Is there a fix for impostor syndrome? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#231

Post by alexquez » Thu, May 03, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

knightofmars wrote: post #202

alexquez wrote: post #158

I'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…

> dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) For someone, such as yourself, who has been in software for 14 years I'm surprised that you'd write these words. Most people I've met with your years of experience realize there isn't a "wrong technology" there is a "right technology for the problem" and a "right way to use a specific technology". I suspect you're applying hindsight bias in thinking, "I could have…

Pointing out the tech I used at the time is a bit of a red herring for the argument I was making.

The point I should have made was that I focused on the technology instead of the fundamentals of software. I was obsessed with learning the tech that that existed at the time instead of learning how to craft software in general with the least amount of complexity.

I wrote a website that got 10 visits a month with Spring and Struts. I had simpler options but was pretty convinced everything had to be "enterprise grade".

Today, if you had to build it, you'd build a static site.

I learned quite a bit from these mistakes. My argument does romance the idea of a mentor that was hyper-intelligent and cared about my career.

Mistakes are always made. Mentor and mentee alike. C'est la vie.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#232

Post by zaphod12 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

alexquez wrote: post #158

I'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…

If you want to take Algorithms and Compiler courses, Stanford, Georgia Tech and many others have great options online.

I don't think it'll help at all - I've got a bachelors in computer engineering and computer science and masters in computer science and feel pretty similarly to you (and know plenty others in the same boat as I am) - but the option's there. I actually did my MS for this very reason. I enjoyed it very much and learned a lot, but it didn't help the imposter syndrome.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#233

Post by fenwick67 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

hardwaresofton wrote: post #34

Aaaand self promotion: https://vadosware.io/post/the-cure-for-impostor-syndrome-is-... tl;dr - Stop claiming to be an expert at things you haven't delved into deeply. Conversely, if you've delved into a subject deeply, there's a high chance you won't feel like an impostor. If you don't have time (or resources) to delve into something deeply, and understand thoroughly, accept that fact and move on.

I don't like how you posit that expertise is some absolute thing.

To some coworkers I'm a programming expert. To a 30-year veteran sysadmin I'm a novice.

The same goes for any skill or knowledge - musicianship, cooking etc. Only one person in the world is the best at something, and it's not reasonable to compare yourself to that person when there's billions of us.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#234

Post by alexquez » Thu, May 03, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

efigle2501 wrote: post #179

alexquez wrote: post #158

I'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?

Glad you like old CP. I'm extremely happy with where I am.

My statement romances the mentor I'd had found. Sheepishly my ideal mentor is me with 14 years of software experience.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#235

Post by throwaway413 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

philbarr wrote: post #154

scandox wrote: post #143

Earlier 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.

I play in a pickup soccer game on Saturdays.

First time I went was a couple weeks ago. I noticed that they didn’t play with any out of bounds - whoever kicked it out, got to keep going with the ball. Made no sense.

I asked the organizer of the group about it. His reply? “We’ve been doing it like this for 10 years. That’s just how it is.”

I asked him if he personally enjoyed playing like that (him being the organizer for literally the last decade...)

He slowly turned and looked at me with a blank stare, as if he had never thought of it like that before. “No I don’t,” he said.

He still refused to do anything about it.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#236

Post by jerf » Thu, May 03, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

merinowool wrote: post #211

jaggederest wrote: post #39

Earlier 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.

Once a potential employer baited me into writing a module that would determine a sentiment from given text and few more things. They liked what I did so they invited me to face 2 face interview. During the interview they had given me a task to integrate my code into their product's API and explain to his developers everything as I went along. I completed the task and their product's API has been enhanced. They thanke…

Bear in mind that if they didn't pay you, and there was no signed contract, they do not own your code. You may not be willing to hire a lawyer, but you could have some fun harassing them anyhow.

That said, do be sure it's your code... pretty much by definition, if you accomplished it during an interview, they could accomplish it in the same or less time themselves freshly and legally... for all you know, they'd already written it, just hadn't deployed it yet, and were using it as an interview question precisely because they had just written it themselves and it was fresh on their minds. Given the prevalence of NIH syndrome, this would even strike me as the most likely explanation unless you have some sort of really solid proof it's your code... generally, even when a programmer should take somebody else's two or three hour work they'd rather do it themselves!

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#237

Post by throwaway413 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #142

buserror wrote: post #139

Earlier 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.

> I swear I can improvise a CEO grade speech for any circumstance. Ouch, watch out with that attitude. CEOs are full of bluster and no action, so you might be risking becoming what you hate.

Or he was just proving his point on the spot?

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#238

Post by eeZah7Ux » Thu, May 03, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

scandox wrote: post #185

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In such a case, let's imagine a programmer in a department of 100 people. I take that case because to me Impostor syndrome relates to a peer group that one is actively engaged with - not to an abstraction. Anyway, in this case, he believes that 98 people in the office are no good. 1 is amazingly good. He is both better than the 98 but much much worse than the 1. To my mind that is not impostor syndrome. Perhaps I don…

Wikipedia does a better job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#239

Post by eight_ender » Thu, May 03, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

ancarda wrote: post #117

eight_ender wrote: post #21

I've felt imposter syndrome badly before, even while I was climbing ranks and getting excellent reviews. Now I manage developers and, while not a cure, the best I can do is constant feedback, and to urge them to find their "superpower". This sounds terrible but hear me out. Years ago, after a string of programming jobs at, what I didn't know at the time, "boring enterprise" programming jobs, I felt like the top dog a…

What if your superpower is something very few people seem to care about, like security or privacy?

Find a better place to work. I'm not sure what environment you're in but security and privacy would be an extremely valuable superpower on my team.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#240

Post by kohanz » Thu, May 03, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #205

kohanz wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think you make excellent points, I believe that impostor syndrome is actually quite common, if not moreso, amongst the highly educated.

I’m sure you meant well, but this response really comes across as saying “dont worry, you don’t have imposter syndrome - you’re too poorly educated for that. You’re actually an imposter.” The point is imposter syndrome affects people who are high achievers but don’t feel they earned the respect that gives them. In tech, that high achievement status can be orthogonal to the level of formal education, so regardless of…

With all due respect, I think you're reading something into my comment that simply isn't there. Perhaps I should have denoted 'formal education', because the OP is educated, just not formally.

The only thing I meant (beyond what I said) is that while there are many good reasons to pursue higher education, if one does so with the goal of ridding oneself of impostor syndrome, that could very well turn out to be ineffective or perhaps even counter-productive.

I'm simply relaying my own experience to the OP. I work in software with a post-graduate degree and am also licensed by a professional engineering body and while it's not with me all the time, I do endure bouts of impostor syndrome as well despite these things that should assure me. It makes sense; now I've got these extra letters behind my name that I'm supposed to live up to - and we know how our minds can take that and place unreasonable expectations on ourselves.

My experience, especially in higher education, was that the more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn't know. I noticed this amongst my peers as well. Some of the people I knew that suffered the worst had PhDs!