October 27, 2025 • 26 mins
Imposter syndrome as a junior developer has been normalized WAY TO OFTEN. Imposter syndrome is a signal that there's a more deeply rooted issue that needs to be resolved. Sometimes, and a lot of people aren't going to like this, it's actually just a skill issue.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Hansen (00:00):
Now, if you are trying to become a developer,
you've probably heard all aboutimposter syndrome.
And in this video, if you feellike you are experiencing
imposter syndrome, I am here totell you that you might be an
imposter.
So this is the third timerecording this video, and I feel
(00:21):
like I've held back too much inthe previous two.
So I'm just going to rant andI'm going to be blunt about how
I feel about this.
Not everyone needs to be adeveloper.
Not everyone is going to becomea developer.
In fact, most of you will failat becoming a developer.
It is a very hard path goingforward.
A lot of people really don'thave money for a CS degree, and
(00:42):
the self-taught path is very,very difficult.
Most people fail at it.
So I want to talk about what Ithink about imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome has beennormalized way too often.
(01:03):
Oh, if you're trying to becomea developer, almost everyone
experiences imposter syndrome.
And just because you feel thatyou are an imposter, that is
normal.
It's okay.
That's common.
In fact, that is a signal thatyou are on the right path.
That is bullshit.
That is complete bullshit.
(01:26):
Imposter syndrome can indicatea lot of different things.
A lot of times, it indicates alack of confidence.
Confidence in diving into theunknown.
Unwilling to be uncomfortablefor a very long period of time.
(01:48):
Unwilling to feel dumb for avery long time.
A lot of people don't havepatience for it.
A lot of people don't have gritfor that.
A lot of people just have beentoo fucking comfortable in their
lives for a very long time.
We've been afforded a lot ofconveniences throughout the
years as humanity continues toevolve and we've gotten really
(02:13):
fucking lazy, and especiallymentally.
A lot of people don't want tobe uncomfortable.
A lot of people want to behappy.
They want to be comfortable.
Don't tell me that you want toachieve greatness if you aren't
(02:35):
willing to be uncomfortable fora very long time.
If you're going to challengeyourself, if you're going to
challenge your life, yourconfidence, your mental, your
fitness, your habits, if youaren't going to challenge all of
that significantly, you're notwilling to do that for a very
long time.
Stop bullshitting people,telling people that you want to
(02:56):
be better because your actionssay differently.
Becoming a developer is reallyhard.
It might sound like I'm beingdramatic, but becoming a
developer, especially in thismarket, means you have to
significantly upgrade yourself.
And it's not just learning thesyntax.
That is such a small piece ofthis.
(03:18):
So many people that arecompeting with each other know
the minimum syntax to be able tocode and build stuff at a
minimum level, right?
There's a lot of other thingsthat can make you stand out.
And the reality, though, is alot of people don't even achieve
that.
Like I think people trulyunderestimate how good
(03:40):
developers are that you'recompeting with that have not
even had a dev job yet.
People don't want to talk aboutthis.
It's uncomfortable to talkabout, right?
Like you get so many peopletrying to become a developer,
and they just like they say theywant it, right?
But when I dig into theirindividual situations, their
(04:00):
effort says differently.
A lot of you have no idea theamount of time and energy and
effort and sacrifice going intobeing competitive in this market
as a dev.
The fact that when I even sayyou should consider a free
internship if you should get, orif you can get one, because
(04:23):
those can be competitive, youshould at least consider that to
replace your personal projectsor the time that you're going to
spend building personalprojects.
The amount of entitled peoplethat say no, every developer
deserves to be paid for whatthey're worth.
Well, obviously you're notworth shit until you are.
If you really think you'reworth more, then go out and get
that.
But if you aren't getting anycalls back, maybe you got to do
(04:45):
something a little bitdifferently.
A lot of people aren't willingto humble themselves.
So there are many people whojust suck at what they do.
They built a website usingabstractions, and they went
through some foundations courseor fundamentals course because
(05:09):
they were told to learn thefundamentals as well.
But in reality, a lot ofinterviews are going to
completely wreck them and exposetheir lack of a foundation,
their lack of fundamentals.
There's a lot that gets exposedin the interview.
And even just with DSAproblems, people want to argue
that DSA problems aren'tpractical.
(05:30):
They're not a good rubric, andthey very much are.
It just depends on what you'retesting for.
Some niche algorithm outside ofFame companies probably isn't
that relevant, but there areDSA, like a lot of what you're
building is built on top of thefoundational knowledge you need
to be able to do DSA problemsthat can also apply to practical
projects, to building things.
(05:50):
But it's easy to just sayemployers don't know what the
fuck they're doing with testing.
Now, sometimes their tests arearbitrary because so many people
are applying and they're justlooking for a minimum knowledge
to be able to scrap a bunch ofresumes.
But with foundationalknowledge, you should be able to
get through those interviews.
