Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

> Honest question, imagine if at your company tomorrow they decide to fire one principal engineer. Would you find it fair that the one is you? Would yo find it fair if you were among the 10% they fire? The 20%? The 30%?

That's an interesting thought experiment. Though not as straightforward as it sounds like at first.

For example, I think I'm pretty good at what I do, but I'm also pretty expensive.

But more importantly, companies don't have a good handle on people's performance. They have biased estimates, at best. See https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ for an exploration of this topic from a hiring point of view, but it also exists to a lesser extent when people are already working for you.

I guess anyone can interpret it however they want. If you’re challenging yourself in your career, you will eventually find yourself in a position where you legitimately don’t know what you’re doing, and people are depending on you to figure it out. Early in my career I thrived in these situations, because they mirrored my experiences in college. Later in my career, the problems got bigger and I found myself wondering if I would ever figure these things out, saying to myself, maybe I’m actually not smart enough, maybe I took the wrong career path? But, if you keep your composure, read the docs, ask the right people for help, you figure it out and move on. I always assumed that’s what people meant. Seems like young people today have much more anxiety that we used to though, so maybe the definition has shifted.

Succinctly, writing this response.

I don't always feel that I have the necessary skills to make properly reasoned arguments in general, but instead tend to have a habitual drive to just say whatever is on my mind in the hopes that it will be heard but not necessarily challenged, maybe in the way some bloggers treat their content as a feed of stream-of-consciousness thought. When someone does want to discuss what I say, the dynamic for me changes and I feel the urge to respond more carefully, which wasn't usually something I considered when first commenting.

In many cases, I am tempted to just not respond because it is the easiest option, but I feel that would essentially mean not taking responsibility for my own words. Actually debating someone is not something I'm used to, and is at times frightening to me, but I still feel that I ought not to ignore it when I am the cause.

Also, I think that I have a tendency to try not to say things with the intention of starting arguments, leaving the more subjective statements to the people that happen to find something relatable in what I consider to have actually happened to me, regardless of value or intent. But, as in this case, there are exceptions.

So my sense of responsibility has a long way to go, admittedly. And I might or might not be justified in my anxiety in wondering if what I'm typing out right now makes enough sense in the context of my other comment, but the way I'm feeling right now, it's hard to tell.

This is also one of the reasons I'm rather disillusioned with journaling if what I journal isn't my lived experience, which so long as my memory is capable enough usually isn't something that someone else would question. If it's something that can be debated, writing down my thoughts or opinions and leaving them in the confines of my private journal makes it sound like I'm just agreeing with myself.

My guess for how I developed this way of thinking would be my upbringing. There were no labels I could use that carried any value as far as protecting my sense of self-worth went. I wouldn't even consider the people I knew to be role models. Success or failure was solely determined based on whether I did something correctly or not, not how I approached the problem. Even with the labels that I've been given today, ones that are in my mind much more justifiable than the ones I gave myself long ago, that mindset continues to rule a lot of my life. I tend to accept the mistakes I make as my responsibility to correct, but because I prevent myself from entering into situations where mistakes are likely (as in, areas where I feel unqualified), I'm less tolerant to getting over mistakes after they've happened, because I've insulated myself from mistakes and their impact.

If none of this supports my original points, my belief is that it would be because of my lack of knowledge, regardless of what I was thinking when I impulsively wrote my first comment. By commenting, I tend to think that whatever fears I have about speaking in a public space are outweighed by me contributing another viewpoint or experience to the conversation, so I look past my fears and decide to comment. If my expectation was to have my thoughts taken seriously by others, maybe I would feel more justified in believing that initial anxiety was actually warranted the next time I intend to press "reply", and I would be better off not trying to be a part of a conversation I myself am not prepared to take seriously.

Anyway, I hope that, in some sense, this response was worth listening to. And I don't intend to come off as condescending or unwilling to converse with you; that was just the first thing that entered my mind.

It's a hard thing to quantify - how do you measure one person's feelings against another?

I feel like it's not unhealthy - exactly as you describe. I've spoken to many peers who all feel the same at one point or another.

So is it that we don't have impostor syndrome because we've normalized it? Or is it the same feelings but we are just better at dealing with them?

I think it's the latter. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. With seniority comes the burden of that knowledge. You can easily become lost - where you can no longer measure your output by direct lines of code written, and you also get exposed to more and more top minds that make you feel small.

I think the feelings are exactly the same that a junior engineer faces at their first job where they are overwhelmed and feel like everyone else is smarter than them.

The difference is that once you've been through it enough times, you have the confidence that the emotion isn't valid, and you have competence to fall back on eventually.

1. Don't move into management because of any external pressure because you "ought to". Also don't do it just because you are tired of writing code. Do it when you feel like you have more to offer by building and leading teams and delivering through your people than with your individual delivery. Ideally, get a chance to try it on an interim basis at a company you already have trust in. There is a LOT of stuff about management that is invisible - it's not just telling your reports what to do. Managing upwards is a terrible irritating part of the job, and you can easily become the manager you yourself would hate if you are not careful.

2. I think career progression and satisfaction is all about balancing and trading off playing to your strengths, then focusing on your weaknesses.

If you only play to your strengths, you won't grow in breadth enough. You can become a top subject matter expert, but your utility will be limited to that domain.

If you only focus on your weaknesses, you will become well rounded, but not good at anything, and you won't stand out from the pack in any way.

Only you know which of these two you more need today. Good luck with the decision :)

3. Someone else already mentioned - it's not your job to determine if you are qualified for a position. The company hiring you is. If the work is interesting to you, and they're making you an offer, and you didn't lie - then you are qualified. Learning and stretching yourself would be part of the job.

4. Nothing I say above will fix a foundational anxiety like "what if i'm not good enough and get fired". What helps me with this class of extreme worry is to consider the worst case scenario, visualize it, and recognize that ultimately it's not that bad.

So what if you get fired? Again, assuming you didn't misrepresent yourself, the company would be just as guilty of the mismatch in fit as you. You won't be blacklisted. They might even be willing to give you a referral. But if not, you got 3 offers once. You can get 3 offers again after you get fired. The worst case scenario isn't that awful.