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Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

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Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#301

Post by MuffinFlavored »

sethammons wrote: post #214

On mobile, sorry for typos. I've experienced imposter syndrome hard. One of my first jobs was a small programming gig, but I switched careers twice before securing a job as a "real" developer. Oh, man, what I didn't know. Everything was new. Source control? Neat! Unit test? Wow! I was so far behind. I worked hard and researched everything I could that I heard someone talk about more than once. If I couldn't find info…

What were some of the parts they said you could improve on, and what were some of the positives they had to say?

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#303

Post by pbhjpbhj »

kendallpark wrote: post #225
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…

> Something equivalent to what doctors have when they receive a medical license and become board certified. In the US this requires four 8+ hour exams, spread out over at least seven years of training; each exam requires months of preparation. I have a hard time imagining most programmers would elect to jump through those sorts of hoops just to feel more confident about their jobs. > In retrospect, I would have paid…

Are you mentoring someone now - is it on a commercial or personal basis?

There are a lot of certifications in computing fields, why don't they meet the need you felt (feel?) for objective acknowledgement of your skills? (From where I am they all look like primarily commercial efforts rather than efforts to provide objective recognitions of standards/abilities.)

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#304

Post by ericjang »

titzer wrote: post #138
philbarr wrote: post #122

Does 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…

Oh yeah, there are lots of loads of shit out there. But then again it's easy to get drunk your smartness and decry everything you don't understand or trust as a load of shit. A good example is all "this crap" about "feelings and shit". You think it's dumb so you ignore it for a couple years, and continue being an asshole to everyone around you--not noticing because you are just being "rational" and stuff. Then a coup…

> The world is full of hidden complexity, so be prepared for an education at any moment, I'd say.

Wonderful words! Added to my quotes list :)

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#305

Post by wolfgke »

groby_b wrote: post #298
wolfgke wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You write it satirically, but I believe that being honest to your employees if such a type of problem occurs, is indeed an important virtue of a good leader.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#306

Post by kazinator »

nso95 wrote: post #253
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…

I'm about to finish up my CS degree and I couldn't implement most algorithms and data structures without looking them up. I know nothing about compilers. Never taken such a course.

Except for perhaps the most trivial ones, and ones that exist in many variations, you shouldn't implement algorithms and data structures without looking them up. I would add, without looking them up from more than one source.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#307

Post by kazinator »

always_good wrote: post #289
w0m wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agreed. 18 y/o me was an idiot; i'd have done thing significantly differently.

Frankly, had I known I would be where I am today by my own whims, I would've majored in something like philosophy, not taken more compsci courses.

I wonder how things would have gone if I had gotten into Lisp right in 1982, instead of 2000.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#308

Post by MR4D »

I’ve read thru a bunch of the comments (many of which echo my own thoughts on my career), and have a thought:

Why is computer programming taught in universities?

Seriously. There are many people who learned some things but not what they would have wanted to learn when they look back on their life.

I wonder why programming can’t be like welding [1]. There are many different types of welders, from the person welding a spacecraft, to your backyard bbq. And everything in between. Welding stainless steel is totally different from welding aluminum. And welding on alloys is like it’s from a different planet.

The welding field has many certifications for different things. We depend on their work every day. Yet they don’t go to college. And their mistakes can kill people.

Programmers on the other hand, should be able to have cerifications on things like data structures, communication methods, data stores & indexing, UX, etc.

That would be a much better use of people’s time than what we’ve been doing.

[1] https://www.aws.org/certification/page/certified-welder-prog...

(EDIT): yes, I read the article, but my post is more targeted at the HN comments. For what it’s worth, the article didn’t reference overly-worked blue collar fields like welding, hence why I used it as an example.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#309

Post by incredible12345 »

In my experience - a large minority of developers, especially among young, inexperienced, perhaps insecure developers, act like condescending know-it-all's their colleagues. I think this is borne out of a fear of being incompetent in comparison to other people who are also in the field.

For those who are not this way, or try not to be this way, I believe the festering of gross dog-eat-you cultures in regards to hire-ability can also fester imposter syndrome in many of us younger devs.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#310

Post by mythrwy »

Gawd I get sick of hearing about impostor syndrome. Some people who claim to have it really are impostors and use the syndrome to somehow indicate they aren't.

No one knows everything. But do you know enough to get done what you need to in an economically feasible timeframe relative to your peers? Or do you perhaps do even better than they do? Not an impostor. If not then maybe you are an impostor and should work on that. It's not a fixed state.

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