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Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

• kornork 8y ago
  Makes sense to me. It's a vicious cycle: feel like you're an imposter, get depressed and anxious, be less effective at your job, feel like you're an imposter.
  • jonhendry18 8y ago
    And depression can cause you to overweight negative memories and discount or ignore positive memories, which seems like it would exacerbate anxiety and imposter syndrome.
• munin 8y ago
  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.
  • gowld 8y ago
    It sounds like you attended a toxic grad school. Was your program in Chemistry?
    • ent 8y ago
      Is this a joke about toxicity/chemistry or is the field of chemistry known to be socially more toxic than other fields?
      • gowld 8y ago
        Chemistry has a reputation https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/21/us/after-suicide-harvard-alters-policies-on-graduate-students.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/21/us/after-suicide-harvard-... > Eight graduate students have committed suicide at Harvard since 1980, officials said -- not an unusual rate for a university. > Of those, three have been in the laboratory of Mr. Altom's adviser, Elias J. Corey, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist. > But Dr. Long asserted today that by all indications, the first two deaths, one last year and one in 1987, had nothing to do with the students' work in chemistry. > One student, he noted, had been very successful in his work, and the other had barely begun.
    • selimthegrim 8y ago
      This sounds not dissimilar to physics as well
    • vinchuco 8y ago
      It sounds like you lucked out.
• ardit33 8y ago
  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).
  • vvanders 8y ago
    I dunno, I feel like imposter syndrome has a bit more existential roots rather than just a manifestation of anxiety.
• sidcool 8y ago
  No surprise to me. Of course the research quantities it, but I always had a gut feeling of this being the case.
• ztjio 8y ago
  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.
  • naner 8y ago
    Similar situation: I have a history of obtaining lower level positions and then quickly rising up to higher level engineering position within the same company (this has happened with two employers). I don't think this can reliably be used as a general strategy, I just have been lucky with employers. This doesn't give me a huge amount of confidence when considering my chances at getting a new job comparable to the level I'm at now. Also the past few times I have seen the job posting for a position I've held, based on the job posting I'd assume I was unqualified. There's a bazillion buzzwords and technologies in our industry and it's difficult to account for how experience carries across related technologies (or not directly related technologies) in a job description. So employers end up just listing every technology you may touch and add an 'X years experience required'. On the other hand, having worked with several engineers of varying backgrounds at my company and our partners I don't feel like an imposter at all in my actual abilities, knowledge, and performance.
• rdlecler1 8y ago
  Are people who are predisposed to imposter syndrome worse hires because this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy? Are there even indicators?
  • sanderjd 8y ago
    > Are people who are predisposed to imposter syndrome worse hires because this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy? That's an easy one: nope! All the best people I've worked with have struggled with not feeling good enough while simultaneously doing stand-out work.
  • teirce 8y ago
    I think that depends on what you mean by "worse hire." Reading the article, it seems that those inflicted by more severe (or studied) cases of imposter syndrome are more likely to work harder in order to combat their own feelings of 'incompetence' or 'inability. If someone puts in extra effort and hours, is that a "worse hire"? Personally, I'm not stranger to this feeling. I've recently been hired into a new (well-renowned) tech company and wonder how that happened / whether or not this company made a mistake hiring me. The only way I can reconcile this feeling is to try and do my best at my new position, within reason, while trying to maintain a healthy work-life-balance that allows me to avoid the biggest detrimental effects mentioned by the article. I don't think this is a self-fulfilling prophecy per se. I think the only danger that can result from an 'imposter-syndrome hire' is that they may burn themselves out easily if they don't find their footing in a new ground / new position and leave sooner than a "normal" employee.
  • fahadkhan 8y ago
    "The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity." -- 1920 W. B. Yeats Somewhat true of our industry.
• mirimir 8y ago
  > I asked some of my male colleagues whether they also experience impostor syndrome and got a resounding yes. In researching the topic for this column, I read an article that suggested even Albert Einstein felt this way at times. Damn. It's hard to compare oneself objectively with others. Not that it's ever such a great idea. For others, you only know what they accomplish, plus whatever they're willing to share about the process. But for oneself, everything is laid bare. All the uncertainty, false starts, mistakes, dead ends, and so on.
  • flyingcircus3 8y ago
    I've thought about it in the converse. Imagine it's just after Einstein releases his paper explaining the theory of special relativity. Given what we know now about it, and it's ramifications, if Einstein truly understood this idea at anything close to this level we do now, how difficult must it have been to explain the bedrock concepts to those first few people that read it. Simply because it was such a radical idea, whether true or not, it must have been a pretty tall order to get his peers on board, as it changed so much about the current understanding of the universe. I also think in this frame of mind for people like Copernicus, and how controversial his mathematical formulas and expertise must have been, simply because of the magnitude of the sea change that ensued from confirming the ideas.
    • mirimir 8y ago
      As I recall, his intuitive insights about special relativity were the easy part. But he had to learn the mathematics required to coherently explain them. There must have been many opportunities for confusion and self doubt.
      • flyingcircus3 8y ago
        And that's my point. Just imagine how many times he must have heard some variation on the phrase "Newton has been right this whole time. His laws and ideas are too big to fail" The accumulation of frustration of not being able to elucidate what is obvious to your inner thoughts, to the satisfaction of your peers, precipitates impostor syndrome.
