Maybe You Are an Impostor

Six years ago I transitioned careers at 30 to become a software developer. Since then, I’ve worked at 4 different companies and been promoted to senior developer. At each stage of my career I’ve had a not-so-small voice in the back of my head questioning whether I was really qualified to be in my current position. Was it luck? Did my presence help to fill some diversity quota? Did they make a terrible mistake by hiring me, I wondered. It was just a matter of time before I was caught!

Luckily, I’ve never been “caught” as an impostor at any of the companies I’ve worked for and I’ve learned to counter that voice of doubt with reason and logic — proving that I do belong where I am.

There are dozens of articles and books written about impostor syndrome and they mostly start with the presumption that you are not, in fact, an impostor. I would argue that, well, maybe you are sometimes.

Making the transition to software developer at a much later stage than most people in the industry brought me a lot of anxiety. I was leaving a stable job at a community college and would be working with people in their early to mid 20’s with a lot more experience than me. I was starting my career path about a decade later than most of my peers.

While I had learned to write code by the time I landed my first job, I had no clue about most of the logistics surrounding software development like version control, agile, peer reviews, or time estimates… also, I was still learning a LOT about writing code at this stage.

Here I was, sitting around a group of developers, getting paid as a developer and writing code like a developer. I didn’t feel like one though. In retrospect, I really wasn’t a true developer at this stage. I was sorta faking it. And that’s OK.

At some point in your career, whether you are transitioning into a new position or starting over in a new industry, you are likely going to feel unqualified and that’s because you still have a lot to learn. If we waited until we were ready for the next stage in life, we would probably be waiting for a long time.

There is no magical aha moment where an engineer transitions to a manager or some test you pass that takes you from junior developer to senior software engineer. We’re often thrust into these new…

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