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 as a competent developer (or that educated me on what skills I'd yet to learn).
Something equivalent to what doctors have when they receive a medical license and become board certified.
After five years on the job, no one cares about your cute degree but the 21-year-old version of me who knew nothing and was a tiny bit terrified of being found incompetent cared.
You are born with a level of confidence (unsubstantiated and unproven), but you can also earn it by doing a substantial amount of work.
A right of passage within the software industry that showed a fundamental level of competency beyond the fizz-buzz test would've worked wonders for the young me.
2. A formal mentor.
I spent years flailing within technology. I learned the wrong things, dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) and made obvious mistakes. In retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started who could have validated my work and guided my efforts.
Alas, software development is free, unregulated and open to all. That is what makes it beautiful. That is what makes it frustrating.
> dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|)
For someone, such as yourself, who has been in software for 14 years I'm surprised that you'd write these words. Most people I've met with your years of experience realize there isn't a "wrong technology" there is a "right technology for the problem" and a "right way to use a specific technology". I suspect you're applying hindsight bias in thinking, "I could have gotten to where I am sooner if only I hadn't done the things I did and instead done these other things." For all you know you might have found a mentor who pushed you to be better at Java Swing and you could have been the person to "fix it" so to speak.
> Something equivalent to what doctors have when they receive a medical license and become board certified.
In the US this requires four 8+ hour exams, spread out over at least seven years of training; each exam requires months of preparation. I have a hard time imagining most programmers would elect to jump through those sorts of hoops just to feel more confident about their jobs.
> In retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started who could have validated my work and guided my efforts.
I think this idea definitely has some merit. I was very fortunate that my first big job after getting my CS degree was on a very agile team that leaned toward the bleeding edge. I wonder if there could be a way for programmers to rate the development environment of certain companies.
If you want to take Algorithms and Compiler courses, Stanford, Georgia Tech and many others have great options online.
I don't think it'll help at all - I've got a bachelors in computer engineering and computer science and masters in computer science and feel pretty similarly to you (and know plenty others in the same boat as I am) - but the option's there. I actually did my MS for this very reason. I enjoyed it very much and learned a lot, but it didn't help the imposter syndrome.
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.
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 the concepts from these courses helps. But despite having a degree I often feel that I am (to quote TFA) not really “clever enough” or “good enough” or “well-rounded enough” or “deep enough” in their discipline. Almost everything I do day-to-day I did not learn in school, I learned by flailing around for a while, reading documentation, and gradually working things out.
Yet I don't feel anxiety over it, because I get my work done, and can see that I accomplish more (in some case a lot more) than many of my peers. Yes, there are also some others who are clearly better than me, but that's life.
>I spent years flailing within technology. I learned the wrong things, dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) and made obvious mistakes. In retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started who could have validated my work and guided my efforts.
I think this is inevitable. We're lucky to be living during a time that has been extremely fruitful and revolutionary in programming languages and technologies. I spent many years on Flash and Silverlight but I don't regret it. Most of those skills transfer to other domains easily.
> Mentor-
Yes. Even after 10 years in the industry I feel like I'd love to have someone to poke me in the right direction every now and then.
So far every job I've joined since finishing school in 2012 I've been the "smartest person in the room". It's been incredibly frustrating to not have peers to learn from technically.
It was so bad that I left my city (Recruiters and the jobs felt very toxic to me) and became an expat, started self learning what I wanted until I could consult enough to sustain myself.
Now I joined a large company for a large project in asia and I'm STILL missing people I can learn from.
I'm reaching my 30's, and have only worked at small to medium places with near zero mentorship.
> dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|)
Over my career, I have worked with so many technologies nobody knows about now... That's the part of the game. That's like working for a startup that didn't work out - of course, it's worse that being employee #3 at Facebook, but if you got to do some cool stuff, got paid and learned from the experience - you are still not too bad. The experience will be useful the next time, often in ways you can't now even predict. Including "no, this doesn't work - we tried it at $JOB-2 and it was a complete disaster" :)
> After five years on the job, no one cares about your cute degree but the 21-year-old version of me who knew nothing and was a tiny bit terrified of being found incompetent cared.
If you feel that you know nothing, this is good, since then you know that you have a lot to learn, which you will hopefully do then. I thus consider it as dangerous if one does not feel dumb all the time.
> I spent years flailing within technology. I learned the wrong things, dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) and made obvious mistakes.
Also the mentor will just tell you about what is trendy to him/her at the time. So be honest: You rather look for a person to pass the responsibility on for the things that you did wrong.
> After five years on the job, no one cares about your cute degree but the 21-year-old version of me who knew nothing and was a tiny bit terrified of being found incompetent cared.
True for the most part. But having a degree from the right school opens doors that you would otherwise have to devote years of self-study and aggressive marketing to, magbe, have a chance at prying open. If yoh want to build a career at Google that doesn't mainly consist of grovelling around in AdWords, step one is to have graduated from a God-tier school (e.g., Stanford).
I was fortunate enough to have an outstanding mentor. What a difference that makes. We worked together for years on some really cool DSS stuff. We were constantly trying to outdo each other and it made us both better.
As far as the degree, I'm sure you've realized by now that drive can compensate for just about anything. Also, everyone has to prove to themselves that they are good enough. Once that happens, results are limitless.
Most of the things taught in a CS degree or Math degree are simply too specialized to be useful. Sure, everything therein can be found somewhere in the industry. But, for the vast majority of us, we'll only use a tiny percentage of what we actually learn.
On the other hand, there's sooo much you do need to learn as a SE that's not taught in a CS degree. If you drew a Ven-diagram between what you learned in school and what you actually need to do the job, you'd find very little overlap.
We really need a new model for how we think about education.
I might have an impostor syndrome at work. And I am somewhat anxious about it. And I feel like it decreases my performance by quite a bit. And luckily, my managers understand it and are very supportive of me.