If you are complaining aboutthat stuff because you are not
(06:12):
passing some of the basic, uhquick technical interviews that
they're giving you, then thatit's just a red flag.
It's something you truly needto work on.
You need to be able to identifythe holes in your knowledge.
But a lot of people have somany holes in their knowledge.
And here lies the problem.
When you start realizing howlittle you know, when you start
(06:37):
realizing how bad you are,eventually you'll realize that.
That's a good thing.
Everyone realizes how littlethey know in their journey.
This will happen many, manytimes.
You have two choices.
One, you get better.
You get better.
(06:58):
You get really fucking good atwhat you're trying to do.
And that sounds simple.
Sounds obvious, right?
The problem is, a lot of peopledon't.
They'll take weeks of a breakin their learning to code
journey.
They will get exhausted,they'll get burned out, or
they'll build some templatedproject, even though the creator
(07:20):
that you're watching says thatyou need to focus on a capstone
project to stand out, and itneeds to be fucking good.
It needs to be focused on aproblem that you want to solve.
You actually got to give a shitabout solving problems in tech.
And when you are just buildinga templated project that doesn't
tell employers what the hellyou want to solve, it doesn't
align with what they're tryingto solve.
(07:41):
Of course you're not going toget calls back.
Of course you're not.
But yet a lot of you are stillbuilding templated projects for
your portfolio projects.
Again, it's okay for learning.
But stop building templatedprojects for your portfolio
projects.
I'm not going to rant aboutthis.
I'm not going to vent aboutthis.
(08:03):
I want to stay focused.
But a lot of people reallyaren't getting better.
Not as much as you think youare.
You're not tackling hard enoughproblems that really challenge
you.
Or you're leaning onreferencing old code too much
instead of writing it again,instead of writing a slightly
different implementation thatactually fits into this problem.
(08:26):
You are leaning on AI way toohard to write any code for you.
But here's the problem.
A lot of people, they're notactually getting as good as they
think they are.
And then they decide to sellthemselves like they are.
(08:49):
This is where imposter syndromegets instilled.
This is where I really see itramp up.
Instead of owning how shittythey are and coming up with an
action plan that is weeks,months, years long, you know,
years that's gonna, you're gonnapivot.
It's gonna change.
But like if you don't have anaction plan like three months
(09:11):
into your journey of like whereyou want to be, what you want to
have built, what you have wantto learn, you're just going day
to day, maybe just some randomcourse, or what people are
saying in Discord, like youdon't really have a solid plan
that also accounts for the holesthat you've identified in your
knowledge.
Man, you are in for sometrouble.
(09:32):
So what I see is a lot ofpeople, when they start getting
to this point and they'rerealizing that it's harder than
they thought, they're comparingthemselves with other people,
they are starting tomisrepresent themselves.
This is where I see it getinstilled in so many people.
(09:53):
By the way, if you are divingdeep into Node and you've
already built a few things withExpress, it might be time to
challenge yourself with a morescalable framework, NSJS.
It's one of the most popularframeworks for Node, and I
personally use it to build myprojects.
It's one of the reasons why Idecided to build a course for
it, to get people up to speedwith the basics.
Find that course atScrimba.com.
(10:15):
Oh, it's also free.
If you use my link in thedescription to sign up for
Scrimba, and you decide toupgrade to the Pro Plan, which
unlocks a ton of differentcourses, you actually get a
discount.
Again, I partner with thembecause they are actually really
good at building up juniordevelopers.
Check it out.
What do you have to lose?
Now let's get back to thevideo.
There are a lot, a lot of verylow integrity people trying to
(10:43):
break into this industry thatare fucking lying about what
they've done, what experiencethey have, and employers have
already started catching on tothis.
This is no longer a hack thatworks for 99% of people, and
this is where you're getting alot of arbitrary tests to just
(11:05):
weed out so many resumes becausethere's so many people just
trying to bullshit their wayinto the industry.
You can't polish a turd andsell it as something that it
isn't.
It's a turd.
Your projects, your templatedprojects, they're turds.
(11:25):
Your experience is a turd.
Your lack of a capstone projectthat has spanned months, maybe
even over a year, because youdon't have that capstone
project, you're trying to sell aturd.
No wonder you feel like animposter.
No wonder you feel like you'renever going to get hired because
(11:48):
you are an imposter, and youractions continue to reinforce
that you don't belong here.
A lot of people aresacrificing, they're making
sacrifices, like full-time jobs.
They are making sacrifices tobe able to code minimum six
(12:08):
hours every week, but it's notjust the time investment.
They aren't fooling themselves,they're very cautious with
their time, they're verytargeted in what they're
learning and how they'relearning it.
They're not just spinning up adopamine drip course to get them
(12:32):
to go to the next lesson andgive them little achievement
points.
No, they're realizing that alot of this coursework needs to
be consumed in a limitedcapacity and then it needs to be
applied.
You need to build stuff, youneed to code, you need to get
the fuck out of this curatedplatform, and you need
(12:53):
purposeful growth, you needpurposeful learning.
