# The Unicorn Developer

**Published by:** [Tape](https://paragraph.com/@tape/)
**Published on:** 2022-12-08
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@tape/the-unicorn-developer

## Content

What is a unicorn developer? In the tech world, a unicorn developer is generally a developer who is highly skilled or has a unique skillset — enter developers who design and code, mainframe developers, full stack developers. You get the idea. I happen to be a unicorn developer, but I’m giving the term a new definition. This unicorn is a woman, a person of color, a muslim, a hijabi, bilingual and full stack developer when she wants to be. There are how many women of color in tech?! I took a pretty normal route into tech. I went to college, got the software engineering degree, got an internship and the rest is pretty predictable. What wasn’t predictable was the feeling of entering a field where pretty much no one looks like you. Entering the tech world as a 20 year old woman is pretty intimidating on its own because, as we all know, women only make up 26% of the field. Factor in women of color and we’re down to a mere 13%. When I was in college, I was pretty focused on gaining the skills I needed to be successful, graduate and get a decent job. By the time I started applying for jobs, it hadn’t even clicked that I was moving into a completely new part of my life. I grew up in a bubble where most of the people around me were family or of the same culture and entering the work force was very different. I found myself in conference rooms as the only one. The only woman, the only person of color…and so on. I also truly undermined how much this would alter my sense of belonging in the workplace. Imposter’s Syndrome anyone? Imposter’s syndrome ran pretty heavy early on in my career. When I was interviewing for a position, I was called a unicorn and told that the interviewing team had been “looking for someone who looked like me.” From then on, I questioned whether I was hired for my skills or for my experience and credentials. I second guessed a lot of my technical work and even considered leaving the field when the work got difficult. I didn’t consider that the work was difficult for everyone, which it was, but instead put my competence in question. I found myself working really hard to prove myself. I took on extra responsibilities, did training outside of work, joined a mentorship and never said no to any task that was asked of me. It got to the point where I realized that I was going to burn out pretty soon and I was legitimately only a couple of years in. Something had to give. I started by focusing on the thing in front of me — take one thing at a time. I wrote things down to get them out of my brain to free up space. It sounds really simple but that did wonders for me. I wasn’t hanging on to things as much because they lived elsewhere. If I had a task, I devoted my full attention to it. For example, if I had a task to create a new component for website I was working on then I would sit down and write my end goal down as well as the steps that I wanted to take to get there with the information that I had. I didn’t look around to see what other people were doing. I didn’t wonder how the more experienced person on the team would solve the problem. I didn’t think about if I was taking too long in my process. I started trusting my intuition. This didn’t happen overnight — even though I’m making it sound like it did. There were times where I would be so consumed by my code that I would dream of the solutions (but what developer doesn’t go through that). There were also times where my imposter’s syndrome won and there were times where I was afraid to ask for help but I learned and grew. Slowly, my confidence went up as a developer and I felt a sense of belonging because I could see my contributions and recognize them. Although I was still the only person in the room that looked like me, I was producing work and content that made me fit right in. I was also breaking stereotypes for people that had “never worked with someone like me.” Does that make me feel like I’m being held as a representative for every other girl who slightly fits my description? Yes, but that’s a story for a different day.

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