Today, December 9th 2020, is a day in history for me. Today, I walked into my first ever interview for a position as a Software Engineer.
If you had asked me exactly one year ago where I pictured myself today my answer would have been “One year into my electrical apprenticeship program.” I would have talked about how I had class a few nights a week where I learned about circuitry, Ohm’s law, and national building codes. Instead, I walked into the most anxiety-inducing experience of my life.
Generally, I consider myself pretty confident in my interviewing ability. I speak clearly and consicely. I stand tall, with my head up. I make eye contact and shake the hand of every last person I am introduced to. I talk about my experience in relevant ways, and present myself as a professional in my trade. That all changed yesterday when I got a call from a nearby company that I had applied to. We had a short chat on the phone and then I was asked “Can you be here tomorrow at 2 for an interview with the rest of the software team and I?” Obviously, I excitedly responded yes! I was thrilled, and then about 7 minutes later it hit me: Imposter Syndrome.
Now, I’ve heard this word a ton since beginning my time at Flatiron. I mean A TON. I always thought “Yeah, ok, I can see why people would feel that way, but I’m good at this. I love to code and I feel like it’s something that I genuinely have a knack for.” I’m not one to second-guess myself, but I have been doing nothing but that for the last 17-ish hours. I couldn’t sleep because my mind was pouring over the endless amount of questions I could be asked. I was trying to prepare for EVERYTHING. I spent all night and all morning researching the company, the employees, the CEO, management, their product, and cramming every little bit of information i possibly could into my mind. Then the time came: I was in the parking lot, sitting in my car, sweating. One deep breath, two deep breaths, and in I went.
The gentlemen interviewing me, believe it or not, were just 2 guys who also loved to write code. They each came from different backgrounds that I was able to connect with. One came from the medical field, and we discussed the way bureaucracy dampens the effectiveness of our healthcare system. The other came from a machine repair background, and we were able to connect on previous projects we had worked on. Before I knew it we were sitting at a large conference table, with their tech on the projector in front of me. Do you know what I was looking at?? I was looking at a Javascript, HTML, CSS webpage. Exactly like I’ve built many times over now. They asked questions about my experience and it relating to the job at hand. They asked questions that I’ve been asked in EVERY INTERVIEW EVER.
Let me be frank: It was an interview. Plain and simple.
I was so worried, and stressed for NOTHING.
Do you know what else I realized? “Professional” software engineers are not much different from me and you. They spend hours on end reading documentation, asking stack overflow, and googling. They didn’t expect me to know everything. They didnt even expect me to know almost everything. What they did expect was for me to be professional, and humble. Not so humble as to make them think I knew nothing, but humble enough to admit that I did not know everything. They also wanted a go-getter, they wanted someone who could make it work, regardless of what I know or don’t know. I walked out of that interview with an enormous weight off of my shoulders. I, personally, feel that I was the person they were looking for to fill that position. I now have to play the waiting game and see if they agree, but regardless of the outcome I learned so much more than I could have ever hoped from just attending an interview.
TLDR;
- Professional software engineers are not transcended human beings with an intricate knowledge of every possibility within a body of code. They are humans, just like you and I. They DO NOT know everything, and they will happily admit that they spend just as much time on stackOverflow as you do every day.
- Imposter syndrome is a real problem if you let yourself fall victim to it. If you’re reading this, YOU ARE A SOFTWARE ENGINEER. Whether you have one month, or 20 years of experience none of us know everything. That is why we work in teams. The programs that I saw today were incredible, and they were created by a TEAM. Not by one guy.
- Do your research before an interview. I do not consider any of the time I spent reading about this company to be a waste, whether I get the job or not. I was able to show commitment, and enthusiasm by bringing up things I found in my research (like their pump that’s located in the middle of the atlantic ocean. It’s not actually there, it’s a software bug that HOPEFULLY I’ll be fixing in the near future.)
- They do not expect you to walk in and understand their code base after looking at it for a few minutes. They understand that everyone’s code is a little bit different. They understand that it will take you time to dig through someone else’s code and fully understand it, and they will allow you that time if you’re hired.
Today was an excellent day and whether or not I end up with this position I’ll always remember TODAY as the day I became a software engineer. I put the application out, and someone agreed enough to at least hear my story. Someone said “This SOFTWARE ENGINEER looks like he could be a good fit here.”
In my book, that’s a success.