• js8 8y ago
  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.
  • justwalt 8y ago
    >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.
    • jcadam 8y ago
      I got hired on by a large corporation (who seemed desperate to make the hire, for reasons I can't fathom) and was placed on a team, I suspect without consulting the tech lead first. The guy seemed to start off with the assumption that I was an idiot and couldn't be trusted to do anything (and also that my presence was an inconvenience and that I wasn't needed). I think that opinion has slowly begun to change (and the stuff we're doing here isn't hard, at all), but he did a pretty good job of getting me to hate him those first few months on the job, so I've been interviewing.
  • solipsism 8y ago
    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.
• dammitcoetzee 8y ago
  Yea, stop talking to yourself.
• tudorconstantin 8y ago
  The lack of the imposter syndrome for me as a programmer is a signal that I start to plateau. Therefore I kind of search to attain it by either negotiate a higher pay, or start working with a new technology, or switch jobs. I lived with this syndrome for the most part of my 12 years of professional programming.
  • draugadrotten 8y ago
    I work in management and I treat impostor syndrome as a signal, like you. I have recognized that I feel impostor syndrome when I am surrounded by people who are great at what they do. Great coders, greatminds and great leaders. How could I possibly compete with these people, my subconscious says. Well, this is how I grow. Steel sharpens steel. I have learned to accept that I am good at what I do, even when others are great at what they do. If I feel impostor syndrom, it means I am surrounded by people who, given management is good, will make everyone in the team grow and prosper. I will connect with the people I can learn the most from. When I no longer feels impostor syndrome it is because I am surrounded by people who all treat me as their mentor or senior - and it is time to move on.
• eight_ender 8y ago
  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.
  • humanrebar 8y ago
    > ...urge them to find their "superpower". Might I suggest "specialty", "focus area", or "expertise". Maybe "competitive advantage" if you're talking to business types. I like to tell engineers that their job is to be an expert. Find some area that we need more experts in. Read, experiment, troubleshoot, tweak, document, teach, and whatever else you need to do to be the person others rely on when they need an expert in that area.
• tomerbd 8y ago
  What is imposter syndrome?
  • brann0 8y ago
    LMGTFY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
    • tomerbd 8y ago
      What is LMGTFY?
      • fenwick67 8y ago
        http://lmgtfy.com/?q=lmgtfy http://lmgtfy.com/?q=lmgtfy
    • dang 8y ago
      Please don't do this here.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• solipsism 8y ago
  I feel it and it works to my advantage. My workplace is very good about reminding everyone that imposter syndrome is normal. Knowing that, I use it to motivate me to try harder and get better. I guess part of this is coupling the inevitable feeling of "I don't belong" with the idea that "I can belong". Knowing it's normal keeps me from being truly worried about losing my job (for the most part).
• throwaway84742 8y ago
  Why is this article about women? Men suffer from it just the same. There seems to be this perception that men are somehow immune to the various work related shit. That’s not the case at all. The best fix I’ve been able to find is to note and recall significant achievements: delivering projects, getting promoted, getting hired by top companies in the field, graduating with honors from one of the top schools. Think rationally about this, and there’s really no reason to complain.
  • cup-of-tea 8y ago
    This is a good question. Downvoted because it's unfashionably gender neutral, of course. This post should be titled "Is there a fix for impostor syndrome for women?" If you're a man just deal with it, as usual.
    • justatdotin 8y ago
      the article acknowledges that it is also an issue for men. There is no reason to imagine the 'fix' only applies to women.
  • justatdotin 8y ago
    why not be about women? The article also has a paragraph asserting that men also share this experience.
    • throwaway84742 8y ago
      I explained why: to not create a harmful stereotype that women are the only ones affected, or even more affected by it than men. Why must everything be about identity politics?
      • justatdotin 8y ago
        surely explicitly stating that men are also affected avoids creating a harmful stereotype that women are the only ones affected.
• proverbialbunny 8y ago
  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 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 8y ago
    awesome post. Thank you.
• hardwaresofton 8y ago
  Aaaand self promotion: https://vadosware.io/post/the-cure-for-impostor-syndrome-is-knowing-things/ https://vadosware.io/post/the-cure-for-impostor-syndrome-is-... tl;dr - Stop claiming to be an expert at things you haven't delved into deeply. Conversely, if you've delved into a subject deeply, there's a high chance you won't feel like an impostor. If you don't have time (or resources) to delve into something deeply, and understand thoroughly, accept that fact and move on.
  • sintaxi 8y ago
    Yep, impostor syndrome is your subconscious informing you that you need to improve.
  • eeZah7Ux 8y ago
    Absolutely false. Being aware of your need to learn and improve is perfectly normal and healthy. Impostor syndrome hits experts, often when they are at their peak, while beginners rarely experience it, hence the name "syndrome".
    • hardwaresofton 8y ago
      Could you restate what was "false"? Are you referring to the article or my comment? I didn't mean to state that being aware of your need to learn and improve isn't normal or healthy -- but you can't learn about everything. You literally don't have the time to learn (and practice, and implement in production) everything as deeply and thoroughly to make you a tried and true expert. You have to cut and run at some point, if you want to get anything done. If you know anyone that constantly keeps every single piece of the actual "stack" (and I don't mean AWS + your apps, I mean down to the assembly at the very least) in their head, please direct me to them so I can learn how they do it. I don't think widely considered experts experience the impostor syndrome in the same way that I see it explained. Experts on postgres internals don't wonder if they're experts on postgres internals... Maybe they worry if they're good application developers, but that's a different thing.
