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A lot of the discussion here is treating impostor syndrome and qualifications as binary: You're either qualified or not. And your evaluation of your skills is e

A lot of the discussion here is treating impostor syndrome and qualifications as binary: You're either qualified or not. And your evaluation of your skills is either above your actual skills or not. But it's more nuanced than that. I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company. I have impostor syndrome all the time. Why? Because I measure myself against 1) role models that are ahead of me in many ways - I've always done that, and it's how I grow, 2) against those with strengths in areas that I have weaknesses. I think my impostor syndrome is absolutely fact-based. I am not as good in the technical areas I care about as those I measure myself against. My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them), or I consider them insufficient to a fully rounded engineer, if I don't also have the skills that I know I'm missing (but some of my peers are not). It doesn't help that I'm the epitome of a 'Generalist' - I'm good at a lot of things, but I don't know if I'm the BEST at anything. I get lots of positive reinforcement - from my management chain, and from those more junior than me. But it never resonates. I always think "damn, I've actually fooled them all". And then I feel guilty that the management is putting so much trust in me, and that the juniors actually look up to a fraud. The only feedback that resonates is from my technical peers. Luckily I get this just often enough that I don't fall into a catatonic mess of anxiety. And sometimes I believe it...

auto 5y ago
A lot of this resonates with me, and in particular: > but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) I've struggled with this over the years. As a kid, once something clicked it felt like you had leveled up in some way, and now had a new skill. As an adult, I have a hard time not looking at everything I'm capable of and thinking "it's so simple, it obviously just works like this". It's as if I have no spectrum of [I don't know this at all] and [I'm an expert at this], my self reflection that leads to impostor syndrome just sees them as [I don't know this at all] and [This is obvious]. FWIW, not FAANG, but Senior Firmware Engineer for a household name with FAANG affiliations.
- andai 5y ago
  The wtf-duh dichotomy... I know it too well!
  - auto 5y ago
    Well put!
- yourapostasy 5y ago
  > As an adult, I have a hard time not looking at everything I'm capable of and thinking "it's so simple, it obviously just works like this". The way you fix this perception is teach the skill to someone with zero foundational knowledge of the skill’s background requirements. Or write if there is no person around. There is always documentation going begging. IMHO, one of the biggest oversights I see in the industry today is the lack of inward-facing technical writer and editor teams, sitting alongside pair programmers and/or agile stand ups. Skills transmission works through a highly opaque diffusion membrane of tribal knowledge (reaching its peak form in StackExchange), and synchronous, people-intensive discussions, where insight is rarely if ever captured and memorialized. Powerful, effective documentation prepared by professional programmers with professional communications skills asynchronously transmits insight and not just information. We have incredible tooling now, but ironically do not staff them. One way to calibrate your imposter syndrome is write lots of documentation. In it, make sure you call out references for further to skill stacks you consider prerequisites lest you dilute your focus and the the prose becomes too unwieldy. And call out references to what you have used to learn meta information and abstractions beyond the current documentation’s focused skill band. If that list will routinely take an average practitioner at a particular skill level more than a year to absorb, then you have a fair baseline. Now update the documentation each time someone asks for clarification on a point in it. If there are lots of readers and few questions, then you possibly have a reasonable grasp of the material.
  - auto 5y ago
    It's interesting you say this, because I have probably written more documentation in the last two years than I did the first eight years that had made up my career prior to that. The team I'm with now, we've been building it with a focus on documentation (and testing) that I didn't appreciate was possible prior. We've also been pushing hard to get a full time technical writer, someone who specifically doesn't get screwed three months into the job with "Ok, you write docs, AND do a little coding work on the side in your down time". No, we've clearly got the workload necessary for a full time writer, let's bring someone on board and really let them become that core differentiator.