However, I have a question (and this is going meta). Maybe my managers are too understanding about it. Sometimes I wish they give me a harder time, and feel like I don't get reprimanded for failure enough and strangely, it exacerbates the feeling of being an impostor.
It's not like I would enjoy being wrong or beaten up for it, it's just sometimes I feel like I can afford being somewhat lazy because of that, and I don't think that's right. So I am not sure I entirely agree with the recommendation of the article.
Or to reword it as a question: Cannot the positive thinking actually hurt the person having an impostor syndrome?
Maybe we are all impostors, and I just happen to be the one most suited for the task.
I have struggled with impostor syndrome throughout my life - it doesn’t help that my 35 years to date look like a smacked out Mary Sue fantasy. In my previous business I often felt like I was pulling the wool over the eyes of the world - what right did I have to lead these people, to charge those people, to make these decisions?
Well, none, and neither does anyone else.
Through my dealings with other business owners, from small outfits through to the gods of the world of commerce, I have come to realise that everybody in any position of power or responsibility is faking it to some degree or another - or even more interestingly, they believe they are faking it, even when the results are tangible and real. I often find just talking to other people in a similar position really helps, as you rapidly realise that not only is what you’re feeling not unique, it is practically a universal maxim.
Where I ended up was concluding that we are all wittingly or unwittingly impostors, and the only actual question is whether it’s something worth being bothered by.
It’s the unwitting impostors you have to keep an eye on - hubris and incompetence are a dangerous combination.
Being aware of your own limitations brings humility, which is good in that it imbues striving, through which you grow your limits.
In short, we are all impostors. Being aware of and treating this as a law of being is a useful step in understanding both yourself and how to optimally operate the world in which we live.
People will agree to almost anything which makes them feel like less of an impostor.
I had impostor syndrome for the first 6-12 months of a job that I felt lucky to get.
I struggled with some anxiety because of that.
However I have a pet theory that a lot of our internal perceptions don't tend to have a big impact on our behaviour. So I just kept chugging a long and gradually came to realize there was no issues with my performance, and the anxiety went away mostly.
Keep in mind there's always good days/weeks or bad days/weeks in terms of our actual performance. Sometimes I was horridly underproductive and I would have to make adjustments in improving my sleep, switching to decaf coffee, exercising more, etc.
Imposter syndrome is normal and expected. It negatively affecting your performance should not be considered normal, in my opinion. If anxiety from imposter syndrome (or anything else) is affecting your job performance, it's worth considering if an expert could help (e.g. chemically or with some kind of therapy).
And I don't mean it should be stigmatized. It's probably not even uncommon. But to me "normal" implies you accept it and don't try to change it.
>It's not like I would enjoy being wrong or beaten up for it, it's just sometimes I feel like I can afford being somewhat lazy because of that, and I don't think that's right.
I totally understand this. People live up to their expectations. I’ve felt this most often in competitive activities as I’ve moved up the skill ladder and started in a group just above me. Once you feel like everyone thinks you’re going to underperform, it’s all you can think about.
In any case, it always got better for me, so I’m sure you can overcome it as well.
A deadpan answer but: lose the syndrom but still keep trying to achieve more.
It's often that you're not expected to do the "right thing" since the expector doesn't know the area well enough (i.e in software dev). The choice and risk are yours to take, and the better you get at this the better you really are.
How many managers do you have and what is their level of experience at managing direct reports? It's certainly possible for managers to do a poor job at conveying appropriate feedback, both by failing to give positive praise for good things and by pointing out failures and negative outcomes that you could have avoided.
If you feel like you're not being challenged, tell your manager! They may have decided you're doing "good enough" and aren't motivated to take it to the next level, but it sounds like you are. A strong manager/report relationship is one where the manager can sense when you have more in the tank and knows when to push and when to back off. If you don't have that relationship, start building it.
If you start reading management books you'll see that this is true. Most of them talk about how they're terrified of being found out but that this is okay, you'll grow into your role.
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 make a difference. Connect with these people on a far deeper level than just making money or comparing tech stacks and identify what it is that gets them out of bed each morning with a spring in their step. If it is the same reasons that get YOU out of bed every morning, then sign them up as your support buddy so you can measure (and they can help you measure) the real metric that makes you tick. No room for impostor syndrome in this scenario at all.
I've experienced imposter syndrome hard. One of my first jobs was a small programming gig, but I switched careers twice before securing a job as a "real" developer. Oh, man, what I didn't know. Everything was new. Source control? Neat! Unit test? Wow! I was so far behind. I worked hard and researched everything I could that I heard someone talk about more than once. If I couldn't find information on it and it came up again, I'd ask a person on the side what it was. I _knew_ I was out classed and I figured I'd never catch up.
Fast forward a year or so and I was working harder problems and harder code bases and still felt inadequate. Everyone was so much smarter and experience than me. They saw solutions before I saw problems. I was still learning so much, but how could I catch up?!
About a year later, our company introduced 360 Reviews. For those not in the know, that means your peers (and it should be a mix of people you've worked with from other teams and your team) anonymously give you a review and talk about percieved strengths and areas in need of growth. I thought, "oh, shit..".
I turned out that people I respected and looked up to had really positive things to say, and they called out where I could improve (and I since I agreed with the improvement areas, I thought maybe I could agree with the strengths too). It was so uplifting to read how folks said they could rely on me, that I had great knowledge that they wanted more access to, and other great stuff. I began to question my imposter syndrome.
A few more rounds of that while continuing to grow in my roles, and my imposter syndrome has faded from a roaring stampede to background noise. I fully credit 360 reviews coupled with striving to do better as a fix for my imposter syndrome.
I had it for most of my career until I realized that I should trust the opinion of the people who employed me. They had read my CV, marked my tests, interviewed me repeatedly and decided they liked me and trusted my abilites, so I should too. Sure, in my mind I'm not as good as hundreds of brilliant people I look up to, but that's ok. It's not about being on a linear scale, it's about fitting a niche.
