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

Couldn't have said it better myself. There is nothing to be gained from elitist attitudes. Sounds to me like they want to hoard their own job security.

On top of all that, the "every man for themselves" mentality is a way to make sure that developers look out for themselves instead of the company as a whole. This is of no benefit to the company, and the leadership should recognize this and act accordingly.

What good can come from behavior that ensures other teammates don't improve at the rates they should be?

I heard a quote recently:

"What if we teach them everything and they leave?" "What if we don't, and they stay?"

Hold on there as much as you can possibly tolerate. This toxic environment is indeed building up your personality and you will end up being a better professional (would you do those "intense study sessions" otherwise ?) and a better person (you are learning how to not treat people).

Embrace those rotten attitudes and bitter words. Feel joy when you get them, for it is for a higher goal. Feel sad for them, for they are pretty much worthless human beings.

Don't let them make you quit. Stay there, learn as much as you can and quit, with pride, when you feel those dumb asses have nothing to offer you anymore.

And then, you win. They lose.

"If I am the least knowledgeable person, and a co-worker ignores, despises and almost makes fun of me for your lack of experience, how should I act in order to maintain my dignity but also be humble enough to acknowledge the co-worker's knowledge?"

If you are being all but mocked, humility is not called for, leaving is. There is no excuse for mockery.

"Is it normal to be hired as a junior and just being thrown to the lions, with no help or time to ramp up?"

It is at least not uncommon to take a junior person and throw them at a task that we do not expect you to fully understand out of the gate how to do. It's difficult to do much else; a project is a constantly-moving target, and while I do my best when onboarding someone to find a bug they can handle without having to know the whole system, there's no time to create a "curriculum" or formal training on the system or anything like that... by the time it was created it would already be out of date. So "here's a bug" is the only decent option I have.

However I always make it clear that many questions are expected, and support will be given. Plus, one nice thing about this approach is that it self-tunes... if you hire someone who actually tears through things unexpectedly quickly you aren't sitting there explaining things they find elementary to them.

Failure to provide support is unprofessional and downright bad business. It basically ruins the employee not being supported, and few people are so blessed with "headcount" that they can afford to be hiring people, then just leaving them to rot.

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

Ha! Probably a question of definition more than anything else. Some people use the term pejoratively and do include "bad attitude" or "extreme short term focus" in the definition. But I'll modify your question slightly to "good programmers", and no, being really good at programming does not require "rotten attitudes" and if you look at those who rise to heroic levels, they're generally known by their peers as very sympathetic and ready to explain things to anybody.

So far, it sounds like you've described a really hostile environment, because even if you are not really up to the job, the experience you are receiving is incorrect. You should not be getting mocked and psychologically run down by your coworkers. You might be getting taken aside by a manager, put on a performance plan, etc., and that sure as hell doesn't feel good, but it's still of a different nature than what sounds like being run through high school again.

Only you can really judge whether you're actually able to keep up. I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass and say everybody is really, ultimately suited for every job if they just try hard enough. That's elementary school lies-for-children, not reality. You could be in over your head, but making that decision requires more information than you could possibly stuff into a text post. The only two things I can say are 1. Yes, that is a possibility, but, 2. Don't measure yourself against the other people who have been there a long time, and CERTAINLY don't measure yourself against the swaggering personas they may be projecting! Measure yourself against the tasks, whether you can complete them, and whether the solutions are good enough to ship (as opposed to abstractly perfect). And, likewise, measure them against their tasks, whether they complete them, and whether their solutions are any good! (It's usually a lot easier to recognize good code than write it.) See if the swagger is really justified, or if they're just swaggering because they are the only ones capable of navigating their own mess. If you're closing bugs on a reasonable schedule, and they're staying closed when QA tests them, you're at least keeping up. Also consider the difficulty of the tasks... if a "fix the font" bug turns into a multi-week endeavor because the code is just crap, well, maybe this job isn't worth fighting for anyhow. (No programming job is perfect or easy but some are worse than others for no good reason.)

Ultimately, you can't get a yea or nay answer from anything anybody says here, so one last bit of meta-advice... after you read this, just sleep on it for a day or two before coming to any decisions of any kind. Let your subconscious chew on this too.

(Also, I post even though many already have because I see few people are directly addressing your very reasonable questions.)

You say you were confident and cocky during the interview. Think back. Did you mis-represent the depth or breadth of your knowledge and experience? You were aware that you lacked experience. Did you make the hiring committee aware as well. If you represented yourself as something you are not, that might explain a little of the attitude from others. Not excuse it, just explain it.

If you represented yourself honestly during the interview process and they hired you anyway, then someone had confidence in your ability to learn. Check in with those people and see if they think you are picking things up at the rate they expected. A good manager will check in with you if you are moving a little slower than expected. A great manager will check in even if things are going as planned. Good managers are rare, great ones even rarer. Reach out to your manager if s/he hasn't reached out to you.

Even if you represented yourself honestly, there are going to be some jerks. Period. Some people will be of the opinion that someone with more direct experience should have been hired. It wasn't their decision and they are not your boss.

    1. I feel I handled this wrongly, and started with too 
    much confidence. If I am the least knowledgeable person,
    and a co-worker ignores, despises and almost makes fun of
    me for your lack of experience, how should I act in order
    to maintain my dignity but also be humble enough to 
    acknowledge the co-worker's knowledge?

There are two questions here. First of all confidence is not a bad thing. When too much confidence encounters reality then adjust but don't beat yourself up about it.

Second, admit when you are wrong but don't feel ashamed. Realize there is dignity in admitting you don't know. If the work environment is toxic and your coworkers are a barrier to learning then you might want to think about finding a new place to work. If on the other hand approaching them with humility breaks down those barriers then it might be worth sticking around and learning some things.

   2. Is it normal to be hired as a junior and just being
   thrown to the lions, with no help or time to ramp up?

In my experience it's roughly half and half. There will undoubtedly be times when you join a company and they expect you to just hit the ground running. There will be other times where the company won't expect you to be productive for 6 months. It varies.

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

Personally I don't think there is such a thing as ninja or rock star software developers. And if someone actually thinks of themselves as one then they probably have too high an opinion of themselves. And that can often lead to rotten attitudes.

That said there is such a thing as experienced and wise developers. And when you find them then it's important to treat them as a valuable resource. Many times someone elses attitude is just as much about how you approach them as it is anything else. Being too cocky can lead to a little bit of teasing.

Bottom line don't get discouraged when you are surrounded by lots of smart people. That's a fantastic position to be in for growth. But carefully consider if the environment will allow growth for you or not. Toxic environments it may be better to get out and find a better pond to be a small fish in.