sylens 5y ago
This comment resonates a lot with me. Over the years, I realized that while I may not know the most in some areas, the fact that I am able to communicate what I do know clearly and efficiently often makes up the difference. You quickly learn that people aren't really expecting you to hold the entire knowledge base in your head as long as you're willing to admit you may not know the best answer/best solution but are willing to dig for it.
mikeryan 5y ago
I feel that some level of imposter syndrome is healthy it means you’re cognizant of the fact that there might be something you’re missing or that there might be a “better” way. I started my career in software 20 years ago with a good attitude and an “HTML for Dummies” book. It made me very cognizant that I was outgunned by a lot of my peers so it made me ask a lot of questions - half of them I’d figure out just figuring out how to pose a question while walking over to someone else’s cube. I’ve gotten “better” as an engineer and there’s less I “don’t know” but I’m still always wondering, even on “simple” stuff if there’s not a “simpler” way to do it.
jldugger 5y ago
Total derail but: > I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company. Does anyone other than a MS employee put an M in FAANG?
- slumpt_ 5y ago
  Definitely not. This is literally the first time I’ve even seen FAAMNG.
  - rl3 5y ago
    Same. Sup, faam.
  - Aulig 5y ago
    First time I've seen it too, but I find it more fitting actually. I see Microsoft as a lot more of a tech giant than Netflix, but maybe Im judging by the wrong criteria.
    - quickthrowman 5y ago
      You aren’t, MSFT is much more appropriate than Netflix, a company that releases 2nd rate copies of shows from better networks.
- mewpmewp2 5y ago
  I think as of late FAAMG is more popular or appropriate than FAANG, but I mean, who knows. According to Wikipedia at least https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech Edit: Not popular maybe, but appropriate still.
  - z3t4 5y ago
    Can we put an R in there too? Does Redit count!? Did you know that modern farming is very high tech?
  - psyc 5y ago
    I always thought it was more appropriate for most purposes. But on HN, perhaps the most common purpose is discussing ludicrous total comp. And, at least when I left in 2010, Microsoft most certainly did not offer that. I heard that they raised pay across the board shortly after I left, but considering where they started, I’d be shocked if it put them on par with FAANG. Anybody know?
FooHentai 5y ago
>My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) It's like the paradox of AI, which is that as soon as we've reduced something previously regarded as 'intelligent' to something that can be coded in software, it ceases to be thought of as intelligence any longer.
- Shish2k 5y ago
  I wonder how long until we run out of types-of-intelligence to automate, and realise that “humans have a unique spark (a soul?) that makes them fundamentally different to machines” was a dream all along...
  - imtringued 5y ago
    What if we build an AI that believes it has a soul? How would it be functionally different from a human with that same faith?
    - Marvin_Martian 5y ago
      Well, in the AIs case we could E-Mail the creator and ask: "Did you build a soul into this thing?"
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  I don't know. If you look at something like chess, which was often thought of as very difficult, the first thing we designed that was really good at the game made us realize that you needed next to no logic to win if you had a computer fast enough to try a billion moves. But we thought object recognition would be super easy, far less than AI tier, and we still can't do it reasonably well. I'm much more convinced that humans suck at estimating the hardness of problems, and not very convinced we keep cheating the classification of AI.
the_only_law 5y ago
> I am not as good in the technical areas I care about as those I measure myself against. This for sure. I find too often that I’ve been at this stuff longer than actual teenagers that blow me away nowadays.
TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
> Why? Because I measure myself against 1) role models that are ahead of me in many ways - I've always done that, and it's how I grow, 2) against those with strengths in areas that I have weaknesses. I don’t think this is why you feel like an imposter, rather this is a rationalisation for why you feel like an imposter. It’s possibly to do 1 and 2 and not feel like an imposter, so this can’t be the whole reason. It might be necessary for some people some of the time, but it’s not a sufficient explanation. You even called yourself out on it later in your comment where you say it’s a fallacy. I’d hazard a guess the real issue is some kind of underlying generalised anxiety.
