tl;dr Asking a question means you care enough to know the answer

I work at a small company with about 7 other developers. Quite a few of those programmers are relatively new to coding. My job is to make sure they succeed. I answer question, offer design help, develop new projects and organize teams. I try my hardest to set a good example for the team and lead without an ego, but sometimes it is difficult. I’m blessed enough to work someplace where I am an integral part of daily life and it’s nice to think that things would fall apart if I got hit by a bus.

And then I look on the internet. I read all about the newest framework, new terminologies, new libraries and new languages. New, new, new. More, more, more. There is so much out here, how can I ever know about it all? I try. Goodness knows, I try. My nose is buried deep into Hacker News any chance I get. I sign up for all the weekly newsletters about technology I can throw my email at. My twitter feed is chalk full of tech groups and bloggers. And yet, I still feel like I don’t know a thing.

Imposter syndrome is described as: “a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist even in face of information that indicates that the opposite is true. It is experienced internally as chronic self-doubt, and feelings of intellectual fraudulence.” That describes me sometimes, to a “T”. Even though I’m damn good at my current job, I have little faith that I could get a job in a more “established” company and thrive.

Every time these feelings of inadequacies show their ugly head, I usually try and combat it by digging my heels harder in my work. If I can just ship this new feature, I’ll feel better about myself. If I can just knock out these few bugs, I can prove I know what I’m doing. That is an unhealthy way of dealing with these feelings.

What I need to realize is that there is no shame in admitting you don’t know things. No one person can know everything there is no know about technology. I believe it’s better to aim to understand general concepts, the underlying methodologies, instead of a getting a deep understanding of a single topic. The value that I believe I add revolves around being a generalist- why get down on myself for not being a specialist?

The best remedy for imposter syndrome for me is the proof of my own work. Can I help out a coworker in need? Can I find my way around and improve on an unfamiliar code base? Can I use the resources at my disposal (Google, internal documentation, another programmer, etc) to find the answer to a question? Those skills are invaluable wherever you may be and should be reason enough for me to rid myself of self-doubt.