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I disagree with this article and most things I read about imposter syndrome. There's usually some good advice in there about self care. But, I think it ends up

I disagree with this article and most things I read about imposter syndrome. There's usually some good advice in there about self care. But, I think it ends up missing the mark because it leaves out half the story: It is healthy and normal to question if you're over-representing yourself. A constant feeling of "Am I as good as people think and I say?" is only imposter syndrome if the answer is yes. Otherwise, yeah, you're an imposter. I've spoken with and mentored many new software engineers. Some of them tell me they're struggling with imposter syndrome. Do I tell them they're wrong and they shouldn't feel that way, baselessly invalidating their beliefs? No! I look for evidence that they can write code. Some live coding, a project that's not a copy-pasted tutorial, just something. Then, the conversation goes one of two ways. If they can code, then we have a talk about expectation setting. No one knows everything, everyone expects a junior to make lots of mistakes, googling stuff is fine, etc. If they can't code, it's more like "Yeah, you're right. Your feelings aren't just valid but pointing at a truth. Let's work on teaching you to code." Let's say I'm race car driver, but I feel like I'm no good. Some day I'll be found out. Do I have imposter syndrome? Who knows! Let's look at the standings. If over a season, I sometimes crash, sometimes end up in the middle, and sometimes get on the podium, yeah I'm definitely a race car driver. My worries of being found out are baseless. But, if I'm always coming in dead last and I barely even race anymore, then these concerns seem pretty grounded. The unfortunate reality is that most things aren't as clear cut as the standings of a race. You can still look outward for external evidence, instead of inward to your own feelings. What do I think someone in this position should be able to do? How good do people with similar experience (very important qualifier) in this role tend to be? How am I compared to that? I don't think it's healthy and I don't think it's useful to just sweep these feelings under the rug. Which is what you're doing when you share them with someone else and they reactively tell you not to worry. I have never seen that work for myself or anyone else. You have to face these feelings honestly and openly, see if they match reality, and adjust accordingly.

SilasX 5y ago
>I've spoken with and mentored many new software engineers. Some of them tell me they're struggling with imposter syndrome. Do I tell them they're wrong and they shouldn't feel that way, baselessly invalidating their beliefs? No! I look for evidence that they can write code. Some live coding, a project that's not a copy-pasted tutorial, just something. Soooo much this. The right response to "I feel like an impostor" should always be, "okay let's run over some heuristics to see if that doubt is justified". Some people actually are impostors, while some are just mis-judging themselves. Reflexively dismissing all doubt as impostor syndrome is how you create the Elizabeth Holmeses of the world. Earlier comments on the point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214306
burkaman 5y ago
The key part of impostor syndrome is that you think you're bad at something, but somehow nobody else can tell. You keep getting compliments for the thing you're worried about. If you think you're bad at coding, and people can tell right away in a short coding interview, then you're not an impostor, you're just bad at it. If you're coming in last in every race, then you're not an impostor, everyone knows you're bad. If you're consistently on the podium but you tell yourself you don't really deserve it and those races were all flukes, that's imposter syndrome. It is healthy and normal to question your own abilities and how you represent yourself, but it's not healthy to question to such a point that you ignore all positive evidence. If you mentor someone who's great at coding, and you tell them that, and they still think to themselves that they're actually bad and just got lucky this time, that's impostor syndrome. tldr: "Am I bad at this" and "am I a fraud that has everyone fooled" are very different.
- jacobr1 5y ago
  To further your example, when the mentor gives the feedback that the programmer is _good_, they don't take it as evidence they are good, instead it is rationalized away. "The mentor only told me I was good because they didn't want to hurt my feelings, but of course she knows I'm really not," Or "The mentor only told me I was good because they don't really see how much time I spend googling things. Real Engineers should have their code jump from their heads like Athena from Zeus."
  - caddemon 5y ago
    Part of the problem is that the standard to say something is "good" can vary wildly, and often does end up becoming quite low. See inflation of grades, video game reviews, Yelp ratings, etc. If I see a 3 star restaurant I'm highly skeptical of it, even though 3 stars should be considered perfectly acceptable by intended definition. On Google performance reviews scores could range from 1 to 5, with 2 being "meets expectations". A 2/5 sounds pretty bad, but the description sounds like the person is doing their job fine and is not an impostor. So what does it actually mean? But that depends from manager to manager anyway. IME many of them end up inflating and "exceeds expectations" loses meaning. Point being, I think you need a lot more context to determine what "good job" actually means. If feedback is sufficiently detailed you can make a pretty good estimate right off the bat, but unfortunately people are bad at giving feedback in general. So especially when new to a team and you don't have any priors for how they use language, it makes sense to have some doubts. I'm sure this can become pathological, but is the unhealthy version actually as prevalent as all the talk about impostor syndrome?

SilasX 5y ago

>I've spoken with and mentored many new software engineers. Some of them tell me they're struggling with imposter syndrome. Do I tell them they're wrong and they shouldn't feel that way, baselessly invalidating their beliefs? No! I look for evidence that they can write code. Some live coding, a project that's not a copy-pasted tutorial, just something. Soooo much this. The right response to "I feel like an impostor" should always be, "okay let's run over some heuristics to see if that doubt is justified". Some people actually are impostors, while some are just mis-judging themselves. Reflexively dismissing all doubt as impostor syndrome is how you create the Elizabeth Holmeses of the world. Earlier comments on the point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214306

burkaman 5y ago

The key part of impostor syndrome is that you think you're bad at something, but somehow nobody else can tell. You keep getting compliments for the thing you're worried about. If you think you're bad at coding, and people can tell right away in a short coding interview, then you're not an impostor, you're just bad at it. If you're coming in last in every race, then you're not an impostor, everyone knows you're bad. If you're consistently on the podium but you tell yourself you don't really deserve it and those races were all flukes, that's imposter syndrome. It is healthy and normal to question your own abilities and how you represent yourself, but it's not healthy to question to such a point that you ignore all positive evidence. If you mentor someone who's great at coding, and you tell them that, and they still think to themselves that they're actually bad and just got lucky this time, that's impostor syndrome. tldr: "Am I bad at this" and "am I a fraud that has everyone fooled" are very different.

jacobr1 5y ago
To further your example, when the mentor gives the feedback that the programmer is _good_, they don't take it as evidence they are good, instead it is rationalized away. "The mentor only told me I was good because they didn't want to hurt my feelings, but of course she knows I'm really not," Or "The mentor only told me I was good because they don't really see how much time I spend googling things. Real Engineers should have their code jump from their heads like Athena from Zeus."
- caddemon 5y ago
  Part of the problem is that the standard to say something is "good" can vary wildly, and often does end up becoming quite low. See inflation of grades, video game reviews, Yelp ratings, etc. If I see a 3 star restaurant I'm highly skeptical of it, even though 3 stars should be considered perfectly acceptable by intended definition. On Google performance reviews scores could range from 1 to 5, with 2 being "meets expectations". A 2/5 sounds pretty bad, but the description sounds like the person is doing their job fine and is not an impostor. So what does it actually mean? But that depends from manager to manager anyway. IME many of them end up inflating and "exceeds expectations" loses meaning. Point being, I think you need a lot more context to determine what "good job" actually means. If feedback is sufficiently detailed you can make a pretty good estimate right off the bat, but unfortunately people are bad at giving feedback in general. So especially when new to a team and you don't have any priors for how they use language, it makes sense to have some doubts. I'm sure this can become pathological, but is the unhealthy version actually as prevalent as all the talk about impostor syndrome?