It seems like every other day I run into some post/tweet/article about people whining about having the imposter syndrome. It seems like no other profession (except maybe acting) is filled with people like this.

Well lemme answer that question for you lot.

YES YOU ARE A BLOODY IMPOSTER.

There. I said it. BUT.

Know that you're already a step up from those clowns that talk a lot but say nothing of substance.

You're better than the rockstar dev that "understands" the entire codebase because s/he is the freaking moron that created that convoluted nonsensical pile of shit in the first place.

You're better than that person who thinks knowing nothing is fine. It's just a job and a pay cheque.

The main question is, what the flying fuck are you going to do about being an imposter? Whine about it on twtr/fb/medium? HOW ABOUT YOU GO LEARN SOMETHING BEYOND FRAMEWORKS OR MAKING DUMB CRUD WEBSITES WITH COLOR CHANGING BUTTONS.

Computers are hard. Did you expect to spend 1 year studying random things and waltz into the field as a fucking expert? FUCK YOU. How about you let a "doctor" who taught himself medicine for 1 year do your open heart surgery?

Learn how a godamn computer actually works. Do you expect your doctors and surgeons to be ignorant of how the body works? If you aspire to be a professional WHY THE FUCK DO YOU STAY AT THE SURFACE.

Go learn about Compilers, complete projects with low level languages like C / Rust (protip: stay away from C++, Java doesn't count), read up on CPU architecture, to name a few topics.

Then, after learning how your computers work, you can start learning functional programming and appreciate the tradeoffs it makes. Or go learn AI/ML/DS. But preferably not before.

Basically, it's fine if you were never formally taught. Get yourself schooled, quit bitching, and be patient. It's ok to be stupid, but it's not ok to stay stupid forever.

/rant

Beware: this is me expressing how I feel about my programming/my skillset, and so on. It might be imposter syndrome but I am having a fucking bad episode right now and I just need to get this the fuck out.

I work at a distribution center right now. Can I provide for myself? Yes. Do I even slightly like my work? No I fucking hate it to the point. I hate going there every day, doing shit I don't like, not being able to focus on the shit I love but that's it for me for now.

In my free time I still am able to program a little but then the (I will call it imposter syndrome for now as I have no clue how to call it) imposter syndrome comes looking around the FUCKING corner.

*What the fuck are you doing? For real man, someone else could do that like way fucking better*

*Wow man your code..... there are so many people who would write that a million times better*

*You have re-written this for 10 times now. But seriously, this still sucks fucking balls*.

Fucking hell. Yes, at programming level I am still a junior, I fucking know that. But it fucking sucks feeling like anyone but you would do the shit you're making better anyways.

How fucking down can you get yourself. How bad can you make yourself feel through just a few fucking words/thoughts.

The only thing I am happy about right now is the fact that a very good friend is able to keep me at least slightly sane right now.

Every time I post a question to SO I feel so anxious.
Did I provide enough code samples and information?
Did I provide TOO MUCH information?
Is my English alright?
Did I really try everything else or will someone point out something totally obvious after that I feel that I need to delete my post because it's just dumb?

Feeling anxious right now... Worst of all: it's an important work related question, so I have to think about a new task because this issue was my only one and a road blocker.

AAAARRGGHHH!

If your reading this and currently suffering from imposter syndrome then I have some words for you...

You’re fucking awesome! If you get a little better every day then you are the fucking bomb and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Fuck the doubt because you are only as professional and valuable as you believe you are.

2010: haha yeah I use StackOverflow too
2011: SO, amirite?
2012: omg SO servers are down
2013: am engineer and I use SO to remember how to eat and breathe
2014: guys, what if SO was down. CODEPOCALYPSE!
2015: I use SO and have imposter syndrome
2016: omg, git checkout this SO meme on /r/programmerhumor
2017: I'd rather skin my mother alive than have SO dowb
2018: Stack fucking Overflow... like.. what if... you... can't... use it... in an interview...
2019: check my twitter @paresh, tons of SO references with barely intelligible english

just fucking drop dead, pieces of shit...

I fucked up.

In my career, colleagues always looked up to me to solve everything. From day 1.
Hell, I have nicknames; « The Dad », « Machine », « The Beard »... when I meet a new group of devs at the bar they use those nicknames even if I have no clue who they are.

Result? I'm not allowed to fail and even if I do and try to take responsibility, no one ever blame me.

They see me as a fucking zen programming monk, all wise, patient and kind.

Oh boy here we go. I screw things up all the time and can never let go the guilt since I'm not allowed to take responsibility of my mistakes.

Once again I wake up after a night of stress working, trying to overcome analysis paralysis. I'm late. Supposed to have meetings with some fucking PHDs, fueling my imposter syndrome.

Can't even learn anything in those conditions.

Fuck they should call me the fraud.

So I'm starting a job at a large company in the early part of next year... it's a total mindfuck because the salary is a m a s s i v e bump up and for the first time I'm experiencing imposter syndrome. I never really fully grasped the feeling that a lot of people here described until after that final interview and an offer was extended. I'm stoked AF to start and it's going to be a huge learning experience while working there.