And most of that is going tohappen through building shit.
It can happen partly from youknow looking at larger code
bases, open source projects, andbreaking that down, getting it
running locally, and just tryingto build features on top of
that, trying to fix bugs.
(13:13):
That's another thing that canhelp.
There are a lot of differentthings that can help, but one
thing that will not help is youspending the limited time that
you have where majority of thattime is spent in coursework.
A lot of your projects reflectsomeone who is not really
(13:34):
growing.
You can look at someone'sprojects on a timeline to see
how they're progressing.
And usually that comes frombeing able to solve or showcase
that you can solve harderproblems over time.
When you have several templatedprojects that have the same
(13:57):
shallowness as all the otherprojects, why the hell would an
employer want to hire you?
You're not showing any growth.
Imposter syndrome is real in alot of people.
It's very real.
And a lot of people truly arean imposter.
(14:22):
They're not even close to beingready to be hired.
A lot of content creators don'twant to tell you this.
A lot of developers don't wantto tell you this.
And there's also one re it justlike completely it just bothers
me.
Sometimes I hear like a seniordev that kind of just reinforces
(14:44):
this imposter syndrome.
So they're like, oh yeah, whenI was a dev a long time ago,
very different market.
Um, I had imposter syndrome.
I thought I would never gethired.
And what he's doing is he isreinforcing that imposter
syndrome is okay.
So he's reinforcing that hisconfidence issues, his
(15:05):
insecurities, how much he hasfucked up is okay, and that you
will eventually get a job.
A lot of senior devs that aresaying shit like this have no
fucking idea how hard the marketis for entry-level devs right
now.
And you will be way betterequipped to be able to deal with
(15:28):
these confidence issues andcontinue learning for the long
period of time that it's goingto take you without burning out
when you start addressing theimposter syndrome.
And so I really want toemphasize going forward in this
video, some of the ways that youshould be addressing this
imposter syndrome because it isa broken mindset that will hold
(15:52):
you back.
It'll cause you to make stupiddecisions, it'll cause you to
try to misrepresent yourselfinstead of getting really
fucking good and getting reallyfucking good at accurately
representing yourself.
I have a lot of thoughts aboutthis.
I can grade a lot of videosabout this, but people are just,
(16:13):
I see so many people shootingthemselves in the foot because
instead of getting better, theyjust continue to lie and
bullshit.
And they're just fucking overthe entire industry for junior
developers, honestly.
Like employers are tired of it,they're going to continue with
arbitrary things to weed youout, and it's just going to get
worse and worse and worsebecause you have low integrity.
People try to enter thisindustry when they are truly the
(16:34):
ones that don't belong.
People that continue to justlie and they know they're lying.
But I want you, I'm talking tothe person that is going to
listen to this, and they aregoing to just be self-critical
of where they're at in theirjourney and are their actions
actually moving them forward ornot.
Because if not, they need tofigure out what to do, how to
(16:57):
pivot, what type of mentorshipthey need, anything to kind of
just get a confident pathrolling forward with the
understanding that maybe youhave very little knowledge right
now.
It's okay to feel dumb.
It's okay to feel ignorant,stupid, whatever word you want
to use when you compare yourselfto other developers, which is
(17:18):
why you don't compare yourself.
You're going to get thatfeeling, that feeling itself is
natural.
But what isn't natural is youfeeling like you things are
hopeless.
Like you aren't going to beable to achieve landing a job.
Like you can't learn what youneed to in order to break into
(17:41):
the industry.
Given enough time.
So I faced imposter syndrome.
I am not talking down to you.
I am not trying to shit on youbecause I am better than you.
No, I still face impostersyndrome to this day, but it is
not a high quality thing.
(18:03):
It is a at this point, I'm justgoing to call it a mental
illness that continues to needto be worked on.
This is a mental issue.
This is a confidence issue.
This has to do with yourpsychology.
It can be fixed.
It can be worked on.
Imposter syndrome should nothave been normalized.
(18:24):
Because so many people see thatnormalization as an acceptance
that it belongs.
Imposter syndrome is a waste ofyour fucking time and energy.
Absolutely.
I know.
Trust me, I faced impostersyndrome.
I know how self-defeating itcan be.
It never, ever in my entirelife served me.
(18:45):
Not once.
It was that one thing thatnever really drove me.
What usually drove me is justwanting to like holding myself
to a high standard and wantingto get to that standard because
I knew I belonged there.
But I know imposter syndromecan just destroy people and
(19:08):
destroy people's journeys.
So the way that I've, like Isaid, I've not fully gotten over
it, but like in most areas ofmy life, including coding, even
if I'm ignorant with something,I don't really feel imposter
syndrome anymore.
And so here's the mindset thatI have.
Right?
Um let's pick on Primogen.
(19:28):
I say a lot of good thingsabout him, so I think we can
pick on him.
And you guys know him.
Most of my audience knowsPrimogen.
