this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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Except for the narcissist that honestly believes they are crushing it, because to believe otherwise would shatter their whole world/existence.
I felt like that early in my career. I used to think that being a rockstar developer was a good thing, and I'd be happy to describe myself as one.
The thing is, a lot of rockstars are really just churning out heaps of unmaintainable code. They think they have a high degree of proficiency, they're confident in their competence, but there's a disconnect between what they think and what they produce.
It can be a sign of personal improvement to question yourself when you think you're doing great. We owe it to ourselves to ask ourselves critically if we can be doing better. Because if we don't, and we just assume we're awesome, then we'll happily churn out sub-awesome cruft.
The insidious thing is that self-criticism leads to self-doubt, and imposter syndrome can be quite paralyzing. But if you learn to control your criticism instead of allowing your criticism to control you, you can achieve higher heights than rockstardom.
A rockstar developer doesn't churn out unmaintainable, by definition.
The number of people who think they are rockstar developers but clearly aren't is probably close to the number of cover bands who see themselves as undiscovered rockstars.
I've worked with people like this, their best hope is to fail upwards into management.
The only way to know if you are competent coder is for other coders to tell you. If none are telling you, your imposter syndrome isn't.
There are other signs as well but these aren't taught in formal education. An example being the ability to recognize how your old code could be improved. The way requirements stack over time makes this a certainty in any product.
Or, considering that they're mostly introverts, if they look approvingly in the general direction of your shoes...