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Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

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Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#251

Post by kudokatz »

ams6110 wrote: post #183
alexquez wrote: post #158

I've been in software for 14 years without a computer science degree and carry a chip on my shoulder because I missed out on algorithms and compilers in school. I'm mostly self-taught and have had the opportunity to run a SAAS company for six years now (CodePen). I'm winging it like many other people in our industry. I wish I'd had two things to when I started my career. 1. A right of passage that endorsed my skills…

I have a degree but honestly can't say I've ever really used anything from algorithms or compilers courses on the job. Nobody (meaning, very few people doing mainstream startup/SaaS development) writes fundamental algorithms, you use libraries and classes from the language you're working in. Most people don't work in compiled languages anymore, and if they do, they don't write their own compilers. Maybe understanding…

> I have a degree but honestly can't say I've ever really used anything from algorithms or compilers courses on the job

I ended up having a job writing programming language tools for a bit. Then there was some graph stuff one time in 10 years. It can come up occasionally. I still find it's something nice to know.

A more realistic example might be understanding the limits of regular expressions/languages and what they can/can't do well. Like the bus conversation I overheard glorifying some "smart" guy parsing XML in a stored procedure using regexes.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#252

Post by ancarda »

eight_ender wrote: post #239
ancarda wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if your superpower is something very few people seem to care about, like security or privacy?

Find a better place to work. I'm not sure what environment you're in but security and privacy would be an extremely valuable superpower on my team.

Drop me an email if you’re hiring in the UK (onsite or remote).

My email address is in my profile.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#253

Post by nso95 »

alexquez wrote: post #158

I've been in software for 14 years without a computer science degree and carry a chip on my shoulder because I missed out on algorithms and compilers in school. I'm mostly self-taught and have had the opportunity to run a SAAS company for six years now (CodePen). I'm winging it like many other people in our industry. I wish I'd had two things to when I started my career. 1. A right of passage that endorsed my skills…

I'm about to finish up my CS degree and I couldn't implement most algorithms and data structures without looking them up. I know nothing about compilers. Never taken such a course.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#254

Post by solarkraft »

nambit wrote: post #133

What's the opposite? I feel like I'm smarter than everybody else here (big 5 tech). Including Principal engineers, CEOs and VPs. I'll talk to some random engineer who might impress me once in a while but for the most part, there's a lot of smart people but there's a lot of dumb people. I consider myself near the top. I know this might feel like /r/iamverysmart but I'm self aware enough to know that what I feel is not…

Are you actually more productive than these people? Because otherwise being smarter than them isn't worth that much.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#255

Post by turingcompeteme »

sus_007 wrote: post #229
cyberferret wrote: post #41

My semi-cynical, 35+ years in the industry advice? Avoid blogs, forums, podcasts, social media pages, news sites that only focus on the 1% of startups that make it 'big' seemingly overnight. Go out and talk to fellow entrepreneurs, hackers, company founders and people in the industry, and you will quickly find out that everyone , and I mean EVERYONE goes through a heartless grind and struggle to get things done or to…

I totally agree with your statement, but how can one compensate for the fear of missing out of new technologies, interesting discussions among interesting people sharing their insights to the problem in hand, like you're doing with us at the moment. That's the only reason I check Hacker News, or some Subreddits multiple times a day, so that I won't miss that one non-upvoted post which could have proven significant to…

How many non-upvoted life-changing posts have you come across? I've been visiting hn and reddit almost every day for maybe 8 years now, and the answer for me is zero.

I find the time and effort needed (as well as the mental stress) to make sure I am not missing out on anything is not worth the end result.

A quick scan of the front page gives me more than enough interesting material.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#256

Post by linuxlizard »

nso95 wrote: post #253
alexquez wrote: post #158

I've been in software for 14 years without a computer science degree and carry a chip on my shoulder because I missed out on algorithms and compilers in school. I'm mostly self-taught and have had the opportunity to run a SAAS company for six years now (CodePen). I'm winging it like many other people in our industry. I wish I'd had two things to when I started my career. 1. A right of passage that endorsed my skills…

I'm about to finish up my CS degree and I couldn't implement most algorithms and data structures without looking them up. I know nothing about compilers. Never taken such a course.

Compilers are a lot of fun; I did compilers in grad school. I regret not taking more EE courses. I would expect we all think about the classes we wanted to take but didn't. :-/

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#259

Post by 52-6F-62 »

base698 wrote: post #244
alexquez wrote: post #158

I've been in software for 14 years without a computer science degree and carry a chip on my shoulder because I missed out on algorithms and compilers in school. I'm mostly self-taught and have had the opportunity to run a SAAS company for six years now (CodePen). I'm winging it like many other people in our industry. I wish I'd had two things to when I started my career. 1. A right of passage that endorsed my skills…

When you say self taught do you mean you bought a data structures book and read it yourself with no lectures?

Not OP, but that's certainly one way some of us learn. Usually you combine methods— supplement knowledge from various streams to gain a fuller picture. There are also a ton of other great online courses and videos of lectures for free online (these days).

REPL's are also great tools for running exercises to test your knowledge. It's hard to lie to yourself— if you care— you either begin to understand or you don't. If you don't, your work will suffer.

I cared— but I was inclined to. You don't sit in the basement as a kid trying to get your mum's old 80286 to do something after you found the BASIC prompt because you want to play ping pong all day.

Re: Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

#260

Post by jeffreyrogers »

Yes. Make something hard. Impostor syndrome comes from feeling like you can't do the things people expect you to be able to do, so if you can point to concrete evidence that you're capable of doing something difficult (whether on a team at work or in a personal project you did 100% yourself) you'll greatly reduce any feelings of impostor syndrome you may have.
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