Imposter syndrome fading away

I used to sweat at the idea of working for clients who hired me for my expertise. I was afraid they thought I was way better than I thought I actually was. This feeling is starting to fade away. I think the solution for me came down to realizing two things:

• an expert is not someone who knows all the answers but rather knows where to find them quickly
• you need to be comfortable knowing what you know and what you don’t

What an expert is not

Nobody knows everything. Especially at a time where in development we are surrounded by so many technologies. And with so many other skills needed as well. You might need an Angular developer, but you also probably need him to talk to other developers, talk with the client, know agile methodologies, collaborate with other teams, write documentation…

Some developers will choose to go all-in on a language or technology. Some would try to develop their skills in various areas and be more of a generalist.

No I can’t give a lecture on change detection in Angular 6 apps right away. But if you give me a week to prepare, I believe I can. I can’t either explain accurately what are Babel or Webpack, and I think that is ok. You rarely have someone pointing a gun at your head asking you to answer right away.

I know what I don’t know

I know my strengths. And I learned to recognise my weaknesses. I used to be afraid of unit tests and did not know anything about end-to-end testing for example. To solve the issue, I forced myself to take ownership of the former in a project and contribute as much as possible to the latter on another project. And now I love it! Am I able to give an hour long talk at the next world testing conference? Of course not! Can I do the same about something like Asana? Yes sure!

Choose your expertise and remember: clients and colleagues are often looking for someone efficient, organised and nice to work with. Not an asshole that knows it all but is unable to collaborate with others.