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uhh, dammit. not helping.
It's easy to realize you have these problems. The problem though, is it an impostor syndrome, or are you really an impostor? Considering you are always seeing your work as less than perfect, it's easy to believe the latter.
I see this in so much that I do. I cannot just enjoy learning something new. I have to learn the right way, and that means understanding everything. If I'm learning a new language, my first inclination is to rewrite the Hello World example that's posted, because it's not right. So I skip past the introduction and start looking for implementing things properly.
I accept in others supposed deficiencies that I do not tolerate in myself, and it holds me back.
It is, I believe, my greatest weakness.
>I got the job through a summer internship, which allowed me to bypass the rigorous 8-interviews-in-a-day hiring process. And I lucked out... completely escaped having to code over the phone.
I'm not trying to troll. However, I honestly do consider you landing a Google engineering internship/job with those school background (and zero coding experience outside of school up to that point) being pretty lucky. Consider this guy[1]. I believe he would've most likely gotten the internship had he gone through the same interview process as you. I know that's just my subjective opinion. However, the bottom line is he went through a very different (arguably harder) interview process than you did. It's harder in the sense you could have very well failed had you been asked to code over google doc + phone. The key factor here is this process that Google uses everyday to turn down countless competent but not extraordinary people - you did not have to go through it. That is the basis I deem you lucky.
There is a certain level of respect (among other befits) given to former or current Google engineers among hackers. And I would argue that is the case largely because of the very difficult process that they had to through to become one. I can totally understand why you had the sense of inferiority and insecurity of your coding abilities, having not gone through that process.
Of course none of this makes your point of everyone is good at different things and you should not beat yourself up any less significant. I agree with you on most other points. I'm also happy for you that you've overcome these self defeating thoughts and have proven to yourself. As some one else mentioned in the comments, the problem was you being you own toughest critic.
>In college, I never took a course on Compilers or Programming Languages... >I got the job through a summer internship, which allowed me to bypass the rigorous 8-interviews-in-a-day hiring process. And I lucked out... completely escaped having to code over the phone. I'm not trying to troll. However, I honestly do consider you landing a Google engineering internship/job with those school background (and zero coding e…
>In college, I never took a course on Compilers or Programming Languages... >I got the job through a summer internship, which allowed me to bypass the rigorous 8-interviews-in-a-day hiring process. And I lucked out... completely escaped having to code over the phone. I'm not trying to troll. However, I honestly do consider you landing a Google engineering internship/job with those school background (and zero coding e…
But what you do with the opportunity that you were lucky to get is up to you.
>In college, I never took a course on Compilers or Programming Languages... >I got the job through a summer internship, which allowed me to bypass the rigorous 8-interviews-in-a-day hiring process. And I lucked out... completely escaped having to code over the phone. I'm not trying to troll. However, I honestly do consider you landing a Google engineering internship/job with those school background (and zero coding e…
Too bad I can't admit to feeling a bit of relief upon learning about the impostor syndrome, since doing so would certainly out me as the fraud I am.
>In college, I never took a course on Compilers or Programming Languages... >I got the job through a summer internship, which allowed me to bypass the rigorous 8-interviews-in-a-day hiring process. And I lucked out... completely escaped having to code over the phone. I'm not trying to troll. However, I honestly do consider you landing a Google engineering internship/job with those school background (and zero coding e…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
according to wikipedia, this is called the "dunning-kruger effect": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
That is a related but different phenomenon. What you're looking for is called "self-serving bias." https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Self-serving_... The dunning-kruger effect is much more subtle than that, take another look at the wiki article on it. Also related, the actor-observer bias, which describes the opposite effect, and has had more research done on it. This is a common problem in psychology, h…
>In college, I never took a course on Compilers or Programming Languages... >I got the job through a summer internship, which allowed me to bypass the rigorous 8-interviews-in-a-day hiring process. And I lucked out... completely escaped having to code over the phone. I'm not trying to troll. However, I honestly do consider you landing a Google engineering internship/job with those school background (and zero coding e…
This of course brings to mind Yegge's interview loop theory: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...