Why I Love Being the Stupidest Person in the Room

Joining a team or jumping into a new code base can feel very discouraging at first. You’re the newest person on a team and there’s this sudden urge to contribute. If you’re highly driven like me, you have a sense of urgency to demonstrate your competency; a feeling so unnecessarily strong that anyone on the outside would say you’re being too hard on yourself. You want to be a respected member of the team/community as soon as possible. I’ve been there way too many times.

I haven’t gotten used to feeling discouraged, nor have I become comfortable with my masochistic sense of panic. I’ve just realized how beneficial it is to be in that position. The pressure tests my resolve and fear becomes my most useful tool.

I’ve had the fortune of working with teams which consist of Software Engineers who have decades of experience. Some are authors, more than a few are entrepreneurs, all of them are extremely capable. Learning from the best of the best is a great way to grow.

A few of the following points will help you realize that being new is one of the best points in your career; the others are tips.

The individuals who took time out of their work day to interview you don’t want to waste their time. They’ve invested time into you and dozens of other candidates. The mere fact that you were extended the offer at the end of the day is confirmation that they believe in your potential to live up to the job responsibilities.

There’s a job opening for a reason.There are responsibilities/tasks that can be shared by another member. You’re that person. Before your first day, there’s trust from everyone on the team that you’ll help them get things done. Your contributions will save your colleagues time which can be spent getting more things done.

More things will be new than familiar. You’ll probably be introduced to a whole new set of tools and practices. As you get on your feet, you’ll:

These points are only the beginning of all the benefits you’ll reap by working with new teams.

Like any team, your success depends on the effort of the members as a whole. Your team is rooting for you to get sh*t done and go farther because your contributions will help them to do the same.

An ideal environment will/should not be hostile. Instead, it should be encouraging, helpful, and challenging. It’s up to you to make things happen for yourself, but know that you have a group of very capable people behind you, ready to help out.

Fear of those things will hold you back and lead to a waste of time.

Even now there’s so many times in my career where so much time and energy would have been saved if I had reached out for help sooner.

Put enough time and effort to be able to convey where you’re stuck. Don’t ever run into an obstacle and ask for help without getting your hands dirty first.

I’ve spent whole days out of the week trying to figure something out, just to prove to myself that I have the ability to do it. This is very foolish.

I’ll keep going until I break down or reach a time limit. Someone will reach out to me to get me unstuck. The solution often comes out to be, “ohhh yeah, it’s just this thing that you just have to know.” or “yeah this is just how we do it.” This attempt at self validation is a rabbit hole of negativity and time that could have been spent being productive.

I think that the trait of a capable Software Engineer is not to be a crazy fast coder or a know-it-all, but to be smart enough to make decisions that will maximize the time you have to get things done.

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