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Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

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Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#161

Post by brentis »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #52
sbjustin wrote: post #30

I'd go work somewhere else and here is why: You can learn anywhere, why work with a bunch of people who are not going to build you up and encourage you to improve yourself and by extension, the team/project. What are you really getting from these guys if it's "every man for himself" anyways? 1. Forget that, be confident. Just focus on improving yourself and on things that can make you better at your job. 2. No. I exp…

On 2, I feel like I know enough to get by, but can't really level up and do larger stuff. I make features and fix bugs and most of the time they stick (who knows down the road though!), but I'm in a similar situation as OP but feel like my language knowledge is just behind and my job doesn't feel like a source of learning. Is this ultimately my responsibility or do I just need a mentor to break through?

Having been a sw PM for 20yrs I think self-awareness and willingness to explain highlight those that are truly brilliant. They recognize their abilities and become accustomed to explaining their ideas. Your awareness of your own limitations is credit to your intelligence IMO. Others who get frustrated when having to explain or posture do so from posturing or insecurity. Being in a new position requires computation of many more inputs than a old timer too, slowing down thought by an order of magnitude. Who knows, you may be the smartest dude in the room. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#162

Post by traviswingo »

The most important thing to remember and believe is that the most intelligent people ask questions. Not knowing something is totally fine as long as you recognize you don't know it and are willing to put in the effort to learn. These so called ninja rockstar engineers are just being assholes if they're walking all over you simply because you're a junior. They knew literally nothing at one point and I can guarantee they still have a ton to learn.

As for your questions:

1. Dignity? Seriously, having a question or not knowing something shouldn't affect your dignity. You'll severely limit your learning speed if you're afraid of what people think of you when you're not as knowledgable as everyone else in the room. That to me sounds like an excellent situation where you can learn a lot.

2. It's pretty normal to be hired at any level and just be expected to start producing. Scrappy startups will typically be more like this than larger companies.

3. No.

Lastly, if this place is as bad as you're making it out to seem, go find a better place to work. As engineers we literally have thousands of cool places to pick from and awesome teams are a dime a dozen. You're not a tree, pack up your shit and move!

Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#164

Post by rdlecler1 »

informatimago wrote: post #3

Basically, intelligence is a speed of processing. Assumedly every human being, given enough time, would be able to solve the same set of problems. The thing is that we only have 80 years to solve them! And also, there are more problems to be solved than anybody can in this small time frame, even with a IQ of 1000 (speed of processing). Now what does that mean for the slower minds, in a competitive environment? You ca…

Who cares if you can solve the wrong problem quickly. I'll take the person who knows what problem to solve. In my experience those are often independent.

Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#165

Post by siliconian »

lawry wrote: post #150

> 3. Do all star/ninja/rock-star software developers have rotten attitudes? Once you are proficient at some language/framework/library it seems (at least to me) hard to be humble about something you built with it. Sometimes, and hopefully, we're excited about what we've built! How do the real star-software developers that don't seem to have a rotten attitude after years of experience do it? (I'm really honestly askin…

Some of the smartest people I've met are also the most modest. Being excited about or even proud of one's own work is different from being arrogant and obnoxious about it.

Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#166

Post by stevoo »

I can say that i was in your shoes several years ago when i joined my first company.

Coming straight out of Uni with a good CV i lacked work experience. Academic code and Work code is two completely different worlds !

So at my job for the first 1 - 2 years I sucked ! Really sucked. I was working as hard as i could, trying to figure everything out, and having several massive programs that we were working on it made it extremely hard. And as you, all the developer were each person for him self. Nobody bothered in giving me a bone to help me out. They just throw me to the wolves.

Every time i asked a question i got a vague answer and even some times some rude comments about asking that question !

A few years after i stick in there i am as good as all the other developers which at that time i though they were exceptional ! So yes, for the 2nd question. Developers hardly care for any one else. I have told my CTO that it was every man for him self for several years in my reviews. If someone helped me out a bit in the beginning it would have been up to speed from the first year.

So not only the star/ninja software developers have rotten attitudes but i would say that 90% of them dont care about the junior developer.

My recommendation, is that if you like your job, stick in it until you get good at it. And trust me you will. If you CTO tells you anything, just tell him it is impossible for someone to catch up with out the experienced developers help and that they are all for them selfs.

I wouldn't think about quitting. The next job will most probably be the same.

Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#167

Post by plikan13 »

Generally there is not much happiness in software development. More often than not the job is little more than prostituting your brain for some cause that you don't really care about. That's why many people have shitty attitudes, in spite of their royal paychecks.

Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#168

Post by huhtenberg »

> Do all star/ninja/rock-star software developers have rotten attitudes?

Yes. That's pretty much a definition of "star/ninja/rock-star" developers - cocky know-it-alls who openly consider themselves smarter than the rest. Doesn't mean they are actually skilled or senior though.

Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#169

Post by sangnoir »

You might be experiencing imposter syndrome, and it makes you question if you deserve to be there.

I suffered from imposter syndrome when I got moved to a new team (same employer) by myself after a cohort was moved.I felt like I wasn't properly onboarded and I did not have a fellow noob to ask "silly questions", and I suffered for it. I was tasked to do a major-ish feature and I completed it with no confidence: it was scrapped from the first release & I felt like I had failed. When a colleague was asked to 'redo' it, he only added about 5% more and called it a day. Looking back at the code: it was good work, and it was 95% of what was required (to me at the time it felt like 20%).

I will tell you what I would have told myself then: don't be afraid to ask "silly" questions - don't let your egobget in the way.(try to figure it out first though). Also: it's a great opportunity to learn.

Re: Ask HN: I am the dumbest person in the room. What should I do?

#170

Post by kwhitefoot »

1. Yes you handled it it wrongly, just as most of us did. Shouldn't matter that much. Now you know, you can adjust.

2. No this is not normal, most managers understand that a new employee needs support to get started.

3. Definitely not, most of us are friendly people, keen to help our co-workers contribute to the projects we work on after all if you don't contribute it means the rest of us have to work harder (ok perhaps I'm not a rock star dev, but I'm pretty good).

Lastly, try to find out what's going on, make sure that you understand the dynamics of the situation so that you can adjust your own behaviour if necessary. But if the working environment is really just toxic rather than simply demanding start looking elsewhere.

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