This is great advise, I also find talking to the right people about doubts helps too, we all get trapped by our doubts, and it's up to us to free ourselves from those doubts, but sometimes you need to hear from someone else that it's all just a mirage and you were never really trapped to push forward.
It's funny how grad school is designed to bring out the impostor in you, kind of like a negative image of the different kinds of "impostor" listed. Obviously each of these is false in their own way, but these are messages that you will be given / experience during your PhD, so it's no wonder how people come out the other end thinking like this:
1. "The Expert": your advisor/other professors/students will make fun of you or berate you if you don't know "everything" i.e. if asked to list relevant sources you list twelve and forget the thirteenth.
2. "The Perfectionist": your advisor will never say that a work is "good" and there are always ways to improve everything, the good parts will go unmentioned while the warts will be called out for repair until eventually you run out of time and ship it.
3. "The Superperson": everyone else is always working, so why aren't you?
4. "The Natural Genius": these are the words that your advisor and other professors will use to describe "successful" students: genius, insightful, gifted. Words your advisor will never use to describe someone positively: hard-working. Hard-working is assumed. Everyone is hard-working. Everyone puts in a lot of effort. Get over it.
5. "The Rugged Individualist": Only work that you and you alone did "counts" for your PhD, and credit is zero-sum. Debate carefully the authors you add to your paper because they will take some of the "success" from your work.
I've felt imposter syndrome badly before, even while I was climbing ranks and getting excellent reviews. Now I manage developers and, while not a cure, the best I can do is constant feedback, and to urge them to find their "superpower". This sounds terrible but hear me out.
Years ago, after a string of programming jobs at, what I didn't know at the time, "boring enterprise" programming jobs, I felt like the top dog alpha supreme of developers. I sought out more pay and bigger challenges, and landed a job at a promising startup with 25 people.
This turned out to be my introduction to hard mode. I was dumped into a team with probably the eight smartest coders in the region, working on problems with huge scale, and immediately felt the fear. I cranked out code as fast as I could, as best I could, and still felt inadequate.
Then, months in, I discovered something that made everything better. My background wasn't in engineering. I went to college for Graphic Design, coding was a hobby from a young age, and a career I fell into. No one else was as interested in the UI/UX of our platform, they were deferring to me because I was constantly pushing code to improve it. This was my "superpower". That and, as it turns out, "boring enterprise" experience with Oracle, J2EE, and scaling also really comes in handy sometimes.
Years later I'm enjoying being a manager but the Imposter Syndrome is creeping back in. The difference this time is that I'm not scared of it, I see it as a challenge. I haven't found what my superpower is in this role. It causes anxiety yes, but also a drive to find a balance and purpose. If it turns out I don't have any special powers in management then maybe it's not the job for me, I'll step back and enjoy what I did previously. If I discover I'm good at it then I'll continue upward.
Everyone can rise to a position where they're incompetent. Imposter Syndrome is your brain being extra cautious. Sometimes it's off the mark, and sometimes it's exactly right. The key is that when you agree with it that you understand that's not a bad thing. Being an extra super great developer is just as useful as being a ground pounding monster of a VP of Development.
I'm always reminded of a story I read from Orson Welles' daughter. Welles had dinner with her one night (he was mostly absent from her life) and she commented that her husband said she was a good writer but lacked confidence, and this was what was stopping her.
Welles derisively remarked 'Confidence? Forget confidence. If you want to write, just do a lot of it!'
I'm paraphrasing from memory, but the implication was that confidence as a prerequisite was bunk. You only get confident by doing more of it than others and realising that you're the expert now whether you like it or not. That's definitely been my experience. Every time I've been called an expert I wince because I know someone else who's better at it than me, or someone I consider more talented, or whatever. Every performance review I have is an argument with my boss where they have to reassure me I'm actually capable in my job title and among my peers. It's surreal.
I've also come to accept that marketing and pushing yourself out there is fine, as long as you don't get an unrealistic sense of your own worth. You realise there's a wide band of abilities and knowledge and you won't be able to cover them all. And that's fine. There's still value to others in putting yourself out there.
I'm not normally one to comment here but this is just an awesome topic.
I have about 8 years experience in the industry. In the beginner of my career I did feel a bit of the impostor syndrome. Quite frankly, it was because I had this ideal of what a programmer ( or whatever buzz word title) should be. As I got on with my career I slowly realized no-body gives a shit. Its just HR that give those titles.
I also found that I accepted the fact that I will just not know everything. I will never tick all the boxes of what a job may require...
So moving forward to now. I don't care at all for titles. I just want to code and I want to TRY write some good code. I compare myself to nobody else and just talk and learn from everybody. I have learned equally from a juniors as I have from a senior developers.
I continue to chug along with the mindset that I am a crappy developer. Therefore always interested in learning and always open to whatever somebody else has to add.
I will never be the smartest programmer or the best programmer. That's ok because I will learn more from the programmers that are.
IMHO, 99% of human emotions have reasons of existence. It just makes evolutionary sense (or, if you prefer, it helps us serve the intelligent maker(s) better). Maybe we SHOULD have impostor syndrome, as well as shyness and awkwardness and diffidence and stress and whatnot. Maybe we should EMBRACE them instead of treating them like unwanted baggage of lizards.
One of my memory on this: one night (2 yrs ago?), I woke up with cold sweat, with a terrible dream: I just got paged and I didn't even know where to start debugging. It's horrible time.
You know what happened next? Next few days, I compiled a list of "essential documentations" (plus all the juicy links for debugging). On-call rotation came. I did get page. Different from the dream, I did not forget all of the crappy code (that I had lovingly written). However, the list helped immensely. And whenever my teammates had on-call cold feet, I shared the list. Life rocked. (for a while....)
I was told that we humans freaked ourselves into actions. Deadlines press for action. Pressure elevates the flow and sharpens the focus. Challenges inhibit daydreams and sweeten successes.
So, again, here is my take: why can't we just embrace impostor syndrome? After all, we need some fire on our behind of get our acts together, no?