Primogen is not one like atop-tier software engineer.
Like not even close.
Not even close.
He's a good software engineer.
He's well respected in thesoftware engineering community,
but it's not even just about hisskill.
But I'm just talking about interms of his skill level.
(19:52):
Um, you you can very wellexceed Primogen's skill level.
I can very well exceedPrimogen's skill level.
That isn't as tough of achallenge as you think it is,
given enough time.
It's where he's focused hisenergy and what he's trying to
improve, and where you want tofocus your energy and what
(20:12):
you're trying to improve.
People just get really good atsomething when they continue to
focus their energy on somethingfor a very long period of time.
You can be better than theprimogen.
If I wanted to become asoftware engineer at NASA, I
have full confidence that I amcapable of that.
(20:35):
There is not a doubt in my mindthat I couldn't do that.
Now again, I might need atleast 10 years to do that.
I might not be the fastestperson at doing that.
But I will achieve it.
I absolutely will achieve thatif that's what I really want to
(20:57):
do.
You know when I talk about kindof like passion or like high
interest or like even just likejust unfiltered curiosity in
programming and just like intech and just growing and
growing and growing because youstay up at late at night and you
you you just keep diving in,keep diving in, um, and you just
(21:19):
don't stop.
You're relentless with it.
That is the kind of energy whenyou direct it in the right
direction, no matter what you'retrying to get good with,
especially when we're talkingabout things that require
thinking, right?
I think there's limitations.
You know, we can think ofexceptions with like genetics
and like becoming like a superathlete in certain activities.
(21:39):
But like when we're talkingabout our mental, when we're
talking about our brain, ourintelligence, you are going to
get really fucking good atanything that you are just dead
set on getting better at becauseyou will become obsessed with
it.
Do you need to have obsessionto break into the industry as a
software engineer?
No.
But I'm using this as anexample of how powerful that
(22:01):
obsession can be at making you avery highly respected person in
that industry with a high skilllevel.
People respect people with ahigh skill level because of what
it takes to get there and thecharacter that you need to build
to be able to get there.
But in order to not have thatimposter syndrome, in order to
(22:23):
have my confidence back where Iown that confidence and nothing
can shake it, I have to be ableto achieve things in life.
Right.
And so if you haven't reallyachieved much in life, that's
kind of hard to do at first.
But I know what I'm capable ofachieving because I've achieved
things that are hard in my life.
(22:43):
And I'm capable of a lot morethan what I've achieved, but
there, you know, I have a lot ofbad habits I still have to
continue to improve on.
But I acknowledge that, and Iacknowledge that I can get over
those habits.
But I use a lot of my history,a lot of my past, and analyze
that to basically give meconfidence that no matter what
(23:04):
the problem is in front of me, Iwill achieve it.
It that timeline might notmatch up what I'm hoping for.
But I can learn anything that Iwant.
You can learn anything that youwant.
There's no limit on yourintelligence that is like
causing you not to achievebecoming a developer.
(23:25):
There's no limit on yourintelligence causing you not to
learn a language that feelsreally hard at the moment.
It's not a limit on yourintelligence.
A lot of times it's habits.
A lot of times it's a lack ofvision for what you really want.
A lot of times it's like badsleep.
It's a bad diet, no exercise.
Maybe you need to meditatebecause your mind is anxious.
Maybe you can't control yourthoughts.
(23:46):
There's so many other fuckingfactors that are affecting your
ability to become a developer.
And so many of you aren'twilling to have that honest
conversation to start improvinga lot of this stuff.
You have to be reallyself-critical, but you also have
to be self-critical about thestuff that you can take action
(24:07):
on.
And then you have to take thataction consistently and not take
many breaks, like I see a lotof you doing.
It's hard to build new habits.
It really is.
But that's what a lot of peopleneed to be able to build.
And over time, you will gainmore confidence as your skill
(24:27):
level goes up, as your trust foryourself for completing the
task, the long-term tasks thatyou've given yourself, when you
start gaining confidence, thatyou can finally trust yourself
to follow through with thethings that you say that you're
going to do.
When you have that conversationwith yourself, because most
people fail at this part.
I failed at this part manytimes.
It's a really hard thing.
(24:48):
But you have to be able tofully trust yourself that you
are capable of learning anythingthat you need to, that you are
going to take the action to beable to properly retain that
information to use it as adeveloper to build with it,
continue to reinforce it, becareful about your dependencies
that you create, especiallyaround AI.
(25:09):
And you are going to continueto get better at any cost.
And you are going to followthrough with that.
You build that trust andconfidence in yourself.
Over time, that impostersyndrome goes away and it
carries over into many otherparts of your life.
And that is the beautiful thingabout that.
When you start squashingimposter syndrome, it will carry
(25:31):
over.
You will accept that you mightnot know something, you might
not have a skill, but that givenenough time, you will achieve
that.
And that's all it is.
