A common mistake is to judge yourself in a vacuum. You aren't a rockstar because you have achieved a certain number of years employed (this is more common than

A common mistake is to judge yourself in a vacuum. You aren't a rockstar because you have achieved a certain number of years employed (this is more common than you would think). The Dunning-Kruger effect is very real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect Objective measures of competence are: * speed of delivery. Do you deliver faster than your peers? * extreme problems. Are you able to solve problems nobody else can solve? * originality. Are you able to demonstrate problems nobody else can see or solve problems in a new way? * write software everybody wants. Do people frequently consume your software or beg you for certain features? --- Sometimes a low aggression (aggressive as far as product not angry people) environment can trap you into a tightly contained cocoon of suck from which there is little or no self-improvement potential. Be aware of this.