kjeetgill 5y ago
> Luckily I get this just often enough that I don't fall into a catatonic mess of anxiety. So this is the sticking point for me: is it really _impostor syndrome_ if it's not disproportionate and negatively impactful? What you're describing just seems like normal, mostly healthy, reasonable critical self reflection? To me the syndrome part of it is the overwhelming runaway thoughts part.
- philipov 5y ago
  Like people who get sad occasionally comparing themselves to people with major depression?
- deanCommie 5y ago
  It's a hard thing to quantify - how do you measure one person's feelings against another? I feel like it's not unhealthy - exactly as you describe. I've spoken to many peers who all feel the same at one point or another. So is it that we don't have impostor syndrome because we've normalized it? Or is it the same feelings but we are just better at dealing with them? I think it's the latter. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. With seniority comes the burden of that knowledge. You can easily become lost - where you can no longer measure your output by direct lines of code written, and you also get exposed to more and more top minds that make you feel small. I think the feelings are exactly the same that a junior engineer faces at their first job where they are overwhelmed and feel like everyone else is smarter than them. The difference is that once you've been through it enough times, you have the confidence that the emotion isn't valid, and you have competence to fall back on eventually.
nl 5y ago
I've said it before: I wish I was actually good enough to have ok imposter syndrome.
polote 5y ago
Honest question, imagine if at your company tomorrow they decide to fire one principal engineer. Would you find it fair that the one is you? Would yo find it fair if you were among the 10% they fire? The 20%? The 30%? I ask you that because it is much simpler to answer to a binary question like, do I have imposter syndrome? Or put in other words, am I modest? You can make the link with how people see themselves. A lot of very attractive people tell you they are not very beautiful, and spend their time trying to get validation from others. But they internally think they are the top 5%. My opinion is a lot of those things exists because people are not honest with each other. So you can't really trust what people tell you about you. And you are always wondering how people see you.
- baby 5y ago
  Interesting way to think about it. I’ve noticed that often people underestimate themselves, sure, but they also grossly over estimate everybody else.
- sfink 5y ago
  Uh, no, don't do that. Anyone who has survived a round of layoffs is very familiar with survivor's guilt, which manifests as an intense form of impostor syndrome. "Why was it X instead of me? How did I manage to trick my way into staying when X (and Y and Z) went?" It doesn't have much to do with your honest self-evaluation. It's kind of unavoidable. Whether or not it's accurate doesn't really matter.
- eru 5y ago
  > Honest question, imagine if at your company tomorrow they decide to fire one principal engineer. Would you find it fair that the one is you? Would yo find it fair if you were among the 10% they fire? The 20%? The 30%? That's an interesting thought experiment. Though not as straightforward as it sounds like at first. For example, I think I'm pretty good at what I do, but I'm also pretty expensive. But more importantly, companies don't have a good handle on people's performance. They have biased estimates, at best. See https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ for an exploration of this topic from a hiring point of view, but it also exists to a lesser extent when people are already working for you.
123pie123 5y ago
I can relate to most of the things you've said for me, my imposter syndrome comes mainly when I look around and see everyone working hard and struggling to do stuff well and I feel like I'm not even in 2nd gear and doing as well. So I think I feel like I'm only putting in less then 25% effort and getting 100% of the normal results (relative to others) - it feels wrong, it's like finishing a test or exam too soon and looking around seeing everyone only half way through the same exam. I then start to worry what have I done wrong? with many years of contract work, I've realised It's not me!! I used to try and hide it since no-one likes a smart arse - especially a contractor. but now I do blow a my little trumpet now and then
- nerpderp82 5y ago
  I am going to use this for my humble brag training next week.
  - 123pie123 5y ago