      • anarazel 8y ago
• eksemplar 8y ago
  I get it from time to time, most recently I got a massive chunk of it when I was hired as an external examiner at my old university. Whenever I do, I remind myself of a line from my first managing mentor that’s stuck with me over the years. He was(is?) this immensely talented guy who worked 70 hours a week, not because he had to but because he loved to, today he runs two companies he started on his own since then. Anyway, I was a fresh manager and had been mentored for about two months and I couldn’t figure out why he was always so confident in any part of the professional life. Having him as a mentor I’d seen behind the veil, he had the same amounts of uncertainty and doubt as the rest of us. So I asked him how he was so confident in his decision making and natural feeling of belonging. He told me “fake it till you make it”. I may have misunderstood what he meant by it. But I took the combination of what he said and his own uncertainty to heart, and now I remind myself that everyone feels like imposters, so you just pretend to belong with the other imposters and eventually you’ll actually feel like you belong. It’s worked wonders for me at least, but it obviously only works when you have the required credentials. If you don’t you need to own up to your mistake and get out.
• zwischenzug 8y ago
  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.
  • karlta05 8y ago
    I feel that the problem is comparing yourself to others the "to be the best you must beat them" attitude. I tend to feel that you should compete with who you were yesterday and get assistance from others i.e. learning from them.
• drewmol 8y ago
  Realizing the feeling is common helps. theimposterroster.com
• cyberferret 8y ago
  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.
  • karlta05 8y ago
    Totally agree with you on this.
  • sus_007 8y ago
    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 me, whether personally or educationally.
    • turingcompeteme 8y ago
      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.
    • vitaflo 8y ago
      FOMO is a trap. You're looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead you should let someone else bring the needle to you. If something is worth your time, someone you know and trust will bring it up to you. The more people you talk to and interact with, the more likely you are to be offered up information that is actually significant to you. It is also more likely to have a real impact because human interaction is more "sticky" than a simple website post. What you're doing now is akin to throwing a Bubble sort at the problem. It's slow, inefficient and a waste of time.
• Traubenfuchs 8y ago
  Stop treating being an impostor as something bad. See yourself as con artist who succeeds in senior developer, architect and management jobs without the required skills.
  • mar77i 8y ago
    Exactly. You might end up giving yourself a harder training than anyone around you. And there you go. My current job is mainly kata for me, because most code reading, tweaking and engineering I do is well within my abilities. I can both choose my challenges and deliver, which is just perfect. I'll still mention that it took me almost a decade to get here, intensively tinkering on 1980ies computers as well as a pretty broad range of "modern" programming languages. All while working outside IT, part time if at all.
  • onion2k 8y ago
    Impostor syndrome is bad because you fear being fired for not being able to do your job, or being dropped as a speaker because you're not worth listening to, or your career stalling because you can't compete with other people who seem to be better than you. Suggesting that sufferers accept that might actually be true is not helpful.
    • ramblerman 8y ago
      > Suggesting that sufferers accept that might actually be true is not helpful. On what are you basing that? It's an interesting insight. Thinking of the world as one big pool of impostors might be equally relieving.
      • onion2k 8y ago
        Thinking of the world as one big pool of impostors might be equally relieving. He said "See yourself as con artist...", not "See everyone as con artist..". Believing that most people feel this way may well be helpful. Believing that you're not good at what you do but you've successfully faked it definitely isn't.
    • 8y ago
• karlta05 8y ago
  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. I'm just enjoying the ride.
  • abhirag 8y ago
    "The humble improve" -- Wynton Marsalis :)
  • samueldavid 8y ago
    totally agree, constantly learning at a decent pace
• vecter 8y ago
  Fake it 'til you make it. The only way to get ahead in life. I've been doing it for the past decade and it's worked out well. (To be clear, this doesn't mean go around and blow hot air. It means to believe in yourself despite what the little voices in your head may be telling you)
• herbst 8y ago
  For me doing my own thing helped a lot. I learned that I can build and run something successfull on my own.
• nl 8y ago
  What do they call it when people wish they had impostor syndrome instead of just being an impostor? I have that.
  • garmaine 8y ago
    That’s not something you’re equipped to tell objectively.
• cm2187 8y ago
  I have an impostor syndrome when I look at myself. I have a god complex when I look at the alternative...
• spronkey 8y ago
  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...
  • jacquesm 8y ago
    Frontend work is brutal. It's as fickle as the fashion industry, only it doesn't have quarterly updates but roughly every second Monday.
• taneq 8y ago
  I think imposter syndrome can come from 'fronting', trying to always appear perfect, always have all the answers, etc. which leads to ever-increasing fear that people will 'find you out'. Be humble and honest. Don't present yourself as "the expert". Ask questions. Listen to people. Say "I don't know" if you don't know. You'll be surprised how often the response is "me neither!"
  • baby 8y ago
    > Don't present yourself as "the expert" This is a requirement for some jobs, like being a consultant :)
• templar_muse 8y ago
  Kalms work really well.
