Ask HN: First month job anxiety. Am I actually an impostor?

It does get easier. After a few months and you start to build more important things you'll start to feel more valued, more important and more respected (and by this I mean you likely already are valued, important and respected - I'm talking purely about your own self-impression not what others actually thing about you). Thus the anxiety does start to fade.

My advice is use that anxiety as a motivator. Once it does fade away you'll be in a better, happier, mental place but in the meantime you might as well use that nervous energy to solve problems with your tooling, etc. The problem I had was some days I'd get so panicked that I wasn't pulling my weight that ironically I was too stressed to work productively. Once I started using that nervous energy to focus on my actual problems rather than perceived problems I found myself far more useful, better organised, and weirdly I became less a paranoid employee as a result.

Also make sure you attend work socials. Seeing people in a normal, non-work, setting is great for making you feel more at ease and integrating better in the team.

I hope your feeling passes because i've been where you are and know first hand just how horrible it is!

* Probably no one you directly work with will know how much you're being paid, so they're unlikely to judge you as being overpaid * It takes time for everyone to build the mental models of how systems, tooling and codebases work. Expecting anyone to be productive straight away is unreasonable and would be a massive warning sign if they were putting pressure on you like that. You haven't mentioned that they are, so you're probably just putting yourself under pressure.

Having said that, making staff feel insecure and always needing to prove themselves is no doubt a "productivity" strategy for some companies to try to make people to compete, work late, etc. If that's the case, I'd just walk - or at least recognise it for what it is and refuse to play that game. That's one purpose for "bonuses" I've seen - making unreasonable demands on employees seem fine because they'll get their "bonus". Over the years I've gained far more (financially and in quality of life) from having strict work/life boundaries than colleagues who consistently worked late. After all, if the deal was $x for y hours per week then if y increase, so should x.

In my last (very well paid) job I felt very anxious for the first month or two. I was surprised to feel stressed about meetings to the point I almost had to leave several to go to the toilet because I felt physically sick. I'm quite outgoing, normally confident and good at what I do so I was surprised about this. But it really was caused by being paid so much that I put myself under pressure in case they thought they'd made a bad decision and let me go. Over a month or two though it passed. Just hang in there until you find your niche.

The people there who seem to be really "on point" just know how things work. That'll come with time as you gain more experience. Until then, be kind to yourself and try to relax as best you can until you ride it out. And don't work late to compensate. Get quality relaxation time instead or you'll end up in a vicious cycle of tiredness, under-performance, etc.

For your other "big issue" that's just a learning process. I doubt you need to "rewire" your personality - just learn some tricks to allow it become a little more fluid and adaptable. We all act to some extent - you just need to broaden your repertoire. I expect there are courses online to help you become better at running and organising meetings, developing rapport, etc., so try looking those up (sorry I've never taken any of those so can't recommend any specifically but perhaps try Lynda.com).

It's because it has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with presentation. This is why some people work in sales, and some people work in engineering. If someone that has no clue keeps insisting they do understand, at some point you'll start doubting yourself instead.

Richard Feynman, who is without much debate one of the most important physicists of all time, said something about asking "dumb" questions, and how people often misunderstood why he was asking the things he was asking. He was trying to look at something from different angles, but if you can't look beyond the question, you might think "why is this person asking me something a child would ask". They're not stupid, they're trying to initiate an exploration of ideas.

In my opinion, when you ask a "dumb" question to someone who is more concerned with looking smart and presenting well, their first reaction will be one of confusion, or even mockery. When you ask a truly intelligent person a "dumb" question, they will humor you, and start looking at the problem from different angles, usually trying to involve you in the process. Smart people love to discuss things, "presentable" people hate it, because for them it's just one long continuous risk of being "exposed". Smart people do not fear being exposed, because they know very well what they don't know, which is one of the most common traits among intelligent people, and ironically is why intelligent people feel dumb.

One of the most important lessons in my professional life is perhaps similar to yours, and that is that it's easy to recognize true intelligence when you encounter it. Truly intelligent people are normally humble, curious and intense. When you encounter people that are arrogant, narrow-minded and lazy, you're not the one in the wrong. They are just hiding their insecurity.

So to the point of the post, what should you do in a situation like this? If you're extremely introverted and not used to working in teams, that is a huge hurdle, because that is how human beings normally seek assurance: through their peers. So if I could give only one general advice here, it would be: work on your people skills. Try to pair up with colleagues, discuss their work, your own work, and be humble. Be open about your doubts, and you'll quickly realize that there is no line of business more full of people with impostor syndrome than IT.