    I should have added: I really do think I have ADHD and I do become obsessive about things, my job is my hobby, so I probably put more time in to things than what i realise, but I still do feel like an imposter occasionally (less so with getting older)
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  Used to be a midrange programmer who others thought as brilliant. It was hard to start two decades ago, but always looking for a challenge meant consistent growth for years. After five years it felt too easy, like cheating. My peers would struggle for a week with what I could deliver in an afternoon. Seeking better opportunities I migrated to web development, and boy, it's hard to be a novice again. Everyone I worked with was better than me at everything. It's hard to feel like the impostor when you know you're the less skilled one. Now web development doesn't pay that well, so the natural path was cybersecurity. Still learning, and I feel like this will be my last career change because it takes years to stop feeling dumb and start feeling like an impostor again.
  - 5y ago
RIDDLERTHIS 5y ago
I think I agree with your description. I'm currently sitting on three job offers - I originally thought it would be easy to choose, but I find myself absolutely paralyzed right now with an inability to make a decision on any of them because I feel as though I will be expected to know more than I think I know, or to perform at a level beyond what I feel comfortable performing at. I've had a lot of great feedback from my peers and those in more junior roles, as well upper management, but still do not feel confident. How do you if you are capable of moving from a familiar set applications and systems to one where you've never worked with any of the applications and only know the system by theory? Some folks are pushing me to move entirely out of code and into management but my passion is writing code, working in databases, and designing systems but the opportunities I have before me now pay more for management rather than getting my hands dirty in the code. Can't sleep or eat because of constant anxiety over "what if I can't perform to their expectations and get fired?" - How do others deal with this?
- sb52191 5y ago
  It's your job in interviews to accurately describe your abilities and talents. It's the company's job to determine if that's the right fit for them. If they sent you an offer, I'd just assume I don't have a clear enough picture on what they will expect of me and when, and just trust that they did their due diligence in my evaluation. Of course, if it doesn't work out, you had three offers so you'll likely be able to get a new job no problem.
  - chinchilla2020 5y ago
    Expectations and company culture can be difficult to communicate during an interview. Sometimes the interviewer doesn't even realize what would be relevant to the jobseeker. If the company fails their 'job', you end up with the black mark of a missing block of time on your resume, plus the major hassle of switching jobs and re-interviewing. It isn't "No problem" as you say. It's a major problem that could set you back by months.
- baby 5y ago
  Care less, stop comparing yourself. And read this: https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-breakthrough-disregard-others/ https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-brea...
joshuak 5y ago
You have fooled them all. The fallacy of imposter syndrome is not that you are better than you think you are, but that others are worse. You have fooled them, but you discount the fact that they have fooled you too.
ajmurmann 5y ago
That's why I always fail to write blog posts. "This looks super interesting" -> do research/think about it-> "I understand it, so it must be trivial and nobody else will care" Edit: phone auto correct
tails4e 5y ago
This is me exactly. I feel like 10x and 0.1x at the same time, depending on the area.
secondaryacct 5y ago
I'm in the same exact boat, generalist to the extreme, lots of technical role models, big company, hard to find a value there. But more and more I get that I m put in places where nobody cares what I ll code but that instead I ll enthusiastically push everyone around, make them try new fun ideas, and have a general blindness to boredom - I guess being an idiot means everything sounds fascinating and I unblocked more than a few dead end just trying or proposing stupid ideas.
taf2 5y ago
Interesting - I just always blindly focus on the end goal... wonder if that is in someway also a impostor syndrome thing?
agumonkey 5y ago
