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Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

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Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#291

Post by always_good »

jontayesp wrote: post #194
ams6110 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a degree but honestly can't say I've ever really used anything from algorithms or compilers courses on the job. Nobody (meaning, very few people doing mainstream startup/SaaS development) writes fundamental algorithms, you use libraries and classes from the language you're working in. Most people don't work in compiled languages anymore, and if they do, they don't write their own compilers. Maybe understanding…

Don’t most career fields come with important knowledge you learn as a junior, but don’t actually use on a daily basis? I assume doctors learn a huge variety of things in school, but practically don’t use more more than 50% of that knowledge on the job. But having this knowledge makes you better at your job overall. I never got a CS degree, but I wish I did. There are times I run into obscure issues where deeper knowl…

There's nothing in a CS degree that you can't brush up in a self-study.

For example, I have a hard time believing my compilers class at UT serves me better than someone taking one of the compiler MOOCs I've seen people mention on HN from time to time. Especially since it was 10 years ago. The class cost me over $2,800 too.

It might be tempting to think a CS degree would help you know more about things you don't, but I think it can be an excuse to not just dig into it yourself. It's not like CS majors graduate with an understanding of OS and compilers in the wild they'd have to actually debug.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#292

Post by jm__87 »

wellpast wrote: post #266

The truth is you are an imposter. No one fulfills the perfect ideal of whatever role they are playing (employee, manager, parent, etc). Recognize and accept that you're an imposter and continually reach for the ideal. There are various stresses (will I lose my job? etc) that are reasonable and tangential to this idea of "imposter syndrome". The particular trick to avoiding stress _directly related_ to this imposter s…

I'm not sure that means you are an imposter. If your coworkers are equally unfit for the job as defined by whatever high bar you've set for yourself, then you belong there just as much as they do and you likely have a higher bar for yourself than your employer has for hiring people. I agree that everyone should strive to be the best that they can be but I think imposter syndrome is a delusion some people have where they feel that they know less than everyone around them and they worry their colleagues will find them out, when in reality they are quite qualified. It doesn't automatically follow that if you recognize that you haven't met your own standard that you would also believe you haven't met your employers standards. I regularly feel I haven't done a good enough job by my own standard but realize it is good enough for the goals my employer has with regard to the work I'm doing.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#293

Post by pascalxus »

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…

Most of the things taught in a CS degree or Math degree are simply too specialized to be useful. Sure, everything therein can be found somewhere in the industry. But, for the vast majority of us, we'll only use a tiny percentage of what we actually learn.

On the other hand, there's sooo much you do need to learn as a SE that's not taught in a CS degree. If you drew a Ven-diagram between what you learned in school and what you actually need to do the job, you'd find very little overlap.

We really need a new model for how we think about education.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#294

Post by always_good »

dirktheman wrote: post #47
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.

I really don't get this interview process, and why it's so ubiquitous. I wouldn't care if an interviewee could pass a whiteboard fizzbuzz test if he/she provided some samples of projects they've done. That would tell me much more about your proficiency and methods. I'd be much more interested in finding out if we would have a cultural fit. You can teach certain skills, but if your personality doesn't fit the culture…

But how do you determine if someone's a cultural fit without expending your time and their time? Just seems unavoidable to me, though that's what people often complain about here. Like they want to get a job without putting in any skin of their own.

https://hashrocket.com/ had a pretty extreme interview where they flew me out to Florida to pair-program with them for a week. It was a really pleasant experience. Every day I would pair-program with someone new on production code. By the end of the week I knew exactly if it was the job I was looking for. (Great group of people though and wish I'd known how to keep in contact with people professionally in my early 20s)

So unless everyone can afford to do that, you have to extrapolate from far more limited data.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#295

Post by ahtu123 »

always_good wrote: post #288
ahtu123 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I spent years flailing within technology. I learned the wrong things, dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) and made obvious mistakes. In retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started who could have validated my work and guided my efforts. I think this is inevitable. We're lucky to be living during a time that has been extremely fruitful and revolutionary in programming lang…

Also, using technologies I ended up hating and/or experiencing the limits/downsides of is what compelled me into new, wildly different ones. I think stagnating is the danger, not learning the "wrong" things. The latter is an important part of gaining perspective.

