I’ve moved to an new project at work this past week. I’ve been requesting a change for a while now, and some business needs aligned nicely right around the time I had hoped to make the move. There’s a lot that could be said, but one quick thing I wanted to write about was the effect working with new people has had on my imposter syndrome. (Which I think I’ve been in denial over)

In my reflection post after one year in the biz, I mentioned that I found it important to get used to not knowing what the right choice is. I still stand by that. One can easily waste a lot of time obsessing over getting it exactly right, which is time you could spend actually building something and learning from it. That being said, on my previous team I didn’t get a lot of really useful feedback on my code. I was the only front end developer, and our tech lead, while good at his job, didn’t have much front end experience himself. I did learn a lot by having to figure it all out myself, but I was always scared that someone else would see my code and think it was terrible. (AKA I’m a fraud, AKA imposter syndrome)

That’s one of the reasons I was interested in working with a new team - I wanted to work with some more experienced FE developers and learn from them. I expected to come in to this team and be the Baby again. Not knowing much, but keen and eager to learn more. It’s only been a few days though, and I’m realizing that I actually do know more than I think I do sometimes. I’ve been able to help out with two build issues, have had productive conversations with the devs where I actually know what I’m talking about and seem to have insightful questions…

All in all, an unexpected but pleasing development. I thought being in a new context which just highlight all the things I don’t know, but so far, it seems to be showing me the things I do know.