The lack of self confidence and what to do about it

I recently interviewed a female dev for one of the open positions we have at Microsoft. We had a great discussion throughout the interview. Towards the end of our time, I asked her to describe a situation when she had a disagreement with someone in her team. She told me that it's hard to come up with a disagreement on the technical side, because she is the more junior than other people in the team and lacks the confidence to come up with ideas and then defend them. Therefore, if anyone more senior tells her "this is the way to solve this", she does as she is told.

The lack of confidence isn’t new to me. I experienced it first hand at the beginning of my career; I still experience it sometimes when I try something new or go out of my comfort zone. I personally would have never mentioned it in an interview, but I can relate.

Some research studies prove that lack of confidence hits women harder than men. Sometimes, men act with confidence even if they don't really feel confident or don't have all the data. Some women do this too, but for many, confidence is "an improvement area". I was definitely one of these women. At the beginning of my career, my lack of confidence was pretty obvious. I rarely spoke in meetings, and when I did, my voice was small and not projecting. I was not confident enough when checking in code, so I ran extra validation, which slowed me down. I felt horrible when tests or other validation discovered bugs in my code, thinking I am not good enough.

 Then one day, I was in a meeting talking about new features to be added in the area I worked on. Someone started explaining how my component worked - and he had it all wrong. Let me tell you, I found my voice and corrected the situation without a problem. I was confident; my confidence stemmed from knowledge; I was the area expert. Today, I have no problem speaking up in meetings. When I have an opinion, I have no problem defending it. When I don't know something, I have no problem asking questions.

 In that interview, when my candidate told me she does what more senior people told her, I really felt for her. I would have liked to talk to her about it, but the setting was not right. So I am writing this, hoping she or someone else may find it useful.

 When we start up something, career or not, we have a lot to learn, and learning from others (especially experts) is the best way. But learning doesn't mean taking all advice at face value and applying it without filter. To learn and grow, we need to ask questions, challenge what we hear, understand where people are coming from, look for other ways to do things, experiment and prototype.

Confidence comes with experience.

Experience comes from doing, trying, sometimes failing, and sometimes succeeding.

Change happens with courage, with taking on challenges and getting out of our comfort zone.

Confidence comes from picking ourselves up when we fail and by celebrating our successes.

If you suffer from lack of confidence, be patient with yourself and take the time to try, fail, succeed and grow.