Funny story, in 15 years of professional software development I never experienced the sense of imposter syndrome until very recently when I decided after 12 years at one employer (on many satisfying projects) I needed to consider expanding my employment options. AKA I started looking for a new job. Once I got a whiff of the putrid state of hiring in our industry today holy hell...
Sure, I’ve been successful at this for 15+ years, delivering at or above expectations at almost 100% rate with some great individual excellence tossed in for good measure. But I am 99% sure I’d never pass an interview for a new job doing exactly what I do now. Am I even a software engineer developer programmer whatever?
It has been a very disconcerting experience.
Anyway, I figure the feeling of being an imposter is just a natural subconscious reaction to what seems like an entirely alien definition of what my job is vs. what other employers seem to expect from someone doing my job. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed this disconnect as so many links/threads on HN allude to.
It certainly has given me a good deal of anxiety, though, I don’t really see what choice I have but to accept this nonsense and try to prepare for it. Luckily I haven’t been feeling any depression or burnout or any other obvious mood impact from the whole experience, but, I could see that happening if I had less confidence in my ability to fill in my knowledge gaps, even if it’s for nothing beyond an interview.
My first for real full-time software engineering job was for a very small company. I was self-taught and their only software developer was leaving in 3 months, but had mostly checkout out already. The company environment was find but all the software was terrible.
Over that first year there it was basically the Klingon Rite of Ascension. Fighting fires and trying to keep the company afloat. I had no backup/mentors and if I failed then the company was done. I was near tears (or privately at tears) at a few points from frustration and stress. In the end I think this experience made me a better person for it.
First I was forced to learn how to manage stress. This was a big one and one I had never mastered before. Next I need to be able to juggle and prioritize actual company needs, not just what people told me to do. I couldn't spend all my time fixing things when our customers also needed our product to work. I also handled much of the customer support at this point because most of the issues were software related.
In any case, in the end I pulled the company back from its instability. This gave me a good amount of confidence that I am a good engineer. That no matter what gets thrown at me I can fix any of our problems and develop new systems. Even if I need to outsource some of the work to people who are better at particular platforms.
This probably isn't a healthy way to overcome impostor syndrome, but its how I did.
My theory is that "impostor syndrome" is just another facet/manifestation of anxiety.
While many people do have anxiety time to time, for some the degree is high, and it manifests as the impostor syndrome. (worrying if they are good enough, or over anxious about the tasks not being done correctly, feeling not being a good performer, etc, when they are actually performing great).
I'd say, the same CBT techniques that help people deal with anxiety will help with the 'impostor syndrome' as well. (things like gradual exposure, getting used to the new situation, stepping back and accurately assessing the situation (like a third person) etc).
I’ve read thru a bunch of the comments (many of which echo my own thoughts on my career), and have a thought:
Why is computer programming taught in universities?
Seriously. There are many people who learned some things but not what they would have wanted to learn when they look back on their life.
I wonder why programming can’t be like welding [1]. There are many different types of welders, from the person welding a spacecraft, to your backyard bbq. And everything in between. Welding stainless steel is totally different from welding aluminum. And welding on alloys is like it’s from a different planet.
The welding field has many certifications for different things. We depend on their work every day. Yet they don’t go to college. And their mistakes can kill people.
Programmers on the other hand, should be able to have cerifications on things like data structures, communication methods, data stores & indexing, UX, etc.
That would be a much better use of people’s time than what we’ve been doing.
(EDIT): yes, I read the article, but my post is more targeted at the HN comments. For what it’s worth, the article didn’t reference overly-worked blue collar fields like welding, hence why I used it as an example.
IMO the fix is for our industry as a whole to stop reinventing the wheel with yet-another-incompatible-alternative.
My personal imposter syndrome feelings are almost always related to either a) not knowing the "replacement" to an existing technology I am already familiar with (in almost all cases it's two steps forward one step back anyway), or b) not using a technology for a somewhat extended period of time, then coming back to it and realising that the landscape and ecosystem has completely shifted from underneath me.
The latter has hit me most hard lately in iOS development with the move to Swift (and then v2, v3), deprecation of NS*, autolayouts, APNS' http2 etc etc, and in JavaScript development.
We have far too many technologies that have established niches that all accomplish largely the same goals, but aren't transferrable. These days, boosting the toolchain for these technologies is a big feature too, which increases the differences between ecosystems. They require sometimes hundreds of hours of learning to become competent in, even for an expert in another similar technology.
It's some sort of crazy arms race that we don't seem to want to stop...
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.
After 20 years as a programmer with various employers/clients, I noticed the impostor syndrome when I was alone on projects (or in small teams). But when I was working with big teams in traditional fields like bank or retail, I felt something more akin to the Dunning-Kruger effect...
When alone, I compare myself to people in the videos I watch, People like Hickey, Carmack, Crockford, etc. I can't handle a candle to them! But when in BigCorp, intertia is massive, people souls have long been sucked out, and you feel shackled. This make you believe that you can accomplish way more than the median person (which is of course probably wrong).
Imposter syndrome is caused by improperly comparing ones own abilities to others.
The better one is at modeling another person the more accurate they will compare themselves to others, and from that the less severe their imposter syndrome will be. This is a learned skill.
>Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
To outright nuke imposter syndrome permanently first some new vocabulary that will explain how to do this:
In Pali there is the word māna, which is sometimes called conceit, but is definitely not a standard use for the word conceit, and is very much not English. A quote to explain the concept behind the word māna:
"There is conceit or pride when we consider ourselves important. Because of conceit we may compare ourselves with others. There can be conceit when we think ourselves better, equal or less than someone else. We may believe that there can be conceit only when we think ourselves better than someone else, but this is not so. There can be a kind of upholding of ourselves, of making ourselves important, while we compare ourselves with someone else, no matter in what way, and that is conceit." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81na
These comparison cause many kinds of anxiety, including imposter syndrome. The solution to not create māna, but to instead create a kind of comparison that I think of as an "Apples and Oranges" comparison. It is seeing the differences in everything, in a way that has all of the benefits of a normal comparison, but one that does not construct a better and a worse. Everything is different. Everyone has their own advantages and disadvantages. With no better and worse, especially when this better or worse is attached to ones identity, there will be no more psychological stress in this way.
