[Jaxkr]

I’ve been programming since I was 12. I saw “real programmers” and was convinced their feats were nothing short of magic.

And it stuck with me. I worked for a startup that got acquired by Atlassian last week, wrote their Jira Server integration which helped land Uber as a customer. But I still wasn’t a “real programmer”.

This sounds stupid, but I never became a “real programmer” in my head until I developed a Minecraft mod. I got into programming because of Minecraft and I was always amazed by the modding wizards. I tried and failed when I was 13-15 to make mods.

I recently took a crack at it 6 years later and it came easily. I realized that the modders weren’t wizards because I could do it now too.

I beat imposter syndrome by going back and doing the things I couldn’t when I started programming. Makes you realize how far you’ve come and less like a fraud.