Overcoming Impostor Syndrome
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Coding
From the outside, it would appear I was on the textbook path of programming. Started making websites at 15. Took programming and web design classes in my tech-oriented high school. Was accepted by my first choice school and majored in Computer Engineering. Had great internships at a tech giant. Wrote code that was used by millions of people. Graduated with distinction. Cofounded a software startup.
And yet despite doing everything right, I didn’t think of myself as a good programmer.
On the inside, a different narrative played out. I got into university due to affirmative action. I had a good GPA because we didn’t have “weeder” classes and I didn’t take the really hardcore CS courses. I got my job because my interview only covered things I knew. I got excellent performance evaluations because I was given manageable assignments. I did well in school and work projects because friends who were good programmers helped me out.
I managed to get that far through sheer dumb luck and managed to keep everyone from finding out I’m not great at programming. I was constantly in fear that I would encounter some task I wouldn’t be able to code or a bug I couldn’t resolve, despite a track record of successfully using new languages and frameworks…