• rajacombinator 8y ago
  It seems to be a very 'millennial' syndrome. Were people complaining of imposter syndrome 20 or 30 years ago? I wonder if it's because people born after, say 1990, didn't have to 'hack' on computers much growing up, and hence lack some of the environmental osmosis comfort level some older folks have. Or could it be that programming has proliferated enough as a profession, and programmers generally lack the social skills needed to mentor younger generations, that more people seem to be experiencing this syndrome these days?
  • thristian 8y ago
    The article cites Wikipedia's "Impostor Syndrome" article: > The term was coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes. So yes, I imagine people were complaining of impostor syndrome 20 or 30 (or 40) years ago.
  • arghwhat 8y ago
    I wouldn't call it "millennial" rather than "modern", and not just because I despise the American generation names. I believe impostor syndrome requires both a bright mind, a successful career in a mental labor job (academia, engineering, ...), and exposure to minds that seem brighter. I doubt impostor syndrome is much of a problem in physical labor jobs, as physical labor is easily observed, both by others and by yourself (you can't hide failure in installing a tire on a rim). Higher education, autodidactism through the internet and mental labor jobs are much more wide-spread than they were a generation or two ago. Here in Denmark, education inflation has basically made Ph.D.'s the norm. The extremely filtered connectivity of social networks only showing each others "best side" making them appear perfect, as well as a vast amount of information available on the internet from brilliant scholars making your knowledge seem insignificant, are great catalysts for an inferiority complex. Combine that with an accomplished career, and you have impostor syndrome.
  • chrisbennet 8y ago
    I think the internet has increased the visibility of the experts in our profession. Before, you compared yourself to everyone you ever worked with and ignored the outliers like Knuth. Now we are constantly bombarded by so many blogs/examples of extremely talented individuals that it’s easier to think you’re way below “average”.
• qubyte 8y ago
  I took the nuclear option and switched careers (there were other reasons too, but it was one of the big ones) from academia to software engineering. Since then I've stayed in a job no longer than 3 years and the constant need to learn may have killed it off, which seems paradoxical. Then again, I'm also honest to a fault since the switch. Nobody can think I'm an imposter if it's obvious when I don't know stuff!
• majjam 8y ago
  I found Amanda Palmer's advice on this helpful, she calls it the 'fraud police': https://youtu.be/eA8XiC3m7vw https://youtu.be/eA8XiC3m7vw
• amelius 8y ago
  From the wikipedia page: > It is not considered a psychological disorder, and is not among the conditions described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (commonly known as the DSM). However, I'm wondering if that is justified. Also, I'm wondering if a treatment for a mood disorder would affect impostor syndrome.
• antyph 8y ago
  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.
  • giancarlostoro 8y ago
    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.
• roselan 8y ago
  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).
  • jonbarker 8y ago
    This is a great explanation. I've long thought about these two conflicting effects, and I think as you pointed out it has something to do with what nowadays gets described as 'culture'. Dunning-Kruger seems to dominate in the 'everyone gets a trophy' culture in which I was raised; whereas in cultures that (at least in the way they speak about themselves) pride themselves on meritocracy, leaderboards, stack ranking, and the like, the impostor syndrome probably takes over.
• cejast 8y ago
  The worst thing about impostor syndrome for me is knowing whether you're actually suffering from it, or whether you're actually an impostor. It really is a vicious cycle.
  • upatricck 8y ago
    What i think helps, is not even asking if you are an impostor because it can lead doubting yourself. We focus on doing our best work, then it will be to others to determine whether we are good or not.
• deleted 8y ago
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• optimalKEK 8y ago
  Imposter syndrome immediately goes away as soon as you make your employer more money than they are paying you.
  • eeZah7Ux 8y ago
    You are touching on something that most post ignored. When a significant number of employees suffer impostor syndrome that's a symptom of an overly competitive environment. Reminding your employees that they are expected to be the best engineers in the world once a day it's a good way to delay promotions and salary raises.
• philbarr 8y ago
  Does anyone else get that feeling like, "am I the only one who sees what a load of shit this is?" I don't think it's imposter syndrome per se, but it's related. It's like, "I'm the only one who can see the truth." An example: years ago my old crooked boss brought everyone in to his huge office to tell us why he couldn't afford to give people the pay rise they'd been asking for. With a straight face and with his Aston Martin parked in plain sight behind him. He gave some sob story about how a friend had come round his house to ask for a loan and how he was so poor he could only afford to lend the guy £800, even though his wife didn't want him to. It was pathetic. At the end of the meeting I walked out and duly started laughing, only for people to reprimand me, "he's doing his best for us! Didn't you hear the story about his friend?!" So since then I've learnt to keep my mouth shut. Just yesterday I was in a meeting where we were giving estimates on things we knew nothing about. On the way back I glanced at people's screens and there must have been a hundred people pushing numbers around on excel spreadsheets for presumably no reason. Quite possibly everyone else is just keeping their mouths shut too. And now we all go around doing pointless shit all day, every day. Just now I saw a hare run across the field outside the office and thought, "you lucky bastard."
  • eeZah7Ux 8y ago
    > "am I the only one who sees what a load of shit this is?" Disillusionment.
