Episode 370: Fake imposter syndrome and opposite ends

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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hello Jave and Dames, Long time listener short time Dev. Big fan of the show, my confidence in my skills as a programmer has always been pretty low so having a podcast centered around the “soft skills” instead of more complex topics like “Covariance and Contravariance”, “Temporal Logic”, or “Basic Addition” gives me the strength to press further on.

   Onto the question, how do you gain more confidence in yourself as a developer and not feel like a burden to your team?

   I’m a recent graduate with a bachelors in CS. During my time in University I struggled and took more time to grasp many of the concepts than my peers. After somehow graduating I was too scared to even look for a programming job for a full year.

   After being encouraged by some amazing people I finally applied and started a job as a Junior Dev for a software company and I’m now in a constant state of screaming internally. Everyone there is so much smarter, the training routine consists mostly of being given a project then having to stop another developer for help. And we program in an IDE and language that is so underused and underdocumented that I won’t name either for fear of doxxing the company.

   I actually like the job, my coworkers are super nice. My project manager is the same and cares about the team. I’ve finished the projects given to me on schedule so far and of course it’s pretty nice making more than minimum wage + tips.

   Any advice on how to gain confidence? I’m programming and learning in my off time but I’m still worried one day they will see me for the weak chain in the linked list I am and will delete me from existence and linkedin as I’m assuming is standard for firings in the tech world.

   P.S. If you tell me to quit my job I will simply find a second job to quit, Checkmate.

2. Listener SuperSonny asks,

   My boss and myself have a difference of what is a value added activity to the company. Even when we agree that our end goal is the same our approaches are night and day different. We have discussed this many times and understand we are different people but can this relationship work? This has created a lot of tension in our work relationship. Can two people at different ends of the “thought process” spectrum work together?