Working at Elite MegaBigCorp for the last 6 years... without a degree. My imposter syndrome has become epic.
Now I just want to leave the industry.
Can I retire yet?
Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
171–180 of 347 posts
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Experience induced clarity. I'm like OP. I've been in the tech industry for a stupid amount of years, and I swear I can improvise a CEO grade speech for any circumstance.
Disillusionment: "a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be." > Not really. How so?
Well, it's not disappointing really, it's just recognition.
I have no problem with how the system works, it's silly, it's unbalanced, it's all based on illusions, but here it is...
You can either feel disappointed and become all bitter and twisted, or you can just play the game. In many ways, it's fun, especially when you get that perception of clarity -- compensates for all these years you were the pawn.
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
why not be about women? The article also has a paragraph asserting that men also share this experience.
I explained why: to not create a harmful stereotype that women are the only ones affected, or even more affected by it than men. Why must everything be about identity politics?
surely explicitly stating that men are also affected avoids creating a harmful stereotype that women are the only ones affected.
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the last couple weeks I've had to decline 18 total hours of "challenges" and "work samples" from 4 different interview processes. I'm not sure at what point it became de rigueur to require applicants to complete on average 4.5 hours of work without pay, but I really, really don't think it's reasonable. I've even offered to show them my current projects in lieu of work samples, and no go. Baffling.
So 8 hour onsite interview is ok for you, but 5 hour home work is not? Where is logic in that?
When you spend 5 hours on an assignment alone, stressed because you need a job & your time is short, only to not get a response after several email follow ups, you will see the logic.
I wouldnt do this for the same reason i worked at a gas station over taking an unpaid internship:
If the company isnt willing to make some investment in you, they arnt worth investing your time into.
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#175My first for real full-time software engineering job was for a very small company. I was self-taught and their only software developer was leaving in 3 months, but had mostly checkout out already. The company environment was find but all the software was terrible.
Over that first year there it was basically the Klingon Rite of Ascension. Fighting fires and trying to keep the company afloat. I had no backup/mentors and if I failed then the company was done. I was near tears (or privately at tears) at a few points from frustration and stress. In the end I think this experience made me a better person for it.
First I was forced to learn how to manage stress. This was a big one and one I had never mastered before. Next I need to be able to juggle and prioritize actual company needs, not just what people told me to do. I couldn't spend all my time fixing things when our customers also needed our product to work. I also handled much of the customer support at this point because most of the issues were software related.
In any case, in the end I pulled the company back from its instability. This gave me a good amount of confidence that I am a good engineer. That no matter what gets thrown at me I can fix any of our problems and develop new systems. Even if I need to outsource some of the work to people who are better at particular platforms.
This probably isn't a healthy way to overcome impostor syndrome, but its how I did.
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#176Does anyone else get that feeling like, "am I the only one who sees what a load of shit this is?" I don't think it's imposter syndrome per se, but it's related. It's like, "I'm the only one who can see the truth." An example: years ago my old crooked boss brought everyone in to his huge office to tell us why he couldn't afford to give people the pay rise they'd been asking for. With a straight face and with his Aston…
Seems to me this is kind of the opposite of impostor syndrome which is a kind of anxious humility in which we fear that everyone else is smarter and wiser than ourselves. In the case you describe, you are divided between a suspicion that everyone else is an idiot (and you are wise) or that everybody is equally aware, but you've all learned to live the lie.
> Seems to me this is kind of the opposite of impostor syndrome [...]
> you are divided between a suspicion that everyone else is an idiot [...]
Not at all: you can be painfully aware that 90% or even 99% of your peers are not that good and yet you are still light years away from being in the top 0.0001%. It's the same type of awareness.
Compare it with income only for the sake of having a numerical benchmark. With a salary of 32k$/year you are in the world top 1% yet you might feel you should be earning 100x that.
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the last couple weeks I've had to decline 18 total hours of "challenges" and "work samples" from 4 different interview processes. I'm not sure at what point it became de rigueur to require applicants to complete on average 4.5 hours of work without pay, but I really, really don't think it's reasonable. I've even offered to show them my current projects in lieu of work samples, and no go. Baffling.
I was discussing this with a friend just last week. He too believes it is wrong to ask for a home assignment. But I have serious anxiety problems so I find whiteboard coding tests terribly difficult. Same thing with pair programming -- it's fine when you know the other person as colleague, but impossible for me in a "judgy" interview situation. I'd rather do it at home.
Sure, that makes sense. It's also probably accommodating to people with disabilities as well.
The part I have the major problem with is the average length. Peak was 8 hours, I just chuckled and said thanks but no thanks.
2 hours? Sure. No problem. Even 3 hours is fine.
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems to me this is kind of the opposite of impostor syndrome which is a kind of anxious humility in which we fear that everyone else is smarter and wiser than ourselves. In the case you describe, you are divided between a suspicion that everyone else is an idiot (and you are wise) or that everybody is equally aware, but you've all learned to live the lie.
The absolute worst is when you do point something out, and people laugh and say, "haha! yeah it's always been like that! ha!" Like - so we should do something about it, right? This thing that would dramatically improve our lives that is really obvious to everyone. Shouldn't we do it? Turns out, nope. It's always been like that.
This goes back to hidden complexity. The answer is no. You should not "do something," you should do "the right thing." And figuring out what the right thing is, and staffing it through everyone that has some equity in the problem space, and taking their feedback to iterate over the solution, is immensely time-consuming -- maybe more time-consuming than just dealing with the less optimal system that more or less works.
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#179I've been in software for 14 years without a computer science degree and carry a chip on my shoulder because I missed out on algorithms and compilers in school. I'm mostly self-taught and have had the opportunity to run a SAAS company for six years now (CodePen). I'm winging it like many other people in our industry. I wish I'd had two things to when I started my career. 1. A right of passage that endorsed my skills…
Nice story.
CodePen is awesome.
How about trying a different story for yourself from now on?
Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
#180Funny story, in 15 years of professional software development I never experienced the sense of imposter syndrome until very recently when I decided after 12 years at one employer (on many satisfying projects) I needed to consider expanding my employment options. AKA I started looking for a new job. Once I got a whiff of the putrid state of hiring in our industry today holy hell... Sure, I’ve been successful at this f…
This is not meant to
Be an insult. I was in the same position about 10 years ago. I had been at the same company for nine years.
I found that my skill set wasn't what the market wanted. Sure I had been successful in my projects doing basically the same thing for nine years but I had become an expert beginner (https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...)
I learned my lesson. I took a job after working for 12 years as what for all intents and purposes was a junior developer (making a little bit more because wage stagnation is real). I've had 5 jobs since then and kept learning.