Ask HN: How can I tell if I am a good developer?

Every company I stayed at wanted to extend the contract or told me I was one of their best developers they worked with.

However, my own perception is different. In every company I was good at creating a team spirit and to analyze problems. Every company had this one (or more) people who just coded and could put a solution into code super fast. I on the other hand sometime feel like in between.... I grasp things fast but my code was never as clean, good or delievered fast enough.

I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wouldn't be for my boredom of NodeJS. I decided to switch stacks and taught myself Go.

Now I got hired at a really big brand and I joined the team last month. And oh boy, these guys are good. I mean they come up with solutions I couldn't even remotely think of.

I highly doubt mu abilities now and actually thinking of quitting (partly it's hard to be a "senior" developer and now see how much further my team mates are).

The question is: How can I tell if I am good enough or doing a good job? My old projects told me I am good (enough), now they hired me and I feel like a failure.

Is there a way you find out where on the scale you operate? If I am too low, is there a way to get better to maybe match them one day?

1) Do not compare you, after a month, with people who have been there years. It will take time, you will get there.

2) So what if you're in-between? That's your unique selling point. Embrace, don't discard it.

There's a place for you in your company, and in the world in general. Just like there's a place for the coder who turns coke into code, and the marketing exec who talks to customers. You are not a failure. Look up imposter syndrome too. You're suffering it.

A lot of people think the ability to accomplish a task quickly makes you a good developer. This is true. But those who are strong in business knowledge but weak in programming knowledge use this to create a false dichotomy between quickly delivered code and poorly written code. So if the design of the current program or business knowledge is what's slowing you down don't worry too much about that. On the other hand if everyone on the team is doing better than you maybe there's something they know that you don't. For example maybe you spend more time on meaningless tasks because you don't time box. It might definitely be worth it to check in with some other team members throughout the day and just ask them what they would do if they were you in whatever situation you're in right then. I found this often gives me good ideas if I can humble myself enough to listen to them.

Try and take a step back from the situation and look at it without your ego attached at all with respect to the goals of the business.