Having experienced so many platforms with 0% thought put into how does this work on more than one platform certainly gives me a huge appreciation of stacks that are built multiplatform from the start. I don't see myself jumping deep into any tightly-coupled-to-one-machine tools anymore for example.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#296

Post by bitwize »

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…

> After five years on the job, no one cares about your cute degree but the 21-year-old version of me who knew nothing and was a tiny bit terrified of being found incompetent cared.

True for the most part. But having a degree from the right school opens doors that you would otherwise have to devote years of self-study and aggressive marketing to, magbe, have a chance at prying open. If yoh want to build a career at Google that doesn't mainly consist of grovelling around in AdWords, step one is to have graduated from a God-tier school (e.g., Stanford).

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#297

Post by fenwick67 »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #267
fenwick67 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think I posited that though -- could you restate what you believed my thesis to be? I might just be a terrible writer and couldn't get my point across. > To some coworkers I'm a programming expert. To a 30-year veteran sysadmin I'm a novice. I agree with this -- but it was less about how others see you and how you see yourself. My point was that rather than claiming to be a programming expert, if you just get…

Where I think we disagree is that I would say impostor syndrome doesn't simply go away when you get better at something. This is because as you get better, you will encounter people better than you (especially if your career is advancing etc). To perfectionists or self-critical people this is hell.

You basically say "don't say you're good at something unless you really are", but have no threshold for this. This quote from your article highlights this:

> If you don’t want to be a fraud, or feel like one, do the hard work of learning(...)

There's no upper bound on the level of knowledge required here. Am I "good" with Python because I can understand basic syntax and scoping rules? Do I need to know all of the standard library by heart? Python 2 and 3?

Impostor syndrome isn't when you are a fraud, it's when you think you are but really aren't.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#298

Post by groby_b »

wolfgke wrote: post #218
groby_b wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I happened to know a boss who had a shiny new car while not being able to give out huge raises, let me tell you the other side of the story: That company had been broken in to, with extremely valuable equipment stolen. The insurance company promptly paid for it, replacements were bought - all's well in the world, right? Not quite. It turns out, due to tax law quirks, the new equipment's cost as a tax deduction…

> Step two after learning to keep your mouth shut: Learning that the situation is always more complex than you can see from the outside. Rather step two that the CEO should have done: Explain these quirks of the taxation laws, so that any rational person has to come to the same logical conclusion based on the evidence.

Yeah, totally. "Our cash flow is bad enough that I need to move debt into the future to - barely - make your salaries" is just the thing you as a boss should say to your people.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#299

Post by mygo »

always_good wrote: post #291
jontayesp wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t most career fields come with important knowledge you learn as a junior, but don’t actually use on a daily basis? I assume doctors learn a huge variety of things in school, but practically don’t use more more than 50% of that knowledge on the job. But having this knowledge makes you better at your job overall. I never got a CS degree, but I wish I did. There are times I run into obscure issues where deeper knowl…

There's nothing in a CS degree that you can't brush up in a self-study. For example, I have a hard time believing my compilers class at UT serves me better than someone taking one of the compiler MOOCs I've seen people mention on HN from time to time. Especially since it was 10 years ago. The class cost me over $2,800 too. It might be tempting to think a CS degree would help you know more about things you don't, but…

My favorite technique is asking “what’s a great undergraduate program / course(s) in this field?”

And then getting the syllabi. (A lot of professors just host their syllabi on their publicly accessible site, not through a portal. If one instructor needs you to go to a portal, try another instructor. Try searching for the syllable PDF or .Doc via Google)

And then learning the topics on the syllabi.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#300

Post by 49bc »

I'll tell you what pierced the veil for me: being involved with code reviews and looking at other people's code. "Oh, THIS is what constitutes senior software engineering? Then I'm much more skilled than I thought I was!"
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