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Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

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Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#311
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%? I ask you that because it is much simpler to answer to a binary question like, do I have imposter syndrome? Or put in other words, am I modest? You can make the link with how people see themselves. A lo…

I went ahead and did the experiment: I felt like I was contributing nothing of value at my last job after seven years and just slowed things down, so I ended up giving 5 weeks notice. My employer agreed I was useless and decided to turn that into 9 days notice. The result: they are even further behind than they were with me, and occasionally people still contact me from the old company for tech advice. I guess it was…

Accelerating notice is not always indication that your employer doesn't find you valuable, I almost always prefer to do that, especially with highly productive people: once an employee knows they are leaving and has announced it, anything they do other than tie up loose ends is more liability than benefit, and good people will do more. But their head is not 100% in it, they don't expect to have to maintain what they build, and most importantly they won't be around to ask questions of if things go wrong later, so it's almost always better to get them out the door ASAP.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#312
The premise of this article is complete BS (and it's a particular type of BS thats become very common, but I digress).

Imposters aren't even the thing they are faking at, so comparing them to that is totally absurd.

They likeky see themselves as being some degree of successful criminals/social system hackers or as successful impostors. Or maybe they don't feel successful. But they obviously don't see themselves as a legitimate but inexperienced employee struggling to legitimize their presence. Why the hell would they??

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) It's like the paradox of AI, which is that as soon as we've reduced something previously regarded as 'intelligent' to something that can be coded in software, it ceases to be thought of as intelligence any longer.

I wonder how long until we run out of types-of-intelligence to automate, and realise that “humans have a unique spark (a soul?) that makes them fundamentally different to machines” was a dream all along...

What if we build an AI that believes it has a soul? How would it be functionally different from a human with that same faith?

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#314

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 can relate to most of the things you've said for me, my imposter syndrome comes mainly when I look around and see everyone working hard and struggling to do stuff well and I feel like I'm not even in 2nd gear and doing as well. So I think I feel like I'm only putting in less then 25% effort and getting 100% of the normal results (relative to others) - it feels wrong, it's like finishing a test or exam too soon and…

It is possible that people are only slacking when you can't see them. If all of them had impostor syndrome they would pretend to work hard around you.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#316
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Don't think those MS numbers are accurate, esp. once you throw in GitHub and LinkedIn.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#317

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…

Me too

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower than Microsoft prestige-wise.

Highly debatable. While Amazon is more likely to be on the shit-list of Joe Public, in technical circles it comes down to AWS vs MS. Frankly if MS hadn't bought GitHub to distract magpie developers, there would be no contest.

Amazon has the lowest hiring bar because of high turnover. AWS vs Azure is besides the point.

Re: Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

#319

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…

Top tier humble brag.
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