What It Means to Be “Good” at Tech

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For a long time, I thought being good at tech meant being the smartest person in the room . You know that person. That person who always has the answers. That person who could seemingly look at a issue and solve it in minutes.

I chased that idea relentlessly. I thought that if I didn’t meet that standard, I wasn’t good enough to call myself a developer.

But over time, I started to notice something.

The people I admired most in this industry weren’t the ones with the biggest brain. I studied people who asked thoughtful questions. Who admitted when they were stuck. Who collaborated without ego and explained things with patience.

I will never forget when I was a junior engineer. One of the best programmers I’d had ever met took the time to help me solve an problem when I knew his plate was full. It stuck with me because he didn’t have to do it and it took hours to solve.

He was patient, consistent and kind. And most importantly, he made me feel welcomed.

And that’s when it hit me, being good at tech has nothing to do with being a genius.
It’s about being human in a technical space. It’s knowing how to solve problems, even if it means asking for help. It’s learning how to break something down and build it back up, even if it takes you longer than someone else. It’s being the teammate others can rely on, not the one trying to prove they’re the smartest.

It’s about making people feel welcomed, so they keep coming back so they can grow, succeed, and maybe pull others up along side them.

So if you’ve been measuring your worth by how much you know or how fast you can code, don’t. You don’t have to be a know-it-all to be valuable.
You just have to keep showing up, keep learning, and keep being someone others can learn with. That’s what being good at tech really looks like.

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