You Know More Than You Think

The more you learn about software, the more you realize how little you know. This can either stress you out, or you can view it as your advantage: no one knows it all, so you know something someone else doesn’t.

New software developers and learners become overwhelmed at the massive prospect of learning everything. We think we have to understand full stack development, JavaScript, Django, Rust, Golang, machine learning, graphic design, unit testing, AWS, sharding, SCSS, how to set up the latest and greatest in architecture…and let’s throw blockchain in there too.

The less experience you’ve got, the easier it is to feel insecure about what you don’t know. However, if you’re waiting for the day you feel like you “know enough” then that day won’t arrive.

If you feel this way, here’s the good news: you know more than you think.

Don’t Try to Be Another Developer

Early in your programming journey, you meet someone who knows a lot. They’re your instructor, a senior dev, an online mentor, an old professor. So you try to model yourself after them.

This is a great way to learn a lot rapidly, but don’t try to set your goal to know everything that ______ knows.

If you’re trying to only learn what the senior on your team is teaching you, you’ll only ever be just slightly worse than them.

If you supplement their mentorship with your own learning, you’ll hone your own craft and become a force on your team.

When you’re starting to learn a new field, you’ll follow loads of tutorials, books, YouTube channels—anything to get your feet wet and earn competency quickly.

Over time, you start to find some areas you really vibe with, e.g.:

• You start to get comfortable with different SQL queries
• You get bored with algorithm challenges
• You fall in love with front-end design
• Colleagues starts asking for your help with AI/ML

The surprising part? It can happen quickly. In the span of one week, you can become the “DevOps person” on your team. You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be willing to actually sit down and learn…