Ask HN: I've lost faith in myself as a developer, how do I get it back?
It does sound like burnout, and also like not being in the right environment (which contributes to burn out). I had one job where there was a lot of technical debt, but my manager did not respect me and my colleagues had what was basically a &quot;learned helplessness&quot; attitude. So I&#x27;d go around trying really hard to make things better, but everyone responded to me like I was just crazy or naive or didn&#x27;t know what I was talking about. Thankfully my previous job had been one where I had earned a lot of respect from my colleagues and managers, so I knew that I wasn&#x27;t the problem, but even knowing that I found the doubt starting to creep in.<p>I left. My new job has lots of tech debt, lots of processes that are broken, but  when I propose changes people listen. When I put in the work I can see progress. It&#x27;s hard work and frustrating, but I know that it&#x27;s because the problems I&#x27;m tackling are hard, not because I&#x27;m a failure or lacking. That&#x27;s a very different environment.<p>I can only give a very broad bit of advice here -- having a positive, open environment is very important. Gaslighting will bring down even the most secure, confident person over time. If you can&#x27;t change the environment, leaving to find a better one is the right thing to do. What that looks like will differ on one&#x27;s situation -- might be a long break from coding, might be changing teams, might be changing companies. But we absolutely need people around us who believe in us to work sustainably.