask yourself what are the exact reasons you feel like an imposter and that's your answer right there those are the things you need to work on make a list of the exact reasons you feel like an imposter and then day by day practice those things cross them off the list and i guarantee you as soon as you cross a couple more things off the list one two three four things you'll feel like less of an imposter we were hired for a reason and that reason is not to worry about am i good enough for this job was it an accident no it's just to contribute to the team and to the product that's our job and we need to figure out ways how to teach ourselves how to learn how to grow so that we can do that job to the best of our ability embrace the uncomfort if you're feeling uncomfortable that means you are in the perfect position to grow and you are in a place that is challenging to you so embrace it enjoy it and work hard through it good luck on whatever journey you're on stay hungry stay motivated i really appreciate you for watching and i'll see you on the next one see ya [Music] two

Channel: Jeremiah Peoples

Views: 18,309

Keywords: Jeremiah peoples, black in tech, how i beat imposter syndrome as a self taught software developer, how to overcome imposter syndrome as a software developer, imposter syndrome in tech, what is imposter syndrome, how to beat imposter syndrome, how to overcome imposter syndrome as a developer, how to become a better developer, how to feel more comfortable as a self taught software developer, self taught software developer

Id: wnWoHPQfj2s

Length: 7min 15sec (435 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021