Being prepared. This is what I have found to be the most helpful. I'm an SDM at a big tech company, and when I was hired I thought they must have made a mistake. I felt like an imposter in meetings and managing my team for a long time. I was able to relieve the anxiety by focusing on always being the most prepared person in the room (ie. read everything before hand, try to anticipate questions and answers, speak with confidence [fake it 'til you make it]). Eventually this just became second nature and the thing I was doing didn't feel like I was an imposter anymore. I just recently changed roles to a new org and I feel the same anxiety creeping back in, so this a pep talk for myself too. The thing to remember is you got where you are for some reason, try to think about the positive attributes you know you have, and just keep practicing the rest. Good luck!
> This is perhaps why women may be more likely to feel like impostors, because they typically do not see themselves reflected and reinforced—in some sense, validated—in the same way that men do.
For some reason, I was irked by this comment which seems to be completely unsubstantiated.
The author says you can feel like an imposter when you're a minority, whether gender or race. I think there's much evidence out there about women that are not being validated in the tech and startup space the same way as men... Just look at female founder statistics.
[+] [-] alexquez|8 years ago|reply
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 as a competent developer (or that educated me on what skills I'd yet to learn).
Something equivalent to what doctors have when they receive a medical license and become board certified.
After five years on the job, no one cares about your cute degree but the 21-year-old version of me who knew nothing and was a tiny bit terrified of being found incompetent cared.
You are born with a level of confidence (unsubstantiated and unproven), but you can also earn it by doing a substantial amount of work.
A right of passage within the software industry that showed a fundamental level of competency beyond the fizz-buzz test would've worked wonders for the young me.
2. A formal mentor.
I spent years flailing within technology. I learned the wrong things, dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) and made obvious mistakes. In retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started who could have validated my work and guided my efforts.
Alas, software development is free, unregulated and open to all. That is what makes it beautiful. That is what makes it frustrating.
[+] [-] knightofmars|8 years ago|reply
For someone, such as yourself, who has been in software for 14 years I'm surprised that you'd write these words. Most people I've met with your years of experience realize there isn't a "wrong technology" there is a "right technology for the problem" and a "right way to use a specific technology". I suspect you're applying hindsight bias in thinking, "I could have gotten to where I am sooner if only I hadn't done the things I did and instead done these other things." For all you know you might have found a mentor who pushed you to be better at Java Swing and you could have been the person to "fix it" so to speak.
[+] [-] kendallpark|8 years ago|reply
In the US this requires four 8+ hour exams, spread out over at least seven years of training; each exam requires months of preparation. I have a hard time imagining most programmers would elect to jump through those sorts of hoops just to feel more confident about their jobs.
> In retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started who could have validated my work and guided my efforts.
I think this idea definitely has some merit. I was very fortunate that my first big job after getting my CS degree was on a very agile team that leaned toward the bleeding edge. I wonder if there could be a way for programmers to rate the development environment of certain companies.
[+] [-] zaphod12|8 years ago|reply
I don't think it'll help at all - I've got a bachelors in computer engineering and computer science and masters in computer science and feel pretty similarly to you (and know plenty others in the same boat as I am) - but the option's there. I actually did my MS for this very reason. I enjoyed it very much and learned a lot, but it didn't help the imposter syndrome.
[+] [-] nso95|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
Maybe understanding the concepts from these courses helps. But despite having a degree I often feel that I am (to quote TFA) not really “clever enough” or “good enough” or “well-rounded enough” or “deep enough” in their discipline. Almost everything I do day-to-day I did not learn in school, I learned by flailing around for a while, reading documentation, and gradually working things out.
Yet I don't feel anxiety over it, because I get my work done, and can see that I accomplish more (in some case a lot more) than many of my peers. Yes, there are also some others who are clearly better than me, but that's life.
[+] [-] ahtu123|8 years ago|reply
I think this is inevitable. We're lucky to be living during a time that has been extremely fruitful and revolutionary in programming languages and technologies. I spent many years on Flash and Silverlight but I don't regret it. Most of those skills transfer to other domains easily.
> Mentor-
Yes. Even after 10 years in the industry I feel like I'd love to have someone to poke me in the right direction every now and then.
[+] [-] swat535|8 years ago|reply
Others have mentioned, it already but I feel like I must echo the same sentiment.
I finished a 4 years CS degree years ago and I can honestly say that throughout my career I never had to create a linked list by hand.
Quiet frankly, knowing how to implement a heap with your eyes closed doesn't mean anything.
Running a successful SAAS for many years and scaling it on the other hand, is far more of an impressive accomplishment.
Kudos to you.
[+] [-] chairmankaga|8 years ago|reply
So far every job I've joined since finishing school in 2012 I've been the "smartest person in the room". It's been incredibly frustrating to not have peers to learn from technically.
It was so bad that I left my city (Recruiters and the jobs felt very toxic to me) and became an expat, started self learning what I wanted until I could consult enough to sustain myself.
Now I joined a large company for a large project in asia and I'm STILL missing people I can learn from.
I'm reaching my 30's, and have only worked at small to medium places with near zero mentorship.
[+] [-] kohanz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|8 years ago|reply
Over my career, I have worked with so many technologies nobody knows about now... That's the part of the game. That's like working for a startup that didn't work out - of course, it's worse that being employee #3 at Facebook, but if you got to do some cool stuff, got paid and learned from the experience - you are still not too bad. The experience will be useful the next time, often in ways you can't now even predict. Including "no, this doesn't work - we tried it at $JOB-2 and it was a complete disaster" :)
[+] [-] wolfgke|8 years ago|reply
If you feel that you know nothing, this is good, since then you know that you have a lot to learn, which you will hopefully do then. I thus consider it as dangerous if one does not feel dumb all the time.