The company wants me and my family to relocate to another state (US) and it's got my stomach doing somersalts.

It's especially painful because the current place I'm working is amazing; the people are great, the work is solid but fairly low pressure, and there's lateral freedom to work on improving the systems and infrastructure whenever there is free time. And I know that the new gig is going to have certain expectations that need to be met or my head could be on the chopping block.

High risk, high reward I guess 😅

My anxiety is raw dogging my brain and it fucking sucks, but my wife has been doing a great job keeping me level headed and thinking logically about the future and growth this opportunity brings with it.

I'm not trying to gloat or brag, just really needed a place to share some of this since I'm freaking out and don't feel like I have enough experience/skills to take on this job. Those interviews left me worn out. 4 rounds and the final interview was 5 hours long all in one day. 😫

I don't know about y'all but this is a HUGE FUCKING DEAL for me.
Imposter Syndrome is real but it comes and goes. Just fucking believe in yourselves!

I thought Docker was supposed to make life easier.... Instead, it's giving me imposter syndrome all over again because I can't seem to wrap my fucking mind around it.

It's one of those days where I just need to let it it out. I'M A FUCKING IMPOSTER.

but I'm going to keep learning anyway. 👺

its not imposter syndrome

i've got over 6 years in industry and i still hardly have a fucking clue what im doing or a proper foundation

not like school covered much if anything relevant to industry anyway

welp

I got such a bad employer… oh, pardon me: committent-but-actually-employer-minus-the-responsabilities that I developed bruxism, rage bursts and chest pains due to anxiety.

Bright side 1: i quitted by saying them in their face “you don’t even fucking know what docker is and you claim to be an expert, get a fucking update”

Bright side 2: They failed a while… Oh wow much surprise, very unexpected considering that they fired the only dev with experience on the product and that they re-made the interface every other day making everyone’s job a miserable joke. Smart move, 10/10 would invest in them.
The “bright side” in this is mostly that I’m forced to accept I was a very valuable asset and shut up any imposter syndrome related to that bs work.

Bright side 3: It forced me to see someone which in turn forced me face some piled up shit, so I recently feel better and hate myself less!

So I started doing PHP, HTML and CSS a week ago. And I once started a codecademy course in JS.
I can consider myself a full stack web dev now? Right?
(Every "WordPress dev" ever (and me😀))

Well... instead of imposter syndrome I think I have something more alike "I can't fucking tell if I'm smarter than everyone around me or if I'm so dumb I have no clue what's going on"-syndrome.
And trying to be rational, I usually consider the second option to be more probabile... right?
Or maybe, the way my brain processes things is just so different from the people I know that It creates a layer of incomunicability, so that others can't understand my reasoning as much as I can't understand theirs.
The usual speaking-through-jargon-all-the-time trend I've encountered is also not helping.
So I strive daily to align myself to what's going on, trying not to slow anybody down, but that drains my mental energies so much I end up getting done so little... and then I realize _everybody_ has done a similar amount of work.
Are maybe my standards too high?
Or it's normal for teamwork to slow everybody down THIS much?

I used to work much better alone, or in teams with proper separation of tasks between people. Like - we agree on a common interface and then everybody goes his own way implementing his part, and as long as the contract is respected and nothing breaks, nobody cares about what's inside the boxes.

But I don't see it coming again anytime soon, and people seem to have an averagely-good opinion of my work. So well, if I get paid and things cruise along fine, there should be nothing to complain about.

Shit, I've let my flow of consciousness out.

That feeling when - one year after quitting Twitter - it’s the weekend and you finally don’t feel the pressure of having to have a side project, cool library, you name it anymore. I just enjoy my weekends and if I want to, I fucking watch Netflix 48 hours straight.
I genuinely feel that I am good enough at development that it won’t make a difference and my weekends are mine to spend. I have zero cool stuff on my GitHub and have never had any disadvantage because of that in the past 11 years of my career, so why even worry?
I officially achieved anti-imposter-Syndrome 😎

i feel like a fucking failure, I am so tired of programming, i dont even like it anymore, and all my coworkers are programmer gods. I feel like a burden. Part of it might be imposter syndrome but for the most part its true.

I fucking hate mobile and iPad ui and general ux. I hate that I get shit for not being able to fix people's problems on them quickly enough with or without googling. Apparently that's my fucking line of work, no I'm just a fucking code monkey, I don't know where whichever asshat hide the setting to Jimmy or abysmal fucking browser implementations in fucking mobile chrome that makes it unable for you to buy car parts but it fucking works fine on a desktop browser. I ront want to reset your fucking weak passwords because you never remember them.

I can't even change my fucking phones background, or figure out or I lack voicemail because my plan or the fucking optoknnisnt present (one plus 2) and don't care enough to put more time or google it.

Maybe I'm just fucking incompetent. I like being able just to right click shift on desktop, going to properties or running both commands.

I never will stop being an imposter until I can fucking fix anything like a legit engineer.