15 ms·

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 yea

by 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.
- donkeyd 8y ago
  This week I got to see the job posting for a replacement of a colleague of mine. The first requirement was 3 years of experience with a product we don't even directly use. I'm pretty sure the only reason it's in there, is that HR requires it for working in our department, even tough our specific team doesn't even touch it. The same line also requires "Java, Java script", while it's a backend Java position with literally no JavaScript work. I already told my manager that with the maximum wage (shown in the posting) and the listed requirements, none of my peers would even try to apply. Even if they were an extremely good fit for the actual job.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    The process through which a typical job posting is created is seriously broken in most organizations.
  - oldcynic 8y ago
    By the time they've taken your skillset, added the skills team lead would like or wants to learn, the skills that are from a different role but manager thinks can be combined few can still recognise their own job. As a last pass CEO asks for 3 years experience of a tech launched last year that he's just finished reading an article about. :)
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  The worst is when it isn't engineers or any kind of technical leader performing any screening, but strictly an HR rep with no technical knowledge or experience outside of names of things (and the tools they personally employ) or an applicant tracking system that will immediately filter you out if your resume doesn't contain ~XX% of the required skills— or enough/too many years of experience according to the parameters in the posting. And to so many people operating that way it just seems practical. I feel lucky with how I got my current job— even though it's a very large company and they definitely do operate in those fashions, my resume somehow made it directly into the hands of the Senior Manager and Lead Engineer for the specific team at the time. They brought me in to talk— no whiteboards, no brain teasers— just some technical questions and personal/professional questions and I was hired inside of two weeks— onboarded a month later. Applying and [if I even get to] interviewing at most other places previous has left me feeling much the same as yourself...
taurath 8y ago
Every high performer at my workplace states regularly that they wouldn’t be able to pass the entrance exam at the place they currently work. It’s a cruel fucking environment.
- jaggederest 8y ago
  In the last couple weeks I've had to decline 18 total hours of "challenges" and "work samples" from 4 different interview processes. I'm not sure at what point it became de rigueur to require applicants to complete on average 4.5 hours of work without pay, but I really, really don't think it's reasonable. I've even offered to show them my current projects in lieu of work samples, and no go. Baffling.
  - calebio 8y ago
    I've been pondering my thoughts on this, and I'm curious what you think. Would you prefer Phone Screen +: A) FANG/Valley style interviews multiple rounds of leetcode algorithm/data structure style questions and some whiteboard design/architecture. B) Pair Programming. A few rounds of pairing on a problems to see actual code. Maybe some lightweight whiteboard design/architecture. C) Take home challenge/assignment that you work on/add features to/add tests/talk about during your onsite.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      I would go for pair programming.
      - kabouseng 8y ago
        The danger with pair programming is you easily get a partner who sees the activity as a competitive exercise / dick measuring activity* , and some engineers find enjoyment in proving to everyone else (including new hires) their superiority. *excuse my language, but it is the most accurate description I could come up with.
8ytecoder 8y ago
I'm going through it. My past self from 12 years ago would have cleared every one of those interviews. I don't believe for one second that that former self was a better Engineer. But it's hard to not feel anxious.
- mkhpalm 8y ago
  I've learned to politely walk away whenever I sense an interview circus starting up.
gigatexal 8y ago
I’m at a startup with about the same number of junior developers (which includes myself) to senior developers and I thought I was going to feel imposter syndrome but I haven’t felt it. I think it’s because we are a good team and ego isn’t there and we are working on really cool problems.
bartread 8y ago
Totally identify with this. Years back I worked at a company called Red Gate for nearly 10 years. Latterly, old-timers at the company - including myself - used to joke that we'd never get through the present-day tech interview. The impression was only heightened by a stint in recruitment where I realised, out of the hundreds of software engineer applications I was reviewing every month, >80% were rejected at first sift, and 80% of the rest were rejected at the coding assessment stage. If you actually made it to first interview there was a 40% chance you'd be offered a job, which is not terrible odds compared with where it had been. We'd hire about one out of every hundred applicants [1]. When it came time for me to move on I was, of course, terrified, because I hadn't updated my CV or gone for a job interview in 10 years, and I now knew from an insider's perspective exactly how ruthless the process can be. [1] I did actually change the hiring process to try to give candidates a more humanised experience[2], but this didn't change the 100:1 ratio. [2] Part of the motivation here was selfish: I realised that the way we had been doing it was making me short-tempered and miserable, and turning me into a worse human being.
Pica_soO 8y ago
The hiring process has become part of the bargaining process- its job is not to proof your competence (Hey, i can memorize algorithms and T.S. Eliot poems) - but to negotiate your self-worth down so the company can hire you for cheap.
kokey 8y ago
I've spent much of my career as a contractor and even before that I often changed jobs often early in my career since I had a good reputation in the industry I was in so I got approached often. You have to realise that it's a numbers game and it's not you, if a company overlooks you because they are not asking you the right questions then it's their loss. I often land in interviews at companies where their expectations are set by how young graduates see the industry and the role, which usually totally overlooks more experienced, professional and reliable candidates. I also now believe that the first interview I land won't lead to a job, since this has been true so many times. It helps, since I am probably a bit too nervous at my first interview in a while, but I also don't beat myself too hard over it and by the second place I interview at I am more relaxed. Also, don't write off jobs based on the job spec or the recruiter, actually upload your CV to a job site or apply for a lot of jobs advertised by agencies, even if it's not the best fit. It just warms up your job hunt nicely, you get used to talking to people outside of your company, you get used to articulating your strengths, passions and preferences and along the way you may discover a job that is a lot more suitable for you than you could have imagined.
scarface74 8y ago
This is not meant to Be an insult. I was in the same position about 10 years ago. I had been at the same company for nine years. I found that my skill set wasn't what the market wanted. Sure I had been successful in my projects doing basically the same thing for nine years but I had become an expert beginner (https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...) I learned my lesson. I took a job after working for 12 years as what for all intents and purposes was a junior developer (making a little bit more because wage stagnation is real). I've had 5 jobs since then and kept learning.