> I spent years flailing within technology. I learned the wrong things, dove deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) and made obvious mistakes.
Also the mentor will just tell you about what is trendy to him/her at the time. So be honest: You rather look for a person to pass the responsibility on for the things that you did wrong.
[+] [-] bitwize|8 years ago|reply
True for the most part. But having a degree from the right school opens doors that you would otherwise have to devote years of self-study and aggressive marketing to, magbe, have a chance at prying open. If yoh want to build a career at Google that doesn't mainly consist of grovelling around in AdWords, step one is to have graduated from a God-tier school (e.g., Stanford).
[+] [-] Clubber|8 years ago|reply
As far as the degree, I'm sure you've realized by now that drive can compensate for just about anything. Also, everyone has to prove to themselves that they are good enough. Once that happens, results are limitless.
[+] [-] jkereako|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] efigle2501|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pascalxus|8 years ago|reply
On the other hand, there's sooo much you do need to learn as a SE that's not taught in a CS degree. If you drew a Ven-diagram between what you learned in school and what you actually need to do the job, you'd find very little overlap.
We really need a new model for how we think about education.
[+] [-] js8|8 years ago|reply
However, I have a question (and this is going meta). Maybe my managers are too understanding about it. Sometimes I wish they give me a harder time, and feel like I don't get reprimanded for failure enough and strangely, it exacerbates the feeling of being an impostor.
It's not like I would enjoy being wrong or beaten up for it, it's just sometimes I feel like I can afford being somewhat lazy because of that, and I don't think that's right. So I am not sure I entirely agree with the recommendation of the article.
Or to reword it as a question: Cannot the positive thinking actually hurt the person having an impostor syndrome?
Maybe we are all impostors, and I just happen to be the one most suited for the task.
[+] [-] madaxe_again|8 years ago|reply
This, a thousandfold.
I have struggled with impostor syndrome throughout my life - it doesn’t help that my 35 years to date look like a smacked out Mary Sue fantasy. In my previous business I often felt like I was pulling the wool over the eyes of the world - what right did I have to lead these people, to charge those people, to make these decisions?
Well, none, and neither does anyone else.
Through my dealings with other business owners, from small outfits through to the gods of the world of commerce, I have come to realise that everybody in any position of power or responsibility is faking it to some degree or another - or even more interestingly, they believe they are faking it, even when the results are tangible and real. I often find just talking to other people in a similar position really helps, as you rapidly realise that not only is what you’re feeling not unique, it is practically a universal maxim.
Where I ended up was concluding that we are all wittingly or unwittingly impostors, and the only actual question is whether it’s something worth being bothered by.
It’s the unwitting impostors you have to keep an eye on - hubris and incompetence are a dangerous combination.
Being aware of your own limitations brings humility, which is good in that it imbues striving, through which you grow your limits.
In short, we are all impostors. Being aware of and treating this as a law of being is a useful step in understanding both yourself and how to optimally operate the world in which we live.
People will agree to almost anything which makes them feel like less of an impostor.
[+] [-] fouc|8 years ago|reply
I struggled with some anxiety because of that.
However I have a pet theory that a lot of our internal perceptions don't tend to have a big impact on our behaviour. So I just kept chugging a long and gradually came to realize there was no issues with my performance, and the anxiety went away mostly.
Keep in mind there's always good days/weeks or bad days/weeks in terms of our actual performance. Sometimes I was horridly underproductive and I would have to make adjustments in improving my sleep, switching to decaf coffee, exercising more, etc.
[+] [-] solipsism|8 years ago|reply
And I don't mean it should be stigmatized. It's probably not even uncommon. But to me "normal" implies you accept it and don't try to change it.
[+] [-] justwalt|8 years ago|reply
I totally understand this. People live up to their expectations. I’ve felt this most often in competitive activities as I’ve moved up the skill ladder and started in a group just above me. Once you feel like everyone thinks you’re going to underperform, it’s all you can think about.
In any case, it always got better for me, so I’m sure you can overcome it as well.
[+] [-] kreetx|8 years ago|reply
It's often that you're not expected to do the "right thing" since the expector doesn't know the area well enough (i.e in software dev). The choice and risk are yours to take, and the better you get at this the better you really are.
[+] [-] darkerside|8 years ago|reply
If you feel like you're not being challenged, tell your manager! They may have decided you're doing "good enough" and aren't motivated to take it to the next level, but it sounds like you are. A strong manager/report relationship is one where the manager can sense when you have more in the tank and knows when to push and when to back off. If you don't have that relationship, start building it.
[+] [-] castlecrasher2|8 years ago|reply
If you start reading management books you'll see that this is true. Most of them talk about how they're terrified of being found out but that this is okay, you'll grow into your role.
[+] [-] cyberferret|8 years ago|reply
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 make a difference. Connect with these people on a far deeper level than just making money or comparing tech stacks and identify what it is that gets them out of bed each morning with a spring in their step. If it is the same reasons that get YOU out of bed every morning, then sign them up as your support buddy so you can measure (and they can help you measure) the real metric that makes you tick. No room for impostor syndrome in this scenario at all.
[+] [-] sethammons|8 years ago|reply
I've experienced imposter syndrome hard. One of my first jobs was a small programming gig, but I switched careers twice before securing a job as a "real" developer. Oh, man, what I didn't know. Everything was new. Source control? Neat! Unit test? Wow! I was so far behind. I worked hard and researched everything I could that I heard someone talk about more than once. If I couldn't find information on it and it came up again, I'd ask a person on the side what it was. I _knew_ I was out classed and I figured I'd never catch up.
Fast forward a year or so and I was working harder problems and harder code bases and still felt inadequate. Everyone was so much smarter and experience than me. They saw solutions before I saw problems. I was still learning so much, but how could I catch up?!
About a year later, our company introduced 360 Reviews. For those not in the know, that means your peers (and it should be a mix of people you've worked with from other teams and your team) anonymously give you a review and talk about percieved strengths and areas in need of growth. I thought, "oh, shit..".
