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How do others cope with such a situation if - they are no longer in their early 30's. I have a family to sustain. - don't see themselves as rockstar developer

by iSnow 13y ago

How do others cope with such a situation if - they are no longer in their early 30's. I have a family to sustain. - don't see themselves as rockstar developers. I constantly dabble in side projects from natural language processing to web development to building Android apps. I feel I provide a lot of "out of the box" input. But since I am a hard case of impostor's syndrome I don't feel like I could eg. lead a team. Or, heaven forbid, do a start-up. I feel I am wasting my life here, but the market is not great for self-conscious devs.

tinco 13y ago
If the option exists to keep doing the horrible job, that means there is no direct pressure to quit it. That means sustaining your family is never a problem, you can hold on to the job while you are looking for a new one. You can even have someone else (a headhunter) do the looking while you work the job. Maybe you should stop giving your self syndromes and acknowledge that you know how to program. Businesses are looking for people who know how to program, why do you think the market is not great? Last thing I heard many businesses are still scrambling for web and app developers. It is a well kept secret, but the kind of team leader that doesn't think he's a good team leader often is a good team leader. If you position yourself as just 'one of the boys' you get a lot more honest feedback, and you'll be less of a cock to your team. Doing a startup as someone who lacks confidence and needs to sustain a family seems like a bad idea, unless you could get into YC or something. Also.. maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child?
- iSnow 13y ago
  >Businesses are looking for people who know how to program, why do you think the market is not great? Because basically the only interviews I got in the last months were in other enterprisey gulags. It's not enough to know how to code, you need to be able to market yourself, be part of the attention-based economy (I am an introvert, I don't really know how to leave an impression in the web 2.0) and presumably invest a ton of time in grooming your open-source projects. I am no complete failure, over the years I have done quite some stuff - but a lot of that is NSFW, so not so great as a showcase. >maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child? I don't really know what to make of this - I do, but it's not like I can just pull myself together to raise my self-confidence. I have been making gradual improvements, but I just can't flick a switch.
  - tinco 13y ago
    >> maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child? > I don't really know what to make of this - I do, but it's not like I can just pull myself together to raise my self-confidence. I have been making gradual improvements, but I just can't flick a switch. I'm sorry I am not trying to say that it's something you can just do, but you were sounding a bit defeatist. If you say you're making gradual improvements I respect that. The attention-based economy is simpler than you make it sound. The idea is just to build something you like, NSFW or not, and put it on github. Use some hip technologies to show you have the ability to learn new technology. For fun, here's a small recipe: Pick a combination of 3 technologies that have been up on HackerNews lately, say AngularJS with MongoDB and Node.js, do 2 small projects with them, and maybe an Android app in Java (or whatever your enterprisey language of choice is) that does something silly like open your garage door or plays words your child said. Now you have 3 original projects on github that show aptitude in frontend dev, backend dev and app dev, fill out your github resume with at least 3 forked open source projects you find interesting, and another 2 you submitted a patch to (just fix a spelling mistake in their docs or a trivial bug in their tracker). I bet you could build this github resume in 2 months of free moments in evenings/weekends. Accomplishing this will give you a confidence boost ('hey I can do hip stuff') and I bet it'll do your resume a lot of good :)
niels 13y ago
I think what you are describing is pretty common among developers. The good thing about your situation, is that you have the power to change your self limiting behaviours. You have to push yourself. Finish a webapp and post it to HN. Get involved in a local tech group and do a talk. Sign up for a MOOC from Coursera or Udacity. All of these requires hard work, but will give you confidence. Beeing successful as a software developer is as much about how you market yourself as how good a dev you are. So if you want success, you have to learn how do those things. I'm learning this as well. It's not easy, but necessary.
throwaway1979 13y ago
Fellow dabbler here post-30. I totally understand and feel the same way. Recently, I realized that my dabbling behavior is what keeps me from achieving expert status in any particular tool/language. I am broad, not deep. Oh ...and I discovered that I don't like managing people.

by iSnow 13y ago

tinco 13y ago

If the option exists to keep doing the horrible job, that means there is no direct pressure to quit it. That means sustaining your family is never a problem, you can hold on to the job while you are looking for a new one. You can even have someone else (a headhunter) do the looking while you work the job. Maybe you should stop giving your self syndromes and acknowledge that you know how to program. Businesses are looking for people who know how to program, why do you think the market is not great? Last thing I heard many businesses are still scrambling for web and app developers. It is a well kept secret, but the kind of team leader that doesn't think he's a good team leader often is a good team leader. If you position yourself as just 'one of the boys' you get a lot more honest feedback, and you'll be less of a cock to your team. Doing a startup as someone who lacks confidence and needs to sustain a family seems like a bad idea, unless you could get into YC or something. Also.. maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child?

iSnow 13y ago
>Businesses are looking for people who know how to program, why do you think the market is not great? Because basically the only interviews I got in the last months were in other enterprisey gulags. It's not enough to know how to code, you need to be able to market yourself, be part of the attention-based economy (I am an introvert, I don't really know how to leave an impression in the web 2.0) and presumably invest a ton of time in grooming your open-source projects. I am no complete failure, over the years I have done quite some stuff - but a lot of that is NSFW, so not so great as a showcase. >maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child? I don't really know what to make of this - I do, but it's not like I can just pull myself together to raise my self-confidence. I have been making gradual improvements, but I just can't flick a switch.
- tinco 13y ago
  >> maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child? > I don't really know what to make of this - I do, but it's not like I can just pull myself together to raise my self-confidence. I have been making gradual improvements, but I just can't flick a switch. I'm sorry I am not trying to say that it's something you can just do, but you were sounding a bit defeatist. If you say you're making gradual improvements I respect that. The attention-based economy is simpler than you make it sound. The idea is just to build something you like, NSFW or not, and put it on github. Use some hip technologies to show you have the ability to learn new technology. For fun, here's a small recipe: Pick a combination of 3 technologies that have been up on HackerNews lately, say AngularJS with MongoDB and Node.js, do 2 small projects with them, and maybe an Android app in Java (or whatever your enterprisey language of choice is) that does something silly like open your garage door or plays words your child said. Now you have 3 original projects on github that show aptitude in frontend dev, backend dev and app dev, fill out your github resume with at least 3 forked open source projects you find interesting, and another 2 you submitted a patch to (just fix a spelling mistake in their docs or a trivial bug in their tracker). I bet you could build this github resume in 2 months of free moments in evenings/weekends. Accomplishing this will give you a confidence boost ('hey I can do hip stuff') and I bet it'll do your resume a lot of good :)

niels 13y ago

I think what you are describing is pretty common among developers. The good thing about your situation, is that you have the power to change your self limiting behaviours. You have to push yourself. Finish a webapp and post it to HN. Get involved in a local tech group and do a talk. Sign up for a MOOC from Coursera or Udacity. All of these requires hard work, but will give you confidence. Beeing successful as a software developer is as much about how you market yourself as how good a dev you are. So if you want success, you have to learn how do those things. I'm learning this as well. It's not easy, but necessary.

throwaway1979 13y ago

Fellow dabbler here post-30. I totally understand and feel the same way. Recently, I realized that my dabbling behavior is what keeps me from achieving expert status in any particular tool/language. I am broad, not deep. Oh ...and I discovered that I don't like managing people.