Nobody Cares About Complexity

Steven Kneiser
2-minute read

Ever hide your insecurity
behind complexity?

NOTE: This is Part 2 of the “Nobody Cares” series

• “Oh, it’s just some simple HTML & CSS”
• “Oh, it’s just this script/library/framework/API”
• “Oh, it’s just a pre-trained model”

👏 You
👏 Are
👏 Enough

You’re not a hack
…unless you can’t do FizzBuzz
Sorry, not sorry

For junior roles,
they care more about who you are
than precisely how much you know

• “How do they approach problems?”
• “How do they spend their free time?”

Actions speak louder than words

Don’t try to be the best
Be the only you

There’s a difference
between curiosity & overcompensation

You don’t have to prove yourself

I’ve seen developers dive years into their craft, deeper & deeper to fill this little void. There’s this voice in the back of their head whispering “not good enough.” They started for all the right reasons, but lost themselves along the way. Those ambitions led them off a cliff into the bottomless Pit of Despair™. How do we set off into our careers to better ourselves without chasing fool’s gold?

Do you even remember why you started this journey?

Do you feel like a developer?

…or do you wake up with dread
because you still can’t identify as one?

Why do basic projects win competitions?

“That project is so easy to do!”
The judges don’t understand:
ours was more impressive”

No, you don’t understand

The best ideas are deceptively simple:
they fit their context like a glove

Why do complex projects not get enough love? Often they’re too divorced from the problem they’re solving. Appeals to complexity are often at the expense of usefulness, as in viability, feasibility, & usability

Don’t be a Coder who creates
Be a Creator …who codes

Which would you rather be:
deeply interesting or deeply useful?

NOTE: This is Part 2 of the “Nobody Cares” series