    • buserror 8y ago
      Not really. Experience induced clarity. I'm like OP. I've been in the tech industry for a stupid amount of years, and I swear I can improvise a CEO grade speech for any circumstance.
      • titzer 8y ago
        > I swear I can improvise a CEO grade speech for any circumstance. Ouch, watch out with that attitude. CEOs are full of bluster and no action, so you might be risking becoming what you hate.
• ponderatul 8y ago
  Depends on individual circumstances, but there are hypotheses you can test on your own on yourself. 1. Quit watching porn. Articifial stimuli can lead to behavioural addiction which can fuck up your mental wellbeing and leak into other aspects of your life. Plus, it's another 100 billion dollar industry that makes money by exploiting our human nature. 2. Try acting classes. Acting involves among others, status games. For some exercises you will have to lower your status( act like a baby, dog, retard, or just do stupid shit) for some you will have to elevate your status. But for both you will be exposed, in front of people, and if you give it enough time you realise how you've been acting a certain status and how that takes a toll on your wellbeing. And maybe you should allow yourself to act retarded from time to time, even feel stupid, and that there's nothing wrong with that. This is just from personal experience, with skin in the game.
• sasaf5 8y ago
  Look at the worth of the things you do, not at the worth of who you are.
• Bromskloss 8y ago
  Is it taken for granted that the concerns of not being adequate always are unfounded? What if you observe other people who are inadequate and shouldn't be there? You can't have impostor syndrome on their behalf, can you?
• sigjuice 8y ago
  I for one don't feel smart enough to even experience impostor syndrome.
• nambit 8y ago
  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 necessarily the truth. How do I combat this feeling of superiority?
  • programbreeding 8y ago
    Have you ever taken a personality test, like the Myers-Briggs type indicator? I'm not saying that stuff is 100% true but it gave me extreme insight about myself. And being able to read about me on paper has helped me change a lot of things that I didn't like about myself. There are 101 places you can take the test but I know 16personalities is free and they haven't spammed me.
  • matte_black 8y ago
    Prove it and erase the doubt once and for all. Too many people try not to feel superior but secretly feel deep down if they tried to prove it they would come out superior, and so they keep a subconscious sense of superiority under a veil of humility. You will either discover you were not as great as you thought or you actually are the best. There’s no other way.
    • soVeryTired 8y ago
      Exactly. We tend to judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. Similarly, we tend to judge others' intelligence by their achievements, but we judge our own by what we could do.
  • jonnybgood 8y ago
    > How do I combat this feeling of superiority? Whether you think it’s the truth or not, nobody cares. People care about results. If you’re not producing superior results relative to your peers, then you’re not superior to anything. This should go without saying.
• jonnybgood 8y ago
  I fixed it when I stopped comparing myself with other people. Why care what other people are doing? I look at myself and focused on what I’m doing. How well I do my job has absolutely nothing to do with how well they do their job. And more importantly, life is bigger than my job. It’s not worth stressing over.
• buserror 8y ago
  I've been trying to coach my wife out of this for years and years. She's very smart, dedicated, hard working, talented, analytical and you name it -- she's a fantastic person... And she has perma-doubts. She recently refused to apply to a directorship position in her job, because she didn't think she could do it.... even tho we both agreed that she'd do a better job than the last 3 in that same position... And still, she doubts... I keep repeating her that the only thing preventing her from doing anything is herself and that I have zero doubt she'd grow to be excellent at that job as well... Oh well, it'll take time :-)
• k__ 8y ago
  I have the feeling 90% of people who think they have imposter syndrome are just bad at what they do. Just because you work with people who are even wors doesn't make you good. And just because people who are worse than you act like they not doesn't make you better either.
  • rb808 8y ago
    Sounds like you're pretty arrogant. But you do have a point that by definition 50% of developers are below average. Nearly all developers are below average in at least some part of their professional skills - but that is just normal. For example doctors are the same, but a below average doctor is still qualified and useful. Below average developers ie (half of us) are still useful, doesn't make you an impostor.
    • k__ 8y ago
      Oh no. For years I had the impression that I'm an impostor. One day this changed, I found that most people just talk big but are not better than me, but I'm still average, they are just below average. While yes, I'm still quite useful, I could be a better version of myself.
• deleted 8y ago
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• alexquez 8y ago
  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.
  • kohanz 8y ago
    While I think you make excellent points, I believe that impostor syndrome is actually quite common, if not moreso, amongst the highly educated.
    • jameshart 8y ago
      I’m sure you meant well, but this response really comes across as saying “dont worry, you don’t have imposter syndrome - you’re too poorly educated for that. You’re actually an imposter.” The point is imposter syndrome affects people who are high achievers but don’t feel they earned the respect that gives them. In tech, that high achievement status can be orthogonal to the level of formal education, so regardless of how highly educated someone is, they can look at their peers and feel like they don’t belong.
• vfinn 8y ago
  I think honesty is a good way to fight against this syndrome. State what you know, state when you have problems, and be open about your results. That way simply doing your best should be enough.