I'm in a strange position. I'm burnt out on every side of every candles from trying too hard too long with no results (due to life chaos, lack of luck, bad choices, who knows). To survive I took brainless jobs and I find myself in a different form of pain, being eroded by uneducated, learning-resistant cogs. Right now reading you say "measuring my self against people ahead of me" feels tempting, even after all the problems I got. It's a bit like exercise .. my brain needs it or it shrivels. ps: I didn't know generalists could fare well pps: have all your workplaces well accepting of your working style ?
- deanCommie 5y ago
  re: PPS. More than you know, but going into detail about my weird and unorthodox working style would reveal too much personal info. re: PS. I should clarify. I was a damn good programmer who could pump out clean, readable, maintainable code, faster than most. But only once I found myself in a job I loved surrounded by people who encouraged learning, were curious, and loved to teach me. You gotta find your tribe. Don't let your brain rot.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I often have the 'find the right tribe' idea in my head; it's staggering how important it is to find the right people.
  - no-s 5y ago
    > But only once I found myself in a job I loved surrounded by people who encouraged learning, were curious, and loved to teach me. You gotta find your tribe. Don't let your brain rot. I have a corollary: badly managed companies make good people go bad. Even worse is the delusion where you believe awareness of bad influences protects you from the consequences...some things can not be mitigated. For example “the culture of mediocrity” :<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257623179_The_Culture_of_Mediocrity https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257623179_The_Cultu...>.
hyperpallium2 5y ago
If you present yourself as equal to one of your role models, you are an imposter. If you present yourself as the BEST (in the world?) at something, then you are an imposter. If you present yourself as a perfectly rounded engineer, then you are an imposter. But if you present yourself as good at the billion things you are good at (even if you find them easy), then you are not an imposter. 5 year old little brother looks up to 8 year old big sister, and turns to her for guidance and protection - and it is right that he should do so.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  The above is totally false. I work in SV, and know engineers who are actually #1 in the world at particular subjects. If you aspire to being #1, over time you will become that. Based on what you wrote, I can say that you do sound like an impostor. Since you don't know what being world-class is like, I will say this. Talking to an average person about an advanced topic is difficult because there is an experience and knowledge gap that is insurmountable in a casual conversation.
lhorie 5y ago
Here's an unpopular opinion: this whole thing about impostor syndrome honestly seems like a thinly veiled humble brag. The narrative seems to be "nobody's perfect, but I am aware that I have imperfections so brownie points for me". IMHO, there's no real correlation between confidence and ability. There are extremely capable athletes with terrible ego problems and there are people that legitimately fall into death spirals. There are those that talk the talk but don't walk the walk, as well as those that quietly sweat away in their pursuit of mastery. Lacking confidence in something, judging oneself, etc are just being human. Pretty much everyone goes through that. Sure, some might project confidence in the face of the unknown, but that's just one of many coping mechanisms we have. "Laughing to not cry", screaming in fear when startled by a spider, YOLO, panic lies, etc are other similar mechanisms where we do seemingly illogical things in response to the respective stimulus. And of course, people are multidimensional and topics/disciplines are multidimensional. You can't possibly be great at everything, but most are certainly capable of getting very good at something (even if that something is being a generalist in software engineering - which is itself a form of specialization in the grand scheme of society). And you might experience impostor syndrome at work but still be one of those people that think they're above average drivers or some such. Or you might experience it and be confident about your looks. Etc. When you consider that reality isn't a flat 2D grayscale spectrum, it seems fairly normal that one would experience discomfort with their lackings when compared against one of infinite arbitrary scales.
- texuf 5y ago
