Feeling down about your interviews job search?

This is Day 4/7 of our 1-week coding interview email course.

If you're one of those folks who struggles with confidence around your interview chops or engineering skills, I want to tell you something.

And this comes from working with thousands of engineers, so you can trust me when I say:

You're not alone.

Most people harbor a fear that they're not actually good at what they do, and that they could be "found out" at any moment.

This is so common that it has a name: impostor syndrome.

It's especially bad in interviews. We're being put on the spot and asked to prove we're good at this stuff. This forces us to ask ourselves, "How do I know I'm good at this stuff?" "Am I even good at this stuff?"

On top of that, coding is an endlessly vast field, so there'll always be something we don't know or aren't good at yet. Whether it's back-end, front-end, system design, recursion, operating systems...everyone has some domain where they feel undereducated or untalented.

Feeling undereducated because your university or coding boot camp didn't go very deep into the data structures and algorithms stuff?

Feeling untested because this is your first engineering job?

Feeling anxious because you've been doing the same kind of work for 10 years and you're out of touch with the hip new stuff going on at Google or the startups you have your eyes on?

Just know this:

You're probably closer than you think.

I've seen thousands of people down in the dumps, worried it wouldn't work out, until the right preparation got them really freaking good at coding interviews and they were able to land their dream job.

You too can land that dream job!

And your impostor syndrome will dissipate when you see how much they want to pay you :)

By the way, when you have an offer (or several) coming in, my team and I can help with advice on offer negotiation. You should absolutely negotiate. Yes, it's scary. I know. But a conversation or two is likely to win you literally tens of thousands of dollars more per year!

Seriously. Even if the initial offer already looks astronomical, the company has actually budgeted to pay you more after negotiation.