I turned out that people I respected and looked up to had really positive things to say, and they called out where I could improve (and I since I agreed with the improvement areas, I thought maybe I could agree with the strengths too). It was so uplifting to read how folks said they could rely on me, that I had great knowledge that they wanted more access to, and other great stuff. I began to question my imposter syndrome.
A few more rounds of that while continuing to grow in my roles, and my imposter syndrome has faded from a roaring stampede to background noise. I fully credit 360 reviews coupled with striving to do better as a fix for my imposter syndrome.
[+] [-] robohoe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MuffinFlavored|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antyph|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] munin|8 years ago|reply
1. "The Expert": your advisor/other professors/students will make fun of you or berate you if you don't know "everything" i.e. if asked to list relevant sources you list twelve and forget the thirteenth.
2. "The Perfectionist": your advisor will never say that a work is "good" and there are always ways to improve everything, the good parts will go unmentioned while the warts will be called out for repair until eventually you run out of time and ship it.
3. "The Superperson": everyone else is always working, so why aren't you?
4. "The Natural Genius": these are the words that your advisor and other professors will use to describe "successful" students: genius, insightful, gifted. Words your advisor will never use to describe someone positively: hard-working. Hard-working is assumed. Everyone is hard-working. Everyone puts in a lot of effort. Get over it.
5. "The Rugged Individualist": Only work that you and you alone did "counts" for your PhD, and credit is zero-sum. Debate carefully the authors you add to your paper because they will take some of the "success" from your work.
[+] [-] eight_ender|8 years ago|reply
Years ago, after a string of programming jobs at, what I didn't know at the time, "boring enterprise" programming jobs, I felt like the top dog alpha supreme of developers. I sought out more pay and bigger challenges, and landed a job at a promising startup with 25 people.
This turned out to be my introduction to hard mode. I was dumped into a team with probably the eight smartest coders in the region, working on problems with huge scale, and immediately felt the fear. I cranked out code as fast as I could, as best I could, and still felt inadequate.
Then, months in, I discovered something that made everything better. My background wasn't in engineering. I went to college for Graphic Design, coding was a hobby from a young age, and a career I fell into. No one else was as interested in the UI/UX of our platform, they were deferring to me because I was constantly pushing code to improve it. This was my "superpower". That and, as it turns out, "boring enterprise" experience with Oracle, J2EE, and scaling also really comes in handy sometimes.
Years later I'm enjoying being a manager but the Imposter Syndrome is creeping back in. The difference this time is that I'm not scared of it, I see it as a challenge. I haven't found what my superpower is in this role. It causes anxiety yes, but also a drive to find a balance and purpose. If it turns out I don't have any special powers in management then maybe it's not the job for me, I'll step back and enjoy what I did previously. If I discover I'm good at it then I'll continue upward.
Everyone can rise to a position where they're incompetent. Imposter Syndrome is your brain being extra cautious. Sometimes it's off the mark, and sometimes it's exactly right. The key is that when you agree with it that you understand that's not a bad thing. Being an extra super great developer is just as useful as being a ground pounding monster of a VP of Development.
[+] [-] zwischenzug|8 years ago|reply
Welles derisively remarked 'Confidence? Forget confidence. If you want to write, just do a lot of it!'
I'm paraphrasing from memory, but the implication was that confidence as a prerequisite was bunk. You only get confident by doing more of it than others and realising that you're the expert now whether you like it or not. That's definitely been my experience. Every time I've been called an expert I wince because I know someone else who's better at it than me, or someone I consider more talented, or whatever. Every performance review I have is an argument with my boss where they have to reassure me I'm actually capable in my job title and among my peers. It's surreal.
I've also come to accept that marketing and pushing yourself out there is fine, as long as you don't get an unrealistic sense of your own worth. You realise there's a wide band of abilities and knowledge and you won't be able to cover them all. And that's fine. There's still value to others in putting yourself out there.
[+] [-] karlta05|8 years ago|reply
I tend to feel that you should compete with who you were yesterday and get assistance from others i.e. learning from them.
[+] [-] karlta05|8 years ago|reply
I have about 8 years experience in the industry. In the beginner of my career I did feel a bit of the impostor syndrome. Quite frankly, it was because I had this ideal of what a programmer ( or whatever buzz word title) should be. As I got on with my career I slowly realized no-body gives a shit. Its just HR that give those titles.
I also found that I accepted the fact that I will just not know everything. I will never tick all the boxes of what a job may require...
So moving forward to now. I don't care at all for titles. I just want to code and I want to TRY write some good code. I compare myself to nobody else and just talk and learn from everybody. I have learned equally from a juniors as I have from a senior developers.
I continue to chug along with the mindset that I am a crappy developer. Therefore always interested in learning and always open to whatever somebody else has to add. I will never be the smartest programmer or the best programmer. That's ok because I will learn more from the programmers that are.
I'm just enjoying the ride.
[+] [-] magice|8 years ago|reply
IMHO, 99% of human emotions have reasons of existence. It just makes evolutionary sense (or, if you prefer, it helps us serve the intelligent maker(s) better). Maybe we SHOULD have impostor syndrome, as well as shyness and awkwardness and diffidence and stress and whatnot. Maybe we should EMBRACE them instead of treating them like unwanted baggage of lizards.
One of my memory on this: one night (2 yrs ago?), I woke up with cold sweat, with a terrible dream: I just got paged and I didn't even know where to start debugging. It's horrible time.
You know what happened next? Next few days, I compiled a list of "essential documentations" (plus all the juicy links for debugging). On-call rotation came. I did get page. Different from the dream, I did not forget all of the crappy code (that I had lovingly written). However, the list helped immensely. And whenever my teammates had on-call cold feet, I shared the list. Life rocked. (for a while....)
I was told that we humans freaked ourselves into actions. Deadlines press for action. Pressure elevates the flow and sharpens the focus. Challenges inhibit daydreams and sweeten successes.