  I guess anyone can interpret it however they want. If you’re challenging yourself in your career, you will eventually find yourself in a position where you legitimately don’t know what you’re doing, and people are depending on you to figure it out. Early in my career I thrived in these situations, because they mirrored my experiences in college. Later in my career, the problems got bigger and I found myself wondering if I would ever figure these things out, saying to myself, maybe I’m actually not smart enough, maybe I took the wrong career path? But, if you keep your composure, read the docs, ask the right people for help, you figure it out and move on. I always assumed that’s what people meant. Seems like young people today have much more anxiety that we used to though, so maybe the definition has shifted.
surajs 5y ago
i agree i think who you're measuring yourself against is responsible for it. comparison is the thief of joy but in a professional competitive setting it becomes a rather vicious and pernicious thief, thankfully once you realise the only competition is with your past/present self, it subsides.
justicezyx 5y ago
> I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company Since when one's employer becomes a secret?! And in fact, a principal engineer title in these corps mean vastly different skill and prestiges. For example, a principal engineer in Google is usually treated as equivalent to a Google director. While a principal in Amazon is just a more senior engineer than a Senior engineer. Because there is no staff level at Amazon, while Google has staff and senior staff... In msft, a principal probably means just a senior engineer in other places.
itsumoiru 5y ago
> My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) I see you've rediscovered Rothbard's law: "People tend to specialise in what they're worst at." (Because anything too easy seems like it's not worth doing) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/27/change-your-life-rothbards-law https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/27/change-...
anovikov 5y ago
Impostor syndrome is only a problem if you need to sell yourself. If you are a freelance developer or a salesman in an outsourcing company you absolutely need to make every effort and probably work with professionals to get rid of it because it's killing your life. But you are not. I don't think in your case it's a problem at all.
dougSF70 5y ago
I totally empathise with the thought "I know this, so how can it be difficult to know". The only thing to do is to continually learn new things, and become the BEST at that.
andrea_sdl 5y ago
I feel the same way and being a 'Generalist' mostly because of my ability to adapt any environment is both amazing and terrible. The terrible part is mostly because I got too many roles and zero help to grow (I'm often the icebreaker of a tech or role), which lead me to myself doing the actual criticism to ensure I'm doing my best. On the other hand this kind of continuous self-doubt is stressing, so reading a comment like yours is a relief :) Thanks for writing it :)
- throw_busfactor 5y ago
  And thanks for writing your comment about his comment. I think I sail the same kind of ship as you, at work I'm like a jack of all trades and pretty isolated. Took me long to realize it wasn't my fault if management put too much on my shoulder and I have no peer to share with. It's a management issue if our bus factor is 1 on many project. While I often get praise from my CEO the impostor syndrome is part of my daily routine. Out of work, I'm currently in the process of finally releasing to GitHub a half-baked side-project I invested 100+ hours of personal time but was really too ashamed of to publish. It's not perfect, it'll never be and it's ok. Maybe it will even help me migrate to a better workplace. Lot's of comment int his thread ring a bell for me! Thank you all!
junon 5y ago
Summed it up quite well.
thanatos519 5y ago
Me too
mike_hock 5y ago
Top tier humble brag.
jlg23 5y ago
> My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) This reminds me on a cartoon in which a rocket scientists plays down his work "it's not brain surgery, after all", while in the next picture the neurosurgeon says "it's just brain surgery, not rocket science".
stavros 5y ago
I can't relate with these at all. I realize that most people have an internal measure of "worth", but why? I don't assess myself, in interviews I detail facts about what I've achieved and let others do the assessment themselves. What good does it do to say (or even just feel) that I'm not good enough for a job that someone thinks I'm great for? I just do my best and hope that's enough. If not, they can always fire me. Why worry about it?
endofreach 5y ago
Just keep the lie going. I keep writing shit code - i am just lucky it doesn‘t look or run like shit, so nobody realizes. And i charge way too much for things that make my clients rich and work pretty good but are actually not good enough. And these idiots are falling for it happily and come back. I always thought of myself as an honest guy, though it seems that I am not. But then: who is. Honestly: I just hope some day this feeling parts.