by ztjio 8y ago

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.

donkeyd 8y ago
This week I got to see the job posting for a replacement of a colleague of mine. The first requirement was 3 years of experience with a product we don't even directly use. I'm pretty sure the only reason it's in there, is that HR requires it for working in our department, even tough our specific team doesn't even touch it. The same line also requires "Java, Java script", while it's a backend Java position with literally no JavaScript work. I already told my manager that with the maximum wage (shown in the posting) and the listed requirements, none of my peers would even try to apply. Even if they were an extremely good fit for the actual job.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  The process through which a typical job posting is created is seriously broken in most organizations.
- oldcynic 8y ago
  By the time they've taken your skillset, added the skills team lead would like or wants to learn, the skills that are from a different role but manager thinks can be combined few can still recognise their own job. As a last pass CEO asks for 3 years experience of a tech launched last year that he's just finished reading an article about. :)
52-6F-62 8y ago
The worst is when it isn't engineers or any kind of technical leader performing any screening, but strictly an HR rep with no technical knowledge or experience outside of names of things (and the tools they personally employ) or an applicant tracking system that will immediately filter you out if your resume doesn't contain ~XX% of the required skills— or enough/too many years of experience according to the parameters in the posting. And to so many people operating that way it just seems practical. I feel lucky with how I got my current job— even though it's a very large company and they definitely do operate in those fashions, my resume somehow made it directly into the hands of the Senior Manager and Lead Engineer for the specific team at the time. They brought me in to talk— no whiteboards, no brain teasers— just some technical questions and personal/professional questions and I was hired inside of two weeks— onboarded a month later. Applying and [if I even get to] interviewing at most other places previous has left me feeling much the same as yourself...

taurath 8y ago

Every high performer at my workplace states regularly that they wouldn’t be able to pass the entrance exam at the place they currently work. It’s a cruel fucking environment.

