The tech community is a growing one, with everyone within the community linked to one another. It is most likely that one tech sis knows a tech bro who knows another tech bro. The existence of this community has in many ways led to the growth of its members, encouraging the development of new skills, recommending potential career options, collaborations on new technologies and software, amongst many other positive influences. While the community has afforded its members many growth opportunities, it has also, unintentionally, led some of its members down the path of impostor syndrome.
If you are familiar with the tech space, it is no wonder to you that there’s always a new skill to develop, a new programming language to learn, a new application to build, a new topic trending. Although this is not peculiar to the tech space, being constantly surrounded by people in the tech community who always seem to know more than you do and are everyday doing big things in the tech world, can cause you to feel like anything you might have done is insignificant in comparison, like in the words of a friend of mine – “I just feel like I’m this little fish and everybody else, sharks”. It could also make you feel like a fraud, as though you’re undeserving of the things you have accomplished. Impostor syndrome is exactly as its name implies – the feeling of being an impostor.
It is not out of the ordinary to feel this way, but it is better for anyone who has observed this pattern to break out of it. The question is how? Firstly, it is important to recognize that one has fallen into this pattern. Keeping track of past achievements and remembering that recognition for every achievement was earned through hard work and not by chance is a good step to take to overcoming impostor syndrome. It is also important to be surrounded by a community that not only informs you about new happenings but is willing to teach and walk you through the process of learning new things. Make sure to ask questions whenever you need to and even shadow someone who knows more about a topic than you do. You took a learning curve to get to where you are today so you will continue along that path to know more for the future.
To the tech sis or tech bro struggling with impostor syndrome, you’re doing amazing! There will definitely be a lot to learn as you grow but that is characteristic of every field. Keep learning and growing. As you do, remember that you deserve your accomplishments. You were hired for that job and even promoted because your employers believed you were capable and credible enough. Testing the waters with a new job or project or even language could be daunting and might make you feel incapable, but as with other tasks before this, you learnt as you worked and you’d do amazing again!
