i only know python

someone’s doing a code review. errors as values comes up. i don’t know it. i look it up. you return the error instead of throwing an exception.

i say “wonder how zig does it” because i want to sound smart.

“also errors as values?”

“no idea. i only know python. and not very well.”

we laugh but i’m not joking.

the thing i’m not supposed to say

i’m not supposed to say this out loud. writing it down feels worse.

i have imposter syndrome. i think i’m about to get found out. that someone will ask me a basic question and i’ll freeze and that’ll be it.

and yet: i’ve been doing this for years. i lead a team.

so what’s going on?

what my friend said

i told a friend about this. he knows python better than me. has an engineering degree.

he didn’t laugh. he called me a goat. said: “the bigger the gap between what you know and what you get paid, the better you’ve positioned yourself.”

i pushed back. said i just see it as a tool. like guitar geeks — some people know every fender since ‘52, which wood sounds how, have five guitars for different things. and some people just pick one up and play a song.

he said: that’s valid. some people are passionate about the tool. some are experts on the tool. some just know how to do what they want to do. only the ones who can’t do anything are wrong.

what actually got me here

the things that got me here aren’t python things.

knowing what to build. understanding why the business needs it. talking to people who don’t code. making tradeoffs. shipping good enough instead of perfect. staying calm when things break.

python is part of the job. but it’s not the job.

the caveat

the fundamentals still matter.

if you’re junior — learn. build the technical skills. that’s when you grow most.

but at some point you realize: knowing python well and doing the job well are different things.

you’ll never know it all. keep learning — just stop feeling guilty about the gaps.

i still have imposter syndrome. i don’t think that goes away.

but if you’re reading this and you feel the same — like you don’t know enough, like you’re faking it, like someone’s going to find out — look at the evidence instead of the feeling.

you might be doing better than you think.

— br