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Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

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Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#241

Post by awsthro00945 »

jcheng wrote: post #199
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.

Then does Amazon belong there? I didn’t get the impression it’s at the level of the others, but closer to Microsoft.

Amazon is lower than Google, FB, and Netflix, but still quite a bit higher than MS. According to levels.fyi for engineers all at the same level (~5ish YOE):

- MS: $185k

- Amazon: $230k

- Google: $267k

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#242

Post by XorNot »

andrewaylett wrote: post #122
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #8

I guess I just don't really believe this. It sounds nice, and it might even be a good falsehood to tell yourself for personal motivation—but that doesn't make it true. Yes, of course if you're an actual fraudster intending to commit fraud, you're probably comfortable with committing fraud. But feeling "impostor syndrome" colloquially means second-guessing whether you're good enough to deserve your position. There are…

>second-guessing whether you're good enough to deserve your position. Often with an element of "what will they do when they realise". I've come to understand, though, that I'd been worrying about the answer to the wrong problem. I know I'm not as good as I could (maybe should) be, and I know that for any given metric I have peers who can and do outperform me. But the word "expectations" is a loaded one: when sufferin…

> Conversely, if your manager tells you that there's a problem and you're not meeting their expectations, they are definitely correct that there's a problem. They might not be correct in their diagnosis, but you can't simply ignore the issue.

But there may also be nothing you can do about it either. I think a huge part of the problem is that I suspect the typical experience of hearing "there's a problem" is that by the time anyone is saying that, things are already in motion you may not be able to fix anyway.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#243

Post by mwfunk »

adventured wrote: post #187
cvhashim wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has to do with blue chip tech stocks apparently

When Jim Cramer coined it (originally as FANG) and began pumping it on his show regularly, it was just a batch of large, sector dominant tech stocks he thought should be bought at that time (with the letter ordering being convenient for memory). That's all it was. There is no greater definition, and it's bizarre to see people argue over that aspect routinely on HN, given it was nothing more than a stock pumping promo…

Yeah it's literally just a short list of companies that people see as being the big kahunas of the tech industry. In the '80s it would've been Intel, Microsoft, IBM, and maybe even companies like Lotus or WordPerfect. In the '90s it would've been more like, Intel, Microsoft, AOL, Sun, maybe Oracle, maybe still IBM? Hell maybe even Ebay. Lots of those companies are still around but the ones that are tend to be more mature, less volatile, and less influential on the rest of the industry now, and get correspondingly less press.

But yeah, that's all FAANG is and I'm amazed anyone thinks it's anything more standardized or meaningful or precisely defined. It's shorthand for the biggest and most influential companies in the tech industry at the moment, at least from the perspective of people on the outside looking in. If someone wants to the throw an M into FAANG I totally get it.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#244

Post by jacquesm »

titzer wrote: post #99
rhizome wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a more accessible way of saying it.

I don't really agree. I find the long-winded version confusing, and as I am not sure if there is a gotcha somewhere in there, I have to read the whole thing and follow the whole argument. You don't necessarily have to use math symbols, but it really helps to be terse.

Look at how many words you've already used, that's more than the original. So much for terseness.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#245

Post by ojbyrne »

meetups323 wrote: post #164
psyc wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought it was more appropriate for most purposes. But on HN, perhaps the most common purpose is discussing ludicrous total comp. And, at least when I left in 2010, Microsoft most certainly did not offer that. I heard that they raised pay across the board shortly after I left, but considering where they started, I’d be shocked if it put them on par with FAANG. Anybody know?

levels.fyi has MSFT at ~75% of GAAF salaries for equal positions (N is apparently exclusively Seniors getting a cool half mil in pure salary and nothing else? Not sure how accurate that is...) That being said, it's hard to compare directly. I know many M folks, and some F, G, A and A folks. The M folks probably work at most 75% of the hours of the others. I for one would much rather work a standard 9-5 and make a lot…

levels.fyi has LinkedIn broken out from MSFT even though it’s wholly owned by them. And LI levels seem comparable to FANG. Also GitHub is a subsidiary of MSFT that seems to pay better than the parent company.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#246

Post by IggleSniggle »

saalweachter wrote: post #149
IggleSniggle wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has grown into a lot of the things. It probably deserves to be grouped with the others. I honestly thing FAANG became the acronym because these companies were making big waves simultaneously at one point, and the acronym is attractive. There’s never been any good reason not to include Microsoft except that for a long time it was considered old and stodgy. Netflix doesn’t make sense in terms of market cap, an…

Netflix is fairly comparable to Disney in terms of business model and market cap. Which isn't bad -- I assume Disney also has a number of highly-paid SWEs -- but for me the difference between FAAMG and Netflix is that (as far as I can tell) Netflix doesn't employee a giant pile of SWEs doing blue sky research / doomed projects only tangentially related to the core business.

Great comparison, Disney v Netflix. It’s actually remarkable to me how close to Disney that Netflix is, considering the considerable IP that Disney now owns and how otherwise comparable they are.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#247

Post by taf2 »

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…

Interesting - I just always blindly focus on the end goal... wonder if that is in someway also a impostor syndrome thing?

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#249

Post by philipov »

kjeetgill wrote: post #118
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…

> Luckily I get this just often enough that I don't fall into a catatonic mess of anxiety. So this is the sticking point for me: is it really _impostor syndrome_ if it's not disproportionate and negatively impactful? What you're describing just seems like normal, mostly healthy, reasonable critical self reflection? To me the syndrome part of it is the overwhelming runaway thoughts part.

Like people who get sad occasionally comparing themselves to people with major depression?

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#250

Post by agumonkey »

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 a strange position. I'm burnt out on every side of every candles from trying too hard too long with no results (due to life chaos, lack of luck, bad choices, who knows).

To survive I took brainless jobs and I find myself in a different form of pain, being eroded by uneducated, learning-resistant cogs.

Right now reading you say "measuring my self against people ahead of me" feels tempting, even after all the problems I got. It's a bit like exercise .. my brain needs it or it shrivels.

ps: I didn't know generalists could fare well

pps: have all your workplaces well accepting of your working style ?

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