If you are really a programmer for just 3 years, then being lean was hot long before you even thought about starting to program. Currently hot means big data.

If you are really a programmer for just 3 years, then being lean was hot long before you even thought about starting to program. Currently hot means big data. To get on topic: Don't give up just yet! Yes you can not be awesome at everything that you read here on HN. But if you, e.g., care about squeezing out great pixels out of your CSS, you can certainly become awesome at that. Maybe it's more awesome in your eyes to churn out a new iPhone game every week, then you certainly can be good at that. You just can't be good at most things you do. Either you are mediocre at everything, or quite good at one thing and quite bad on the rest. If you think a programmer is so much better at everything, learn to know these people better. You'll see that they might be awesome Node developers, but they might not know even part of what you know about bash and vim. Or English might be their mothertounge, while it is actually your second fluent language, etc. Most of the awesomeness you see in people on stage is biased observation. And certainly you don't get to be awesome if you slave away at 80+h/week. Better stay in the 30-50h/week range and spend the rest of the time to prioritize tasks, stay healthy, networking, etc. With the first approach you will be nothing more than a machine after just 2-3 weeks. With the second approach you can learn and get better every week of the year.