auto 5y ago

A lot of this resonates with me, and in particular: > but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) I've struggled with this over the years. As a kid, once something clicked it felt like you had leveled up in some way, and now had a new skill. As an adult, I have a hard time not looking at everything I'm capable of and thinking "it's so simple, it obviously just works like this". It's as if I have no spectrum of [I don't know this at all] and [I'm an expert at this], my self reflection that leads to impostor syndrome just sees them as [I don't know this at all] and [This is obvious]. FWIW, not FAANG, but Senior Firmware Engineer for a household name with FAANG affiliations.

andai 5y ago
The wtf-duh dichotomy... I know it too well!
- auto 5y ago
  Well put!
yourapostasy 5y ago
> As an adult, I have a hard time not looking at everything I'm capable of and thinking "it's so simple, it obviously just works like this". The way you fix this perception is teach the skill to someone with zero foundational knowledge of the skill’s background requirements. Or write if there is no person around. There is always documentation going begging. IMHO, one of the biggest oversights I see in the industry today is the lack of inward-facing technical writer and editor teams, sitting alongside pair programmers and/or agile stand ups. Skills transmission works through a highly opaque diffusion membrane of tribal knowledge (reaching its peak form in StackExchange), and synchronous, people-intensive discussions, where insight is rarely if ever captured and memorialized. Powerful, effective documentation prepared by professional programmers with professional communications skills asynchronously transmits insight and not just information. We have incredible tooling now, but ironically do not staff them. One way to calibrate your imposter syndrome is write lots of documentation. In it, make sure you call out references for further to skill stacks you consider prerequisites lest you dilute your focus and the the prose becomes too unwieldy. And call out references to what you have used to learn meta information and abstractions beyond the current documentation’s focused skill band. If that list will routinely take an average practitioner at a particular skill level more than a year to absorb, then you have a fair baseline. Now update the documentation each time someone asks for clarification on a point in it. If there are lots of readers and few questions, then you possibly have a reasonable grasp of the material.
- auto 5y ago
  It's interesting you say this, because I have probably written more documentation in the last two years than I did the first eight years that had made up my career prior to that. The team I'm with now, we've been building it with a focus on documentation (and testing) that I didn't appreciate was possible prior. We've also been pushing hard to get a full time technical writer, someone who specifically doesn't get screwed three months into the job with "Ok, you write docs, AND do a little coding work on the side in your down time". No, we've clearly got the workload necessary for a full time writer, let's bring someone on board and really let them become that core differentiator.

sylens 5y ago

This comment resonates a lot with me. Over the years, I realized that while I may not know the most in some areas, the fact that I am able to communicate what I do know clearly and efficiently often makes up the difference. You quickly learn that people aren't really expecting you to hold the entire knowledge base in your head as long as you're willing to admit you may not know the best answer/best solution but are willing to dig for it.

mikeryan 5y ago

I feel that some level of imposter syndrome is healthy it means you’re cognizant of the fact that there might be something you’re missing or that there might be a “better” way. I started my career in software 20 years ago with a good attitude and an “HTML for Dummies” book. It made me very cognizant that I was outgunned by a lot of my peers so it made me ask a lot of questions - half of them I’d figure out just figuring out how to pose a question while walking over to someone else’s cube. I’ve gotten “better” as an engineer and there’s less I “don’t know” but I’m still always wondering, even on “simple” stuff if there’s not a “simpler” way to do it.

jldugger 5y ago

Total derail but: > I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company. Does anyone other than a MS employee put an M in FAANG?

slumpt_ 5y ago
Definitely not. This is literally the first time I’ve even seen FAAMNG.
- rl3 5y ago
  Same. Sup, faam.
- Aulig 5y ago
  First time I've seen it too, but I find it more fitting actually. I see Microsoft as a lot more of a tech giant than Netflix, but maybe Im judging by the wrong criteria.
  - quickthrowman 5y ago
    You aren’t, MSFT is much more appropriate than Netflix, a company that releases 2nd rate copies of shows from better networks.
mewpmewp2 5y ago
I think as of late FAAMG is more popular or appropriate than FAANG, but I mean, who knows. According to Wikipedia at least https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech Edit: Not popular maybe, but appropriate still.
- z3t4 5y ago
  Can we put an R in there too? Does Redit count!? Did you know that modern farming is very high tech?
- psyc 5y ago
  I always thought it was more appropriate for most purposes. But on HN, perhaps the most common purpose is discussing ludicrous total comp. And, at least when I left in 2010, Microsoft most certainly did not offer that. I heard that they raised pay across the board shortly after I left, but considering where they started, I’d be shocked if it put them on par with FAANG. Anybody know?