I just there is just somethingbroken, completely broken, about
the mindset that I see juniordevelopers adopting that
(25:54):
imposter syndrome is normal andthat they don't actually address
the root cause of that.
And I think that's what'sholding a lot of you back.
Now, if you are trying to become a developer,
you've probably heard all aboutimposter syndrome.
And in this video, if you feellike you are experiencing
imposter syndrome, I am here totell you that you might be an
imposter.
So this is the third timerecording this video, and I feel
(00:21):
like I've held back too much inthe previous two.
So I'm just going to rant andI'm going to be blunt about how
I feel about this.
Not everyone needs to be adeveloper.
Not everyone is going to becomea developer.
In fact, most of you will failat becoming a developer.
It is a very hard path goingforward.
A lot of people really don'thave money for a CS degree, and
(00:42):
the self-taught path is very,very difficult.
Most people fail at it.
So I want to talk about what Ithink about imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome has beennormalized way too often.
(01:03):
Oh, if you're trying to becomea developer, almost everyone
experiences imposter syndrome.
And just because you feel thatyou are an imposter, that is
normal.
It's okay.
That's common.
In fact, that is a signal thatyou are on the right path.
That is bullshit.
That is complete bullshit.
(01:26):
Imposter syndrome can indicatea lot of different things.
A lot of times, it indicates alack of confidence.
Confidence in diving into theunknown.
Unwilling to be uncomfortablefor a very long period of time.
(01:48):
Unwilling to feel dumb for avery long time.
A lot of people don't havepatience for it.
A lot of people don't have gritfor that.
A lot of people just have beentoo fucking comfortable in their
lives for a very long time.
We've been afforded a lot ofconveniences throughout the
years as humanity continues toevolve and we've gotten really
(02:13):
fucking lazy, and especiallymentally.
A lot of people don't want tobe uncomfortable.
A lot of people want to behappy.
They want to be comfortable.
Don't tell me that you want toachieve greatness if you aren't
(02:35):
willing to be uncomfortable fora very long time.
If you're going to challengeyourself, if you're going to
challenge your life, yourconfidence, your mental, your
fitness, your habits, if youaren't going to challenge all of
that significantly, you're notwilling to do that for a very
long time.
Stop bullshitting people,telling people that you want to
(02:56):
be better because your actionssay differently.
Becoming a developer is reallyhard.
It might sound like I'm beingdramatic, but becoming a
developer, especially in thismarket, means you have to
significantly upgrade yourself.
And it's not just learning thesyntax.
That is such a small piece ofthis.
(03:18):
So many people that arecompeting with each other know
the minimum syntax to be able tocode and build stuff at a
minimum level, right?
There's a lot of other thingsthat can make you stand out.
And the reality, though, is alot of people don't even achieve
that.
Like I think people trulyunderestimate how good
(03:40):
developers are that you'recompeting with that have not
even had a dev job yet.
People don't want to talk aboutthis.
It's uncomfortable to talkabout, right?
Like you get so many peopletrying to become a developer,
and they just like they say theywant it, right?
But when I dig into theirindividual situations, their
(04:00):
effort says differently.
A lot of you have no idea theamount of time and energy and
effort and sacrifice going intobeing competitive in this market
as a dev.
The fact that when I even sayyou should consider a free
internship if you should get, orif you can get one, because
(04:23):
those can be competitive, youshould at least consider that to
replace your personal projectsor the time that you're going to
spend building personalprojects.
The amount of entitled peoplethat say no, every developer
deserves to be paid for whatthey're worth.
Well, obviously you're notworth shit until you are.
If you really think you'reworth more, then go out and get
that.
But if you aren't getting anycalls back, maybe you got to do
(04:45):
something a little bitdifferently.
A lot of people aren't willingto humble themselves.
So there are many people whojust suck at what they do.
They built a website usingabstractions, and they went
through some foundations courseor fundamentals course because
(05:09):
they were told to learn thefundamentals as well.
But in reality, a lot ofinterviews are going to
completely wreck them and exposetheir lack of a foundation,
their lack of fundamentals.
There's a lot that gets exposedin the interview.
And even just with DSAproblems, people want to argue
that DSA problems aren'tpractical.
(05:30):
They're not a good rubric, andthey very much are.
It just depends on what you'retesting for.
Some niche algorithm outside ofFame companies probably isn't
that relevant, but there areDSA, like a lot of what you're
building is built on top of thefoundational knowledge you need
to be able to do DSA problemsthat can also apply to practical
projects, to building things.
(05:50):
But it's easy to just sayemployers don't know what the
fuck they're doing with testing.
Now, sometimes their tests arearbitrary because so many people
are applying and they're justlooking for a minimum knowledge
to be able to scrap a bunch ofresumes.
But with foundationalknowledge, you should be able to
get through those interviews.
If you are complaining aboutthat stuff because you are not
(06:12):
passing some of the basic, uhquick technical interviews that
they're giving you, then thatit's just a red flag.
It's something you truly needto work on.
You need to be able to identifythe holes in your knowledge.
