Of course you can be impressed by your own company's product, and I don't think you were trying to be dishonest, but people are going to react differently to an

Of course you can be impressed by your own company's product, and I don't think you were trying to be dishonest, but people are going to react differently to an engineer being exited to finally discover a faster solution to their problem vs. someone whose literal job it is to promote their company. If you stay around on HN, you'll see e.g. Google employees adding "Disclaimer: I work at Google, but on a different product." when they answer Google-related questions. That builds both relatability and trust.