• henriquemaia 8y ago
  From my experience, if you become too entangled in abstract tasks, this impostor feelings starts to inevitably creep in, as you don’t have an actual measure of success for what you are doing. So my take is that once you start feeling that, you should find a manual hobby, something that you produce with your hands, by your effort, even if simple things. In my case, I sew. Since I do manual work, crafting solutions for mundane things, I see the results of what I’m doing, I have a direct contact between doing something and achieving something — again, even if just a mundane thing. This takes me out of my abstract world, where I tend to get lost, and from measuring myself by the standards of others in tasks that are not quantifiable in terms of real competence. By doing manual work, I take a much needed break from the my intelectual work and demands. For a bit I feel more like a normal person, competent enough to do this particular manual job.
• wedgeantilles 8y ago
  Get better at what you want to do.
• nottorp 8y ago
  acm.org again... do they still block HN readers because they're an 'automated process' ?
• bazza451 8y ago
  This is what helped me: on a level, everyone in every industry is bullshitting one way or another because the future is unwritten. Who knows what may happen tomorrow, you can only deal with it in the best way you can. Just try and do the best job possible you can at the time. There will always be people who know more but everything is a learning process, you’ll get to that level eventually.
• cmrdporcupine 8y ago
  Working at Elite MegaBigCorp for the last 6 years... without a degree. My imposter syndrome has become epic. Now I just want to leave the industry. Can I retire yet?
• karmicthreat 8y ago
  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.
• scarface74 8y ago
  I've never had imposter syndrome. I've always been honest about my qualifications at interviews and I've always purposefully taken jobs where I barely meet the qualifications. It's a great way to learn. This also meant the first few months I spent plenty of extra time learning the technology that I didn't know. If the company hired me despite knowing that I didn't know all of the required technology, they must be willing to give me ramp up time.
• darkerside 8y ago
  > 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.
  • Senderman 8y ago
    Subtly sexist comments mixed in with otherwise compelling information tend to be irksome.
  • Regardsyjc 8y ago
    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.
    • darkerside 8y ago
      I just find it best to keep those kinds of complaints extremely specific. Maybe the founder validation statistics you're talking about have changed since the last study was done. Imagine we'd fixed all race and sex discrimination problems (bear with me for a moment). By leaving unfounded statements like the above littered across the internet, we'd be ensuring that future generations of minorities also feel a vague sense of inferiority. This causes the exact kind of uncertainty the author is concerned about.
      • Regardsyjc 8y ago
        I interpreted that you could feel imposter syndrome simply from the fact that you don't look like you belong and thus minorities have a more difficult time because they can't hide because their difference is literally visible. When it comes to women or minorities in tech or female founders, if the statistics aren't good enough I believe it's easily visible. Even Google has an atrocious amount of Hispanic or African American engineers. If you work in tech look around your office or at the next tech conference. The lack of visibility is a big problem because it gives the subtle message that you don't belong. Future generations of minorities won't feel a vague sense of inferiority from reading comments like these, they will have the benefit of seeing who was right or wrong. In fact they might be more amazed by the amount of ignorance...
• _qbxp 8y ago
  I have always had impostor syndrome, but also a somewhat revelatory idea that most people are just human beings full of shit too. Let me explain. In college, I revered my professors - always thought of them on a higher plane, so much smarter than everybody. Same with doctors. Then I go to grad school, and realize that my fellow classmates (who have become professors, or the ones in MD/PhD programs doctors/surgeons), are smart indeed - but not on some super-human super-intelligent level who's batting way above my level like I felt in undergrad. It's like all of a sudden I realized that people in those positions are humans like me and aren't on some higher plane. I mean, maybe there are a few people who truly are. But most of the people I revered are regular joes (who most definitely work hard). Similar to looking up to adults when you're a kid, then realizing they're human beings with flaws once you grow up. On the flip side, I constantly feel like I don't know what I'm doing compared to other people. Doesn't matter what level I reach in my career, it's all the same - that data scientist over there truly knows his stuff, I'm just faking it. That manager over there truly knows his stuff, I'm just faking it. And you know what? Maybe there's some truth to it. But the truth I've found is that if that's the case, there's probably an exceeding number of people who are 'faking it' too, so I'm in good company at least. I also tend to conflate 'faking it' with confidence. In grad school, all of my published papers would have so many caveats - "the results suggest that maybe possibly potentially .... " or "the results suggest that ____, with the caveat" or "we possibly found evidence..." My advisor always had to change my wording around to be at least a little more definitive because journals would pick up on the wishy-washy statements. Now in the corporate world, people expect definitive statements because putting 'possibly, maybe' in every sentence doesn't exude confidence that higher ups or customers want. So in a way when I say something in a confident manner when I'm only 80% to 90% confident, I feel like I'm faking it.
• draw_down 8y ago
  Yes: meet your idols so you can see, in person, what dummies they are. Then you realize everybody is just making shit up.
• gerbilly 8y ago
  I have a four year degree in Math/Comp Sci. Most everyone else in my group have PhD's, and I don't feel I have impostor syndrome. I also have never been afraid of asking 'stupid questions' in meetings etc. If they hired me, they must have done so for a reason (PhD's are not good a writing production code, their words). My advice for people who might have impostor syndrome, just put it out of your mind, do a good job, and look for good feedback. People with PhD's or Olympic gold medals or famous rock stars are people just like you and me. They have some skills that are very developed, but others skills may be shockingly lacking. We are all a blend of abilities, and we are all on a journey. Where you are on your path right now is exactly where you need to be, just as they are exactly where they need to be.