But a lot of people have somany holes in their knowledge.
And here lies the problem.
When you start realizing howlittle you know, when you start
(06:37):
realizing how bad you are,eventually you'll realize that.
That's a good thing.
Everyone realizes how littlethey know in their journey.
This will happen many, manytimes.
You have two choices.
One, you get better.
You get better.
(06:58):
You get really fucking good atwhat you're trying to do.
And that sounds simple.
Sounds obvious, right?
The problem is, a lot of peopledon't.
They'll take weeks of a breakin their learning to code
journey.
They will get exhausted,they'll get burned out, or
they'll build some templatedproject, even though the creator
(07:20):
that you're watching says thatyou need to focus on a capstone
project to stand out, and itneeds to be fucking good.
It needs to be focused on aproblem that you want to solve.
You actually got to give a shitabout solving problems in tech.
And when you are just buildinga templated project that doesn't
tell employers what the hellyou want to solve, it doesn't
align with what they're tryingto solve.
(07:41):
Of course you're not going toget calls back.
Of course you're not.
But yet a lot of you are stillbuilding templated projects for
your portfolio projects.
Again, it's okay for learning.
But stop building templatedprojects for your portfolio
projects.
I'm not going to rant aboutthis.
I'm not going to vent aboutthis.
(08:03):
I want to stay focused.
But a lot of people reallyaren't getting better.
Not as much as you think youare.
You're not tackling hard enoughproblems that really challenge
you.
Or you're leaning onreferencing old code too much
instead of writing it again,instead of writing a slightly
different implementation thatactually fits into this problem.
(08:26):
You are leaning on AI way toohard to write any code for you.
But here's the problem.
A lot of people, they're notactually getting as good as they
think they are.
And then they decide to sellthemselves like they are.
(08:49):
This is where imposter syndromegets instilled.
This is where I really see itramp up.
Instead of owning how shittythey are and coming up with an
action plan that is weeks,months, years long, you know,
years that's gonna, you're gonnapivot.
It's gonna change.
But like if you don't have anaction plan like three months
(09:11):
into your journey of like whereyou want to be, what you want to
have built, what you have wantto learn, you're just going day
to day, maybe just some randomcourse, or what people are
saying in Discord, like youdon't really have a solid plan
that also accounts for the holesthat you've identified in your
knowledge.
Man, you are in for sometrouble.
(09:32):
So what I see is a lot ofpeople, when they start getting
to this point and they'rerealizing that it's harder than
they thought, they're comparingthemselves with other people,
they are starting tomisrepresent themselves.
This is where I see it getinstilled in so many people.
(09:53):
By the way, if you are divingdeep into Node and you've
already built a few things withExpress, it might be time to
challenge yourself with a morescalable framework, NSJS.
It's one of the most popularframeworks for Node, and I
personally use it to build myprojects.
It's one of the reasons why Idecided to build a course for
it, to get people up to speedwith the basics.
Find that course atScrimba.com.
(10:15):
Oh, it's also free.
If you use my link in thedescription to sign up for
Scrimba, and you decide toupgrade to the Pro Plan, which
unlocks a ton of differentcourses, you actually get a
discount.
Again, I partner with thembecause they are actually really
good at building up juniordevelopers.
Check it out.
What do you have to lose?
Now let's get back to thevideo.
There are a lot, a lot of verylow integrity people trying to
(10:43):
break into this industry thatare fucking lying about what
they've done, what experiencethey have, and employers have
already started catching on tothis.
This is no longer a hack thatworks for 99% of people, and
this is where you're getting alot of arbitrary tests to just
(11:05):
weed out so many resumes becausethere's so many people just
trying to bullshit their wayinto the industry.
You can't polish a turd andsell it as something that it
isn't.
It's a turd.
Your projects, your templatedprojects, they're turds.
(11:25):
Your experience is a turd.
Your lack of a capstone projectthat has spanned months, maybe
even over a year, because youdon't have that capstone
project, you're trying to sell aturd.
No wonder you feel like animposter.
No wonder you feel like you'renever going to get hired because
(11:48):
you are an imposter, and youractions continue to reinforce
that you don't belong here.
A lot of people aresacrificing, they're making
sacrifices, like full-time jobs.
They are making sacrifices tobe able to code minimum six
(12:08):
hours every week, but it's notjust the time investment.
They aren't fooling themselves,they're very cautious with
their time, they're verytargeted in what they're
learning and how they'relearning it.
They're not just spinning up adopamine drip course to get them
(12:32):
to go to the next lesson andgive them little achievement
points.
No, they're realizing that alot of this coursework needs to
be consumed in a limitedcapacity and then it needs to be
applied.
You need to build stuff, youneed to code, you need to get
the fuck out of this curatedplatform, and you need
(12:53):
purposeful growth, you needpurposeful learning.
And most of that is going tohappen through building shit.
