i have a confession to make i'm not this wiz kid kind of coder i've been working professionally as a coder as a software developer now for almost five years from working at a startup focusing on back end to working at a large corporation focusing on front-end leading a team of developers becoming a senior developer so how did i get here if i'm not that great at coding well today i want to sit down with you and i want to explain to you in this video what i mean with i'm not great at coding it's not
as simple as it might seem i know there are times where i'm still googling about for loops or googling about different algorithms i think to myself you should know this what is going on you teach others how to code you mentor others around coding what is going on also before we get further into this video i want to say a huge thank you to speakly for sponsoring part of it similar to learning coding languages or programming languages there is an art to learning spoken languages and with speaking there are two founders of it both polygons
who know seven languages so they clearly have uncovered or unlocked what the technique is to learn languages quickly with the speakly methodology it helps you learn languages five times faster compared to what you're accustomed to which means getting from zero to solid speaking skills in around three to four months and i know for myself when i download the app by the way it's available on both android and ios i immediately went to german fun fact for those of you who don't know i am half german swedish and started learning it was about 30 minutes a
day and i've been doing it now for i would say the past three weeks and there are some improvements let's let's give it a little test here let's try hello how are you hello hello hello how you doing oh gosh this is so it's so stressful to meet on camera hello we gate is there what do you want to discuss now my favorite color anyways back to speakly though it is this great app that offers everything you need to know to learn a language learning a language is so important and it's a great way to
really have other skills or other skill sets that you can show off as well when you are interviewing and it really shows that you're willing to learn new things take on new challenges and with speakly it is the only language learning application that actually lets you choose how you want to study new vocabulary and i think that's really important because everyone learns so differently so maybe you focus on writing maybe multiple choice or a combination i link them down below so make sure to go check them out and to get to this answer we need
to go back a bit back back in time back to the early days when i was first learning how to code and i'm going to take you on a little journey with me so i want you to sit down visualize kind of my journey throughout coding to really get to what exactly i'm referring to let's go all the way back to high school we're going way back now when i was in high school i'll be honest with you i was not that great of a student i did not get great grades especially in math and
that's something that throughout my entire life i thought i needed to be a math with in order to be a coder so i instantly wrote it off that you know if i don't have these math skills coding is not for me however fast forward to university ended up taking a very basic coding course like wow i can do this you don't need to be in math quiz you need to have logic and problem solving skills but those two things they can be developed so i ended up going to a coding bootcamp spent most of my
time probably crying in the bathroom having bad imposter syndrome but i learned a lot most importantly i learned how to learn i think that's a skill that a lot of developers really need to achieve or adapt to is learning how to learn and learning how they learn in a quick matter because we're often picking up new technologies quickly but then i realized something after almost five years in this industry it took me quite a while to understand this and realize this is everyone thinks they're bad at coding it's not just me i'm not alone on
this everyone who is actually a good coder or decent coder thinks they're bad at coding but why is this why do some of the best coders out there i'm definitely not one of the best coders out there but why do so many people think they are bad at coding and they're not really that bad well i think it goes back to the fundamentals if you look back at being a coder or coding you're constantly learning new things if you want to be a good coder you're always going to be uncomfortable by learning new things put
out of your comfort zone uh learning new technologies otherwise you're going to be stagnant and yes you'll feel very confident in your coding skills but are you actually that good of a coder if you're not learning anything new that is a very interesting question and i truly think the answer to that is you're not you have to be learning new things willing to get uncomfortable in order to be a good coder because technology is changing so rapidly that we need to attempt and i say attempt because it's impossible to keep up with it but i
also think another thing when it comes to coding and not being good at coding is if you want to be a really good coder there is so much more to it than actually coding i have seen people who are brilliant at what they do they're very technically skilled they can code anything they're they're coding wizards but they lack other skills and if you want to be good at anything i really think you need to have the entire package so you might be excellent at coding but does it make you a good coder technically yes but
does it make you a good software engineer or software developer that is up for debate in my opinion i think you need to have more than just the coding skills you need to have the personable skills are you willing to communicate are you willing to work together in teams those are things that are often missed when you are coding well that brings me to my next question i really want to address if you are someone who is learning to code or maybe you're like myself and have been in the industry for a long time whatever
your case is if you're feeling like you are just this terrible programmer or terrible coder how do you really shift your mindset from that because at a certain point it can become almost debilitating where you completely freeze you don't actually learn anything new you question your skill set you don't go for that interview or in some cases which i've been there you flop an interview just because of your own you get in your own head and i think this question is really important to address because i know so many of you have felt this way
i mean the numbers and the data around imposter syndrome and feeling like we don't belong or feeling like there isn't this place for us unless we are these genius coders there's a lot of us out there and i think at the end of the day you need to take a step back look at your skill set not just your coding skill set but your full package are you showing up to work every day with a positive attitude no i'm not saying you have to be you know this super peppy happy person every day but are
you showing up to work giving it your all are you coming up with different problems to solve or solving different problems there's so much more to it and although coding is so important of course it's not the end-all be-all in our jobs and i think we really need to recognize that you need to build beautiful code that solves problems and all this other stuff but if you aren't doing that in a team setting building together working together at the end of the day it's gonna be really lonely so what are some signs that you actually
are a bad coder and it's not impostor syndrome i think throughout this video i speak about how it's okay to feel like you're a bad coder or to question your skills but what if you actually are just a bad coder and you suck at coding well i think there's different ways you can kind of identify this the number one thing is that if you are coding and you're really hating it like dreading coding all the time even if you are expert at coding but you hate it i would say you're a bad coder and let
me explain what i mean by that i mean that if you really are not passionate about something or enjoy doing something naturally you won't excel at it or grow at it as quickly yes you might be able to find it easy or uh get the fundamentals down but are you able to pick up new technology quickly pick up new languages quickly maybe but if you have no passion or interest to do it i would say it's a give and take there's a possibility you're just going to be a bad coder now some things that don't
make you a bad coder but we think make us a bad coder include failing at interviews not being able to solve algorithms having to google everything i feel like one thing i've googled my entire career and i will continue to google my entire career googling is a skill set at this point hopefully over the years you learn to google better and smarter but it's something that you will have to do all the time as a software developer and i really wanted to make this video and talk about these feelings of oh i'm such a bad
coder or i'm not that great at coding because there's this mythical unicorn that exists in the tech world of this coder who is this whiz kid genius who can solve anything very quickly doesn't need help from anyone sits in their basement doesn't speak to anyone and yes although that does exist that is not what a good coder full package really in my opinion looks like i think there's so much more to it than that okay i'm gonna stop this video here but i hope you found it very valuable and insightful for anyone who is struggling
feeling like they're the worst coder we all think that and there are people who are worse than you i promise you we got this we just need to recognize that it's a journey and these feelings are totally normal and we just need to navigate them in the best way possible also i'm curious this is one of my first videos where i'm doing this kind of style moving around uh just kind of like i don't know do you like it are you into this style i feel like it's more authentic and true to myself so let
me know your feedback down below in the comments thanks everyone back in my back flow we back again so highly just that back in my back flow we back to change the climbing this that back in my back flow we bring the force like time yeah here