• twoquestions 8y ago
  Is there a way to tell the difference between your being underconfident in abilities that you are actually competent at, and where you actually do require remediation?
• davebryand 8y ago
  Yes: dissolution of ego.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• sethammons 8y ago
  On mobile, sorry for typos. 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 8y ago
    We are our own worst critics.
  • MuffinFlavored 8y ago
    What were some of the parts they said you could improve on, and what were some of the positives they had to say?
• OhDagny 8y ago
  NO because everyone is an imposter. Imposter syndrome people just aren't deluding themselves.
• peterwwillis 8y ago
  Well yeah, have confidence in yourself and stop judging yourself harshly. Would you go around calling your coworkers impostors because they aren't smart enough? No? Then don't do it to yourself. Yes? Stop being a jerk.
• helsinki 8y ago
  I think working at a company where you’re one of the most valued employees, even if only one job out of ten, it will mostly cure your impostor syndrome.
• jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  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.
  • deleted 8y ago
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  • jjuel 8y ago
    But what if you struggle with it (even if you eventually finish)? What if you look back and think that code could be much better? There are still so many things that can creep into your mind making you think you aren't as good as you might actually be. Sure it may reduce a little, but it is a temporary relief. At least in my experience.
• wellpast 8y ago
  The truth is you are an imposter. No one fulfills the perfect ideal of whatever role they are playing (employee, manager, parent, etc). Recognize and accept that you're an imposter and continually reach for the ideal. There are various stresses (will I lose my job? etc) that are reasonable and tangential to this idea of "imposter syndrome". The particular trick to avoiding stress _directly related_ to this imposter syndrome is to dismiss it as the scientifically unsound and useless idea that it is: that is to say, it shouldn't exist: or put another way, your self-worth doesn't _have_ to be derived from your capability, nor should it. Decouple your self-worth from your professional ability; this may be hard in general or in our particular culture/zeitgeist, but I think it's a losing battle any other way.
  • jm__87 8y ago
    I'm not sure that means you are an imposter. If your coworkers are equally unfit for the job as defined by whatever high bar you've set for yourself, then you belong there just as much as they do and you likely have a higher bar for yourself than your employer has for hiring people. I agree that everyone should strive to be the best that they can be but I think imposter syndrome is a delusion some people have where they feel that they know less than everyone around them and they worry their colleagues will find them out, when in reality they are quite qualified. It doesn't automatically follow that if you recognize that you haven't met your own standard that you would also believe you haven't met your employers standards. I regularly feel I haven't done a good enough job by my own standard but realize it is good enough for the goals my employer has with regard to the work I'm doing.
• dbliss 8y ago
  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!
• ryandrake 8y ago
  I don’t think I’ve ever had a job I was qualified for, and to me that’s totally ok. My personal view is that if you can land a job in a week of interviewing, and/or you feel very comfortable/qualified to do your job, then you are probably “punching way below your weight class” and need to reach higher. If you’re not faking your way through at least something then you’re not learning or growing.
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• magice 8y ago
  Frankly, are we overthinking this? 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?
• alexashka 8y ago
  > Impostor syndrome is associated with overwork, with an overly keen focus on pleasing others, and with an almost desperate drive to constantly achieve more. We know the wages have stagnated, we know there are fewer and fewer jobs, and stiffer competition. Sane people as a result, overwork, try to achieve more, and try to please superiors to get head. It's just survival instincts. When you're on a sinking Titanic, you're pretty stressed to get to be one of the people on one of the boats! The alternative is to get together with your buddies, face your fate and play some music together, while everyone else is scrambling. Since playing music (playing computer games in your mom's basement) is frowned upon, most people choose the 'try to make it' route. That route is stressful - especially when you KNOW in your heart, you shouldn't be on that boat. Knowing you shouldn't be on the boat, and yet trying to get on it, feels shitty. Yes, yes it does. Another way to look at it is, are we really on a sinking Titanic? Or are some fuckers hoarding money at our expense making it so? I don't know that people are intelligent enough to figure that one out, so it goes.
• jancsika 8y ago
  Consistency, a non-didactic intellectual environment, and free speech go a long way. I'm only speculating that "non-didactic" is key. But let me put it to the test: Does anybody have an example of a person who swooped into a FLOSS mailing list and posted a long didactic screed that ended up qualitatively changing that FLOSS project for the better?
• Bekwnn 8y ago
  Becoming a confident, capable solo developer. If you're able to make stuff by yourself at decent speed and with good features, you can generally be confident in your own skills based off results. This doesn't account for interpersonal skills or skills for working in a team, but if your imposter syndrome is about programming skills, just program by yourself. BUT, important to add is that you should be focused on improving, learning, and experimenting. If you're just staying in your comfort zone you won't be doing much more than busybody work.
• 49bc 8y ago
  I'll tell you what pierced the veil for me: being involved with code reviews and looking at other people's code. "Oh, THIS is what constitutes senior software engineering? Then I'm much more skilled than I thought I was!"
• grosjona 8y ago
  I have the opposite of impostor syndrome. I always feel like I deserve more than I get.
• MR4D 8y ago
  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. [1] https://www.aws.org/certification/page/certified-welder-program 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.
