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

Maybe your co-workers are over complicating the solutions to things because it makes sense for them to do so. I've seen this before and it can be hard to follow and detrimental to anyone else trying to understand.

Take one of them out to lunch, pick their brain about stuff to get to know them a little better. It might help understand how they approach problems.

If a developer condescends to you it's likely (a) accidental, because they don't know how best to explain something simply+accurately or (b) aimed at your current knowledge, not at you on a personal level. It might also be (c) they think you should have solved it on your own, which may/may not be true. In any case, all you can do is focus on the information and let the rest bounce off you.

The best favour you can do yourself is to be rigorous about following steps, checking your work and documenting things (just scratch notes for personal use).

Senior devs should be happy to help you learn, but won't like helping you fix sloppy/repeated mistakes. If you are confident that you've done your work with care, then others' bad attitudes shouldn't affect you as much (although it never feels good).

You may be able to turn this into a good experience. However, you may just be stuck on a team where where the pressure is on and nobody has time allocated to mentor you. If the situation doesn't improve, find a new job -- look out for yourself first.

Be grateful of how lucky you are. You're surrounded with people who can teach you awesome things. You're in a challenging environment, no boredom in sight. YOU'LL LEARN.

Just put a smile on you and seize the opportunities.

Maybe you also can look at it the other way around: When you are not a beginner, but well settled in IT, will you always know things? No. I once was in a room filled with high paid persons where most where longer in the business than I did and where also higher paid than I did. But they just did not know what I knew. I had made the software to run 10x faster than before and they where amazed. I knew, that it just was naturally, but they did not, because they did not have my particular experience and did not know some of the details.

I think, much of the IT business is basically showing confidence. IT is about always being ignorant -- but ignoring this fact -- and get used to it.

Being in the IT business means always learn new things and always be beginner even when you have been in it for thirty years. The trick is to get used to it and don't show fear in the face of the wild dragon called "The Unknown".

That is just part of the business -- and don't fear to ask, because it is sometimes the only way to overcome the unknown.

When others make fun of you, just ignore them. Some day, they will have to ask you!