It can happen partly from youknow looking at larger code
bases, open source projects, andbreaking that down, getting it
running locally, and just tryingto build features on top of
that, trying to fix bugs.
(13:13):
That's another thing that canhelp.
There are a lot of differentthings that can help, but one
thing that will not help is youspending the limited time that
you have where majority of thattime is spent in coursework.
A lot of your projects reflectsomeone who is not really
(13:34):
growing.
You can look at someone'sprojects on a timeline to see
how they're progressing.
And usually that comes frombeing able to solve or showcase
that you can solve harderproblems over time.
When you have several templatedprojects that have the same
(13:57):
shallowness as all the otherprojects, why the hell would an
employer want to hire you?
You're not showing any growth.
Imposter syndrome is real in alot of people.
It's very real.
And a lot of people truly arean imposter.
(14:22):
They're not even close to beingready to be hired.
A lot of content creators don'twant to tell you this.
A lot of developers don't wantto tell you this.
And there's also one re it justlike completely it just bothers
me.
Sometimes I hear like a seniordev that kind of just reinforces
(14:44):
this imposter syndrome.
So they're like, oh yeah, whenI was a dev a long time ago,
very different market.
Um, I had imposter syndrome.
I thought I would never gethired.
And what he's doing is he isreinforcing that imposter
syndrome is okay.
So he's reinforcing that hisconfidence issues, his
(15:05):
insecurities, how much he hasfucked up is okay, and that you
will eventually get a job.
A lot of senior devs that aresaying shit like this have no
fucking idea how hard the marketis for entry-level devs right
now.
And you will be way betterequipped to be able to deal with
(15:28):
these confidence issues andcontinue learning for the long
period of time that it's goingto take you without burning out
when you start addressing theimposter syndrome.
And so I really want toemphasize going forward in this
video, some of the ways that youshould be addressing this
imposter syndrome because it isa broken mindset that will hold
(15:52):
you back.
It'll cause you to make stupiddecisions, it'll cause you to
try to misrepresent yourselfinstead of getting really
fucking good and getting reallyfucking good at accurately
representing yourself.
I have a lot of thoughts aboutthis.
I can grade a lot of videosabout this, but people are just,
(16:13):
I see so many people shootingthemselves in the foot because
instead of getting better, theyjust continue to lie and
bullshit.
And they're just fucking overthe entire industry for junior
developers, honestly.
Like employers are tired of it,they're going to continue with
arbitrary things to weed youout, and it's just going to get
worse and worse and worsebecause you have low integrity.
People try to enter thisindustry when they are truly the
(16:34):
ones that don't belong.
People that continue to justlie and they know they're lying.
But I want you, I'm talking tothe person that is going to
listen to this, and they aregoing to just be self-critical
of where they're at in theirjourney and are their actions
actually moving them forward ornot.
Because if not, they need tofigure out what to do, how to
(16:57):
pivot, what type of mentorshipthey need, anything to kind of
just get a confident pathrolling forward with the
understanding that maybe youhave very little knowledge right
now.
It's okay to feel dumb.
It's okay to feel ignorant,stupid, whatever word you want
to use when you compare yourselfto other developers, which is
(17:18):
why you don't compare yourself.
You're going to get thatfeeling, that feeling itself is
natural.
But what isn't natural is youfeeling like you things are
hopeless.
Like you aren't going to beable to achieve landing a job.
Like you can't learn what youneed to in order to break into
(17:41):
the industry.
Given enough time.
So I faced imposter syndrome.
I am not talking down to you.
I am not trying to shit on youbecause I am better than you.
No, I still face impostersyndrome to this day, but it is
not a high quality thing.
(18:03):
It is a at this point, I'm justgoing to call it a mental
illness that continues to needto be worked on.
This is a mental issue.
This is a confidence issue.
This has to do with yourpsychology.
It can be fixed.
It can be worked on.
Imposter syndrome should nothave been normalized.
(18:24):
Because so many people see thatnormalization as an acceptance
that it belongs.
Imposter syndrome is a waste ofyour fucking time and energy.
Absolutely.
I know.
Trust me, I faced impostersyndrome.
I know how self-defeating itcan be.
It never, ever in my entirelife served me.
(18:45):
Not once.
It was that one thing thatnever really drove me.
What usually drove me is justwanting to like holding myself
to a high standard and wantingto get to that standard because
I knew I belonged there.
But I know imposter syndromecan just destroy people and
(19:08):
destroy people's journeys.
So the way that I've, like Isaid, I've not fully gotten over
it, but like in most areas ofmy life, including coding, even
if I'm ignorant with something,I don't really feel imposter
syndrome anymore.
And so here's the mindset thatI have.
Right?
Um let's pick on Primogen.
(19:28):
I say a lot of good thingsabout him, so I think we can
pick on him.
And you guys know him.
Most of my audience knowsPrimogen.
Primogen is not one like atop-tier software engineer.
Like not even close.
Not even close.
He's a good software engineer.
He's well respected in thesoftware engineering community,
but it's not even just about hisskill.
