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Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

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Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#231

Post by TechBro8615 »

Sanguinaire wrote: post #229
TechBro8615 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a dog whistle for fellow prestige whores and status collectors. Literally nobody cares what megacorp buys your time from you. I’d posit that if you’re optimizing for comp and stock options you’re either a well-balanced person with priorities outside your career, or the complete opposite – obsessed with chasing status symbols and a myopic idea of success.

Is it better to aspire for balance by chasing both, or neither? After all, what is status if you have no-one to brag to - and what good is having a lot of free time when you are just going to end up dead either way, and with work being the best chance most of us get at making a mark on the world. Not meant as a snide/flippant remark; this shit is what keeps me up at night.

What was the Steve Jobs quote? Something like “if you look in the mirror in the morning and you’re not excited about what you’re doing that day, go do something else.”

Or the Bezos quote about “imagining myself 80 on a rocking chair – will I regret not doing this?”

As a young adult mostly lacking in wisdom of my own, I’ve found myself coming back to these quotes time and time again. Their philosophy is sound.

If you don’t want balance, then you should go all in. In general, people should take more risk. This is especially true in tech where the downside is often vastly overstated – even if you fail completely, you can get a new job in two days.

My advice to anyone at FAANG feeling unfulfilled is to quit and take a risk to do something awesome. Even if you fail you’ll still grow more than you would working for a megacorp with a recruiting funnel that intrinsically selects for conformists and rule followers.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#232

Post by aaron695 »

Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005) deals with this a bit.

They were Mossad spies who went out to kill people.

And they were useless (this is part of the story)

But they still got a movie about them and they did kill some people. Being useless doesn't mean you can't do interesting things, that bits in your hands.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#233

Post by tails4e »

deanCommie wrote: post #77

A lot of the discussion here is treating impostor syndrome and qualifications as binary: You're either qualified or not. And your evaluation of your skills is either above your actual skills or not. But it's more nuanced than that. I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company. I have impostor syndrome all the time. Why? Because I measure myself against 1) role models that are ahead of me in many ways - I've always do…

This is me exactly. I feel like 10x and 0.1x at the same time, depending on the area.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#234

Post by lifeslogit »

In fraud analysis, we look for too much access (what we call improper segregation of duties). This is pretty common at smaller organizations, so it can help to look for additional red flags. Fraudsters commonly show up earlier and stay later. They rarely take vacations. The goal is to control as much as possible and avoid having others review your work!

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#235

Post by resters »

While there is probably some benefit to the concept of impostor syndrome being discussed now and then, most discussions wreak of false humility.

Very rarely are coveted positions acquired by merit alone, getting there required some degree of Machiavellianism, some amount of self-promotion, and some level of calculated risk taking.

Imagine hiring/promoting someone who wasn't in that headspace -- it would be a major risk because of the risk that the person's ego is not going to be able to handle it.

Humans telegraph subtle signs of Machiavellianism during the selection process as a way of conveying a lack of naivete.

But humans also telegraph hints of impostor syndrome to counteract the possibility that they be perceived as overly Machiavellian.

Statistically, most social, business and political leaders are high in "dark triad" personality traits. This is not an accident. Such traits are considered ethical and acceptable in moderation.

So per the article, a real "impostor" is someone trying to deceive. By definition, impostor syndrome is someone who is not trying to misrepresent her skills/qualifications.

I suspect that a psychological test that measured the desire to conceal dark triad traits would find a correlation between such concealment and the deliberate display of insecurity about impostor syndrome.

Imagine Usain Bold holding his head in his hands and saying "I don't think I'm really the fastest, how did I get here?" It wouldn't happen because Bolt has nothing to gain from saying that to anyone.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#236

Post by dubbed »

I propose that impostor syndrome sometimes has more to do with the system rather than the individual. A well-meaning and bright individual working within a fraudulent system will catch glimpses of the fraud: "things my superiors tell me don't quite make sense" - and blame themselves: "I guess I'm just not smart enough"

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#237

Post by lifeslogit »

In fraud analysis, we look for these red flags! Fraudsters come to the office earlier and stay later than others. They take on as much as possible to expand their access and take no vacations to make it so that others never review their work.

Fraudsters looks a lot like a great employee! To avoid this, implement healthy segregation of duties. Trust is great but also the fraudsters greatest weapon.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#238

Post by secondaryacct »

deanCommie wrote: post #77

A lot of the discussion here is treating impostor syndrome and qualifications as binary: You're either qualified or not. And your evaluation of your skills is either above your actual skills or not. But it's more nuanced than that. I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company. I have impostor syndrome all the time. Why? Because I measure myself against 1) role models that are ahead of me in many ways - I've always do…

I'm in the same exact boat, generalist to the extreme, lots of technical role models, big company, hard to find a value there.

But more and more I get that I m put in places where nobody cares what I ll code but that instead I ll enthusiastically push everyone around, make them try new fun ideas, and have a general blindness to boredom - I guess being an idiot means everything sounds fascinating and I unblocked more than a few dead end just trying or proposing stupid ideas.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#239

Post by awsthro00945 »

thefourthchime wrote: post #211
ramesh31 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I usually use FAAMG instead of FAANG because I don't understand what Netflix is doing in there. FAANG is about the pay, not the prestige of the company. They pay so far above the rest of the market that they are really only competing for talent with themselves. Average total comp at Netflix is well north of $500k for an individual contributor.

I’ve been curious about this. Is there a list of companies that pay way and above outside of FAANMG? I work for a large media company as at Sr director level equivalent engineer. The pay is certainly not north of 500k

https://www.levels.fyi/2020/ is a decent resource. The numbers are fairly accurate, IME. You can also lurk around Blind if you want to get a sense of salaries in tech (warning though: Blind is completely obsessed with salaries, to the point where its unhealthy).

You'll actually notice that none of the FAANG are on the top 10 of that list. FAANGs definitely pay well, but these days "FAANG" is outdated, IMO. I've seen it "FAANGMULA" sometimes (FAANG + Microsoft, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb) but even that still leaves out other high payers like Stripe, Box, Bytedance, etc.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#240

Post by sorry_outta_gas »

icedchai wrote: post #150
b112 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft wasn't historically an "internet company". They were an OS only, non-internet company, compared to the rest. When the acronym was created, it was still that way. Even now, they make most of their butter from OS installs, although yes, they have branched out a lot.

They were, though now I feel Microsoft is actually a more diversified tech company than the FAANGs. Consumer software and hardware, enterprise software, cloud / Internet, gaming, open source (github, etc.)

Micorosft has alwyas been the hyper diversified tech company, they could lose an entire segments of their market and still truck along
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