So, again, here is my take: why can't we just embrace impostor syndrome? After all, we need some fire on our behind of get our acts together, no?
[+] [-] ztjio|8 years ago|reply
Sure, I’ve been successful at this for 15+ years, delivering at or above expectations at almost 100% rate with some great individual excellence tossed in for good measure. But I am 99% sure I’d never pass an interview for a new job doing exactly what I do now. Am I even a software engineer developer programmer whatever?
It has been a very disconcerting experience.
Anyway, I figure the feeling of being an imposter is just a natural subconscious reaction to what seems like an entirely alien definition of what my job is vs. what other employers seem to expect from someone doing my job. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed this disconnect as so many links/threads on HN allude to.
It certainly has given me a good deal of anxiety, though, I don’t really see what choice I have but to accept this nonsense and try to prepare for it. Luckily I haven’t been feeling any depression or burnout or any other obvious mood impact from the whole experience, but, I could see that happening if I had less confidence in my ability to fill in my knowledge gaps, even if it’s for nothing beyond an interview.
[+] [-] karmicthreat|8 years ago|reply
Over that first year there it was basically the Klingon Rite of Ascension. Fighting fires and trying to keep the company afloat. I had no backup/mentors and if I failed then the company was done. I was near tears (or privately at tears) at a few points from frustration and stress. In the end I think this experience made me a better person for it.
First I was forced to learn how to manage stress. This was a big one and one I had never mastered before. Next I need to be able to juggle and prioritize actual company needs, not just what people told me to do. I couldn't spend all my time fixing things when our customers also needed our product to work. I also handled much of the customer support at this point because most of the issues were software related.
In any case, in the end I pulled the company back from its instability. This gave me a good amount of confidence that I am a good engineer. That no matter what gets thrown at me I can fix any of our problems and develop new systems. Even if I need to outsource some of the work to people who are better at particular platforms.
This probably isn't a healthy way to overcome impostor syndrome, but its how I did.
[+] [-] ardit33|8 years ago|reply
While many people do have anxiety time to time, for some the degree is high, and it manifests as the impostor syndrome. (worrying if they are good enough, or over anxious about the tasks not being done correctly, feeling not being a good performer, etc, when they are actually performing great).
I'd say, the same CBT techniques that help people deal with anxiety will help with the 'impostor syndrome' as well. (things like gradual exposure, getting used to the new situation, stepping back and accurately assessing the situation (like a third person) etc).
[+] [-] MR4D|8 years ago|reply
Why is computer programming taught in universities?
Seriously. There are many people who learned some things but not what they would have wanted to learn when they look back on their life.
I wonder why programming can’t be like welding [1]. There are many different types of welders, from the person welding a spacecraft, to your backyard bbq. And everything in between. Welding stainless steel is totally different from welding aluminum. And welding on alloys is like it’s from a different planet.
The welding field has many certifications for different things. We depend on their work every day. Yet they don’t go to college. And their mistakes can kill people.
Programmers on the other hand, should be able to have cerifications on things like data structures, communication methods, data stores & indexing, UX, etc.
That would be a much better use of people’s time than what we’ve been doing.
[1] https://www.aws.org/certification/page/certified-welder-prog...
(EDIT): yes, I read the article, but my post is more targeted at the HN comments. For what it’s worth, the article didn’t reference overly-worked blue collar fields like welding, hence why I used it as an example.
[+] [-] spronkey|8 years ago|reply
My personal imposter syndrome feelings are almost always related to either a) not knowing the "replacement" to an existing technology I am already familiar with (in almost all cases it's two steps forward one step back anyway), or b) not using a technology for a somewhat extended period of time, then coming back to it and realising that the landscape and ecosystem has completely shifted from underneath me.
The latter has hit me most hard lately in iOS development with the move to Swift (and then v2, v3), deprecation of NS*, autolayouts, APNS' http2 etc etc, and in JavaScript development.
We have far too many technologies that have established niches that all accomplish largely the same goals, but aren't transferrable. These days, boosting the toolchain for these technologies is a big feature too, which increases the differences between ecosystems. They require sometimes hundreds of hours of learning to become competent in, even for an expert in another similar technology.
It's some sort of crazy arms race that we don't seem to want to stop...
[+] [-] jeffreyrogers|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roselan|8 years ago|reply
When alone, I compare myself to people in the videos I watch, People like Hickey, Carmack, Crockford, etc. I can't handle a candle to them! But when in BigCorp, intertia is massive, people souls have long been sucked out, and you feel shackled. This make you believe that you can accomplish way more than the median person (which is of course probably wrong).
[+] [-] proverbialbunny|8 years ago|reply
The better one is at modeling another person the more accurate they will compare themselves to others, and from that the less severe their imposter syndrome will be. This is a learned skill.
>Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?
To outright nuke imposter syndrome permanently first some new vocabulary that will explain how to do this:
In Pali there is the word māna, which is sometimes called conceit, but is definitely not a standard use for the word conceit, and is very much not English. A quote to explain the concept behind the word māna:
"There is conceit or pride when we consider ourselves important. Because of conceit we may compare ourselves with others. There can be conceit when we think ourselves better, equal or less than someone else. We may believe that there can be conceit only when we think ourselves better than someone else, but this is not so. There can be a kind of upholding of ourselves, of making ourselves important, while we compare ourselves with someone else, no matter in what way, and that is conceit." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81na
These comparison cause many kinds of anxiety, including imposter syndrome. The solution to not create māna, but to instead create a kind of comparison that I think of as an "Apples and Oranges" comparison. It is seeing the differences in everything, in a way that has all of the benefits of a normal comparison, but one that does not construct a better and a worse. Everything is different. Everyone has their own advantages and disadvantages. With no better and worse, especially when this better or worse is attached to ones identity, there will be no more psychological stress in this way.
[+] [-] karlta05|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbliss|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkerside|8 years ago|reply
For some reason, I was irked by this comment which seems to be completely unsubstantiated.
[+] [-] Regardsyjc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Senderman|8 years ago|reply