[shred45]

I find "distributed systems" to be a huge source of imposter syndrome. Despite having worked almost exclusively with distributed applications for several years now, it is difficult to consider myself experienced. When I'm asked if I've worked with distributed systems, I don't think they are asking me if I've managed a Hadoop cluster. They are interested in building new applications using some of the primitives discussed in this post. All of these links are great, but the fact is that building and operating tools like this is hard. In addition to consensus primitives, your system may need very precise error handling, structured logging, distributed tracing, resource monitoring, schema evolution, etc. In the end, I probably pause for a second too long when answering that question, but I don't think its because of a lack of experience, quite the opposite!

[lostcolony]

Do you know what the CAP theorem is, and can explain it to me like I'm 5? Can you tell me how a SQL DB fits into it, and where something like DynamoDB fits into it?

Congratulations, you are better than 95% of the people that I've interviewed out there saying they are experienced building distributed systems. Including system/solution architects.

[cbsmith]

Sad, but true. That said... the hiring pool tends to be biased towards people that others have passed on.

[calcorbin]

I'm realizing I've only worked in distributed systems as well, but I'd never feel comfortable telling potential employers I'm an expert. Being an expert in distributed systems seems almost too broad. At a high level couldn't it be expertise at integration, accessible logging, and configuration?

[0xbadcafebee]

Distributed systems research has been going on since the 70's and Unix Neckbeards have probably forgotten more about them than we have learned, so actually I think impostor syndrome is a bit warranted with them.

The actual hard stuff is not even these papers, it's the implementations that are way more complex than some algorithm or architectural pattern. Anyone who says "X is better than Y" is fooling themselves because it's only the implementation context that matters.

The only thing you can say for certain is that reducing the amount of components and complexity in the system often results in better outcomes.

[ystad]

Yes. The area is fairly broad. In my opinion - I think the question to ask for is: Do you have the distributed systems mindset? Not Are you an expert on Distributed Systems

[shred45]

It is definitely a broad term, and I think that disciplined implementation of the things that you mentioned is the real key. It just isn't as exciting to talk about.

[zcw100]

I don't trust anyone who comes back with quick answers without any hesitation or pause. I remember a lecture from a while ago, I can't remember who was giving it but they were someone well known, where they asked people to implement bubble sort. The results that came back ranged from something like 20 lines to 2000 lines and every single one had bugs. I don't know how anyone who works in this industry for any length of time doesn't follow up every answer with, "...but there's probably some problem that I'm not thinking of at the moment".

[parentheses]

I feel interviews are to blame. The interview is a place where doing this is often not OK. It signals to folks that that is expected day to day.

[pratik661]

I wonder if this source of imposter syndrome applies to any field where the job roles and success criteria are not clearly defined and vary from company to company (ie data analyst, product owner, distributed systems developer).

[ethanfinni]

Explain concurrency like I am five and give a concurrency example problem and solution.

[parentheses]

Distributed systems, in my experience, most often fall prey to "not invented here" syndrome.

[abledon]

great time to bring up the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon in the interview lol

[chrisweekly]

hahaha

for the uninitiated,

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.