How movies contribute to imposter syndrome among developers

How movies contribute to imposter syndrome among developers

I believe the movies we watch create unrealistic expectations of things and people. Growing up all the tech people in movies were always typing so fast and loudly. The keyboard clacking sounded so cool at that time, it felt like the tech guys knew it all and communicating with machines was so easy.

The reality is that software engineers no matter how good have to look things up online, I've been in training sessions where CTOs and senior software engineers had to take a pause and look things up online when the code wasn't working out the way they wanted it to, the difference between the junior developers and the senior guys when it comes to looking things up is that the senior guys know what they're looking for.

The way senior developers search the internet needs to be studied, even when they've forgotten the exact name of the thing they're looking for they have a way of wording their search queries in a way that can get them close enough to get what they want. Most importantly they're able to understand code that would give junior guys nosebleed, stack overflow is a platform that confuses most junior developers. It's sometimes scary how senior developers boldly march into that platform.

The point I'm trying to make is that you're not as bad as you think, you know enough to get some things done and that alone is proof that you can code. I think the most important thing in coding is knowing the important steps you need to follow to create a solution. If you can tell the major things that need to be present or that need to happen (and in the order in which they're to occur) before you can successfully build a project then all you need to do is look up those parts when you're stuck. Coding can be quite draining which is why you don't need the added burden of doubting yourself or comparing yourself to people with a decade's worth of experience. Bill Gates is famously quoted to have said "people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten years".