But I'm just talking about interms of his skill level.
(19:52):
Um, you you can very wellexceed Primogen's skill level.
I can very well exceedPrimogen's skill level.
That isn't as tough of achallenge as you think it is,
given enough time.
It's where he's focused hisenergy and what he's trying to
improve, and where you want tofocus your energy and what
(20:12):
you're trying to improve.
People just get really good atsomething when they continue to
focus their energy on somethingfor a very long period of time.
You can be better than theprimogen.
If I wanted to become asoftware engineer at NASA, I
have full confidence that I amcapable of that.
(20:35):
There is not a doubt in my mindthat I couldn't do that.
Now again, I might need atleast 10 years to do that.
I might not be the fastestperson at doing that.
But I will achieve it.
I absolutely will achieve thatif that's what I really want to
(20:57):
do.
You know when I talk about kindof like passion or like high
interest or like even just likejust unfiltered curiosity in
programming and just like intech and just growing and
growing and growing because youstay up at late at night and you
you you just keep diving in,keep diving in, um, and you just
(21:19):
don't stop.
You're relentless with it.
That is the kind of energy whenyou direct it in the right
direction, no matter what you'retrying to get good with,
especially when we're talkingabout things that require
thinking, right?
I think there's limitations.
You know, we can think ofexceptions with like genetics
and like becoming like a superathlete in certain activities.
(21:39):
But like when we're talkingabout our mental, when we're
talking about our brain, ourintelligence, you are going to
get really fucking good atanything that you are just dead
set on getting better at becauseyou will become obsessed with
it.
Do you need to have obsessionto break into the industry as a
software engineer?
No.
But I'm using this as anexample of how powerful that
(22:01):
obsession can be at making you avery highly respected person in
that industry with a high skilllevel.
People respect people with ahigh skill level because of what
it takes to get there and thecharacter that you need to build
to be able to get there.
But in order to not have thatimposter syndrome, in order to
(22:23):
have my confidence back where Iown that confidence and nothing
can shake it, I have to be ableto achieve things in life.
Right.
And so if you haven't reallyachieved much in life, that's
kind of hard to do at first.
But I know what I'm capable ofachieving because I've achieved
things that are hard in my life.
(22:43):
And I'm capable of a lot morethan what I've achieved, but
there, you know, I have a lot ofbad habits I still have to
continue to improve on.
But I acknowledge that, and Iacknowledge that I can get over
those habits.
But I use a lot of my history,a lot of my past, and analyze
that to basically give meconfidence that no matter what
(23:04):
the problem is in front of me, Iwill achieve it.
It that timeline might notmatch up what I'm hoping for.
But I can learn anything that Iwant.
You can learn anything that youwant.
There's no limit on yourintelligence that is like
causing you not to achievebecoming a developer.
(23:25):
There's no limit on yourintelligence causing you not to
learn a language that feelsreally hard at the moment.
It's not a limit on yourintelligence.
A lot of times it's habits.
A lot of times it's a lack ofvision for what you really want.
A lot of times it's like badsleep.
It's a bad diet, no exercise.
Maybe you need to meditatebecause your mind is anxious.
Maybe you can't control yourthoughts.
(23:46):
There's so many other fuckingfactors that are affecting your
ability to become a developer.
And so many of you aren'twilling to have that honest
conversation to start improvinga lot of this stuff.
You have to be reallyself-critical, but you also have
to be self-critical about thestuff that you can take action
(24:07):
on.
And then you have to take thataction consistently and not take
many breaks, like I see a lotof you doing.
It's hard to build new habits.
It really is.
But that's what a lot of peopleneed to be able to build.
And over time, you will gainmore confidence as your skill
(24:27):
level goes up, as your trust foryourself for completing the
task, the long-term tasks thatyou've given yourself, when you
start gaining confidence, thatyou can finally trust yourself
to follow through with thethings that you say that you're
going to do.
When you have that conversationwith yourself, because most
people fail at this part.
I failed at this part manytimes.
It's a really hard thing.
(24:48):
But you have to be able tofully trust yourself that you
are capable of learning anythingthat you need to, that you are
going to take the action to beable to properly retain that
information to use it as adeveloper to build with it,
continue to reinforce it, becareful about your dependencies
that you create, especiallyaround AI.
(25:09):
And you are going to continueto get better at any cost.
And you are going to followthrough with that.
You build that trust andconfidence in yourself.
Over time, that impostersyndrome goes away and it
carries over into many otherparts of your life.
And that is the beautiful thingabout that.
When you start squashingimposter syndrome, it will carry
(25:31):
over.
You will accept that you mightnot know something, you might
not have a skill, but that givenenough time, you will achieve
that.
And that's all it is.
I just there is just somethingbroken, completely broken, about
the mindset that I see juniordevelopers adopting that
(25:54):
imposter syndrome is normal andthat they don't actually address
the root cause of that.
And I think that's what'sholding a lot of you back.
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