jaggederest 8y ago
In the last couple weeks I've had to decline 18 total hours of "challenges" and "work samples" from 4 different interview processes. I'm not sure at what point it became de rigueur to require applicants to complete on average 4.5 hours of work without pay, but I really, really don't think it's reasonable. I've even offered to show them my current projects in lieu of work samples, and no go. Baffling.
- calebio 8y ago
  I've been pondering my thoughts on this, and I'm curious what you think. Would you prefer Phone Screen +: A) FANG/Valley style interviews multiple rounds of leetcode algorithm/data structure style questions and some whiteboard design/architecture. B) Pair Programming. A few rounds of pairing on a problems to see actual code. Maybe some lightweight whiteboard design/architecture. C) Take home challenge/assignment that you work on/add features to/add tests/talk about during your onsite.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I would go for pair programming.
    - kabouseng 8y ago
      The danger with pair programming is you easily get a partner who sees the activity as a competitive exercise / dick measuring activity* , and some engineers find enjoyment in proving to everyone else (including new hires) their superiority. *excuse my language, but it is the most accurate description I could come up with.

8ytecoder 8y ago

I'm going through it. My past self from 12 years ago would have cleared every one of those interviews. I don't believe for one second that that former self was a better Engineer. But it's hard to not feel anxious.

mkhpalm 8y ago
I've learned to politely walk away whenever I sense an interview circus starting up.

gigatexal 8y ago

I’m at a startup with about the same number of junior developers (which includes myself) to senior developers and I thought I was going to feel imposter syndrome but I haven’t felt it. I think it’s because we are a good team and ego isn’t there and we are working on really cool problems.

bartread 8y ago

Totally identify with this. Years back I worked at a company called Red Gate for nearly 10 years. Latterly, old-timers at the company - including myself - used to joke that we'd never get through the present-day tech interview. The impression was only heightened by a stint in recruitment where I realised, out of the hundreds of software engineer applications I was reviewing every month, >80% were rejected at first sift, and 80% of the rest were rejected at the coding assessment stage. If you actually made it to first interview there was a 40% chance you'd be offered a job, which is not terrible odds compared with where it had been. We'd hire about one out of every hundred applicants [1]. When it came time for me to move on I was, of course, terrified, because I hadn't updated my CV or gone for a job interview in 10 years, and I now knew from an insider's perspective exactly how ruthless the process can be. [1] I did actually change the hiring process to try to give candidates a more humanised experience[2], but this didn't change the 100:1 ratio. [2] Part of the motivation here was selfish: I realised that the way we had been doing it was making me short-tempered and miserable, and turning me into a worse human being.

Pica_soO 8y ago

The hiring process has become part of the bargaining process- its job is not to proof your competence (Hey, i can memorize algorithms and T.S. Eliot poems) - but to negotiate your self-worth down so the company can hire you for cheap.

kokey 8y ago

I've spent much of my career as a contractor and even before that I often changed jobs often early in my career since I had a good reputation in the industry I was in so I got approached often. You have to realise that it's a numbers game and it's not you, if a company overlooks you because they are not asking you the right questions then it's their loss. I often land in interviews at companies where their expectations are set by how young graduates see the industry and the role, which usually totally overlooks more experienced, professional and reliable candidates. I also now believe that the first interview I land won't lead to a job, since this has been true so many times. It helps, since I am probably a bit too nervous at my first interview in a while, but I also don't beat myself too hard over it and by the second place I interview at I am more relaxed. Also, don't write off jobs based on the job spec or the recruiter, actually upload your CV to a job site or apply for a lot of jobs advertised by agencies, even if it's not the best fit. It just warms up your job hunt nicely, you get used to talking to people outside of your company, you get used to articulating your strengths, passions and preferences and along the way you may discover a job that is a lot more suitable for you than you could have imagined.

scarface74 8y ago

This is not meant to Be an insult. I was in the same position about 10 years ago. I had been at the same company for nine years. I found that my skill set wasn't what the market wanted. Sure I had been successful in my projects doing basically the same thing for nine years but I had become an expert beginner (https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...) I learned my lesson. I took a job after working for 12 years as what for all intents and purposes was a junior developer (making a little bit more because wage stagnation is real). I've had 5 jobs since then and kept learning.