  • bluejekyll 8y ago
    Programmers are not just welders, or should not be equated to welders. Welders have a blueprint, generally, to work from. There is someone who’s had to design how to form the thing being welded. Software engineers are constantly asked to design and build the things they work on. It’s not a straightforward process of sticking two things together, based on some predefined blueprint. We make the blueprints while we code. On top of that, systems as they come together sometimes show problems that need fixes, because of the scale of the system. Then we need to completely redesign for the newer bigger problem. Using the welding analogue, sometimes you start building a BBQ, and end up making a bicycle or a rocketship.
    • MR4D 8y ago
      Good clarification. Programmers are like welders. Architects aren’t. They may be welders or programmers, but they lay out the structure and define how it connects to the world. Programming is different (way different) than architecture. In my mind, and part of the reason for the post is that we are expecting programmers to be architects. We shouldn’t. It’s a different discipline.
• incredible12345 8y ago
  In my experience - a large minority of developers, especially among young, inexperienced, perhaps insecure developers, act like condescending know-it-all's their colleagues. I think this is borne out of a fear of being incompetent in comparison to other people who are also in the field. For those who are not this way, or try not to be this way, I believe the festering of gross dog-eat-you cultures in regards to hire-ability can also fester imposter syndrome in many of us younger devs.
• mythrwy 8y ago
  Gawd I get sick of hearing about impostor syndrome. Some people who claim to have it really are impostors and use the syndrome to somehow indicate they aren't. No one knows everything. But do you know enough to get done what you need to in an economically feasible timeframe relative to your peers? Or do you perhaps do even better than they do? Not an impostor. If not then maybe you are an impostor and should work on that. It's not a fixed state.
• RivieraKid 8y ago
  Weird, this seems so common. I would guess that most of the people who feel like frauds, actually are to some extent. The impostor syndrome concept is so popular because people want to believe it. It provides a simple black-and-white answer: I deserve my success, the unpleasant emotions in the back of my head are just the result of impostor syndrome, totally normal. But in fact, success is usually the result of both ability and luck. Successful people have above-average ability and luck. So from the point of view of a typical successful person, most equally-able peers are less successful.
• simonswords82 8y ago
  The fix for imposter syndrome is to stop comparing one's self to others. The definition of an imposter is: "a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others, especially for fraudulent gain." So, if you feel you're an imposter, it's only because you're comparing yourself to others who you feel are either doing it better than you in their respective roles, or perhaps worse still you fear they could do your job better than you. In my experience, as a man with a semi successful software business and no formal education in the industry - the only thing that has kept me from falling under the imposter syndrome bus is just working harder and ignoring others around me. I love this snippet I saved from a Reddit post some years ago, I come back to it from time to time when I've demotivated myself - typically by comparing myself to others more "successful" than me: -- You do not make progress in climbing a "mountain" (neither real or ethereal) by standing around gawking and whining about how much further or faster others are climbing it. You make progress climbing by putting one foot in front of the other, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. You gauge your progress ONLY and SOLELY on how much further up that mountain you are NOW than you were a minute, hour or day ago. As you continue to climb, you use the distance you have recently come to motivate yourself to climb further and faster than YOU have done in the past. You only need worry about others when they are directly in your way and preventing you from making forward progress -- and even then it is best to simply sidestep them and continue on your journey up. When you reach some higher plateau, if you then want to take a breather and greet the fellow climbers that have reached a similar plateau, that is fine, but it does not matter if they have reached it faster or slower, before or even after you -- the journey further upward for everyone is in the future, not the past. -- P.S. I killed all my social media except for Linked In - that helped a bunch too.
• talmand 8y ago
  I often have conversations with some of my juniors about imposter syndrome. It's interesting how each of them think of it differently and apply it to themselves differently as compared to their peers. Some don't seem to have it at all and I've been unable to grasp why one is different than the other. Sometimes it seems connected to self-confidence and sometimes it is not. Personally, these days I'm feeling it's connected to their seniors and how they interact with them. Or at least how that interaction goes. It's something that I've been pondering over but haven't gotten far enough along to have a theory worthy over a blog post or anything. As for me, a senior with a dozen plus years experience; I don't feel I've really suffered from imposter syndrome. I've always felt comfortable in what I know and the role I play in each of the positions I've had over the years. I've always been honest with myself and others in what I know and don't know. I suppose that helps in that aspect. The only times I can think of that I felt the pains of imposter syndrome over the years is during interviews. Mostly trying to equate what I know and my experience with the expectations of people I don't know in an environment I'm not familiar with.
• Regardsyjc 8y ago
  This article was very refreshing for me because each bullet point was like yes this is totally how I feel. Even reading about this issue gives me a lot of anxiety. I built a 6 figure business on my own from $1500, imported my first goods from overseas, been validated with mentorship from 7 and 8 figure business owners, I'm now a board member of an org in my industry, and I still have extreme amounts of imposter syndrome. Even when I realized that the reason I'm not as successful as some of my peers is because they started with a bigger investment than $1500 or that they built their success over years... I can't help but be anxious over what I've achieved in comparison to theirs when I end up thinking about it. I try not to because it's not productive. I wish there were more resources to overcome imposter syndrome as a founder or business owner.
• smsm42 8y ago
  There's a fix, of course. But it works only for a real impostor syndrome, not for the fake ones.