FooHentai 5y ago

>My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) It's like the paradox of AI, which is that as soon as we've reduced something previously regarded as 'intelligent' to something that can be coded in software, it ceases to be thought of as intelligence any longer.

Shish2k 5y ago
I wonder how long until we run out of types-of-intelligence to automate, and realise that “humans have a unique spark (a soul?) that makes them fundamentally different to machines” was a dream all along...
- imtringued 5y ago
  What if we build an AI that believes it has a soul? How would it be functionally different from a human with that same faith?
  - Marvin_Martian 5y ago
    Well, in the AIs case we could E-Mail the creator and ask: "Did you build a soul into this thing?"
Dylan16807 5y ago
I don't know. If you look at something like chess, which was often thought of as very difficult, the first thing we designed that was really good at the game made us realize that you needed next to no logic to win if you had a computer fast enough to try a billion moves. But we thought object recognition would be super easy, far less than AI tier, and we still can't do it reasonably well. I'm much more convinced that humans suck at estimating the hardness of problems, and not very convinced we keep cheating the classification of AI.

the_only_law 5y ago

> I am not as good in the technical areas I care about as those I measure myself against. This for sure. I find too often that I’ve been at this stuff longer than actual teenagers that blow me away nowadays.

TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago

> Why? Because I measure myself against 1) role models that are ahead of me in many ways - I've always done that, and it's how I grow, 2) against those with strengths in areas that I have weaknesses. I don’t think this is why you feel like an imposter, rather this is a rationalisation for why you feel like an imposter. It’s possibly to do 1 and 2 and not feel like an imposter, so this can’t be the whole reason. It might be necessary for some people some of the time, but it’s not a sufficient explanation. You even called yourself out on it later in your comment where you say it’s a fallacy. I’d hazard a guess the real issue is some kind of underlying generalised anxiety.

kjeetgill 5y ago

> Luckily I get this just often enough that I don't fall into a catatonic mess of anxiety. So this is the sticking point for me: is it really _impostor syndrome_ if it's not disproportionate and negatively impactful? What you're describing just seems like normal, mostly healthy, reasonable critical self reflection? To me the syndrome part of it is the overwhelming runaway thoughts part.

philipov 5y ago
Like people who get sad occasionally comparing themselves to people with major depression?
deanCommie 5y ago
It's a hard thing to quantify - how do you measure one person's feelings against another? I feel like it's not unhealthy - exactly as you describe. I've spoken to many peers who all feel the same at one point or another. So is it that we don't have impostor syndrome because we've normalized it? Or is it the same feelings but we are just better at dealing with them? I think it's the latter. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. With seniority comes the burden of that knowledge. You can easily become lost - where you can no longer measure your output by direct lines of code written, and you also get exposed to more and more top minds that make you feel small. I think the feelings are exactly the same that a junior engineer faces at their first job where they are overwhelmed and feel like everyone else is smarter than them. The difference is that once you've been through it enough times, you have the confidence that the emotion isn't valid, and you have competence to fall back on eventually.

nl 5y ago

I've said it before: I wish I was actually good enough to have ok imposter syndrome.

polote 5y ago

Honest question, imagine if at your company tomorrow they decide to fire one principal engineer. Would you find it fair that the one is you? Would yo find it fair if you were among the 10% they fire? The 20%? The 30%? I ask you that because it is much simpler to answer to a binary question like, do I have imposter syndrome? Or put in other words, am I modest? You can make the link with how people see themselves. A lot of very attractive people tell you they are not very beautiful, and spend their time trying to get validation from others. But they internally think they are the top 5%. My opinion is a lot of those things exists because people are not honest with each other. So you can't really trust what people tell you about you. And you are always wondering how people see you.

baby 5y ago
Interesting way to think about it. I’ve noticed that often people