Fifteen years ago, I suffered from impostor syndrome. It made me defensive whenever someone criticized me because I thought that they were exposing my ignorance

Fifteen years ago, I suffered from impostor syndrome. It made me defensive whenever someone criticized me because I thought that they were exposing my ignorance--exposing me as an impostor. I would bristle when other developers would say, "Wait? You don't know about [thing]?" Why didn't I know about [thing]??? After 25 years of coding I know enough about the field to know that no one knows it all. When someone is surprised that I don't know something, I smile to myself that they think the entire scope of software development is something anyone could know in its entirety (but I keep this to myself). When someone is defensive about their code or what they know, I now assume they are suffering from impostor syndrome and try to emphasize my own human failings in hopes they will accept their own. The best defense against impostor syndrome is humility. Part of being humble is being self-effacing with my peers. I love to tell my coworkers every boneheaded mistake I make. I've seen this work wonders for their confidence to know the lead developer regularly misses key requirements, has to go back and completely refactor his poorly-coded solutions, or releases stupefying bugs into production. Software is hard. It's important to always remember that and have sympathy for everyone we work with. My favorite motto (borrowed from multiple sources) is, "I reserve the right to be smarter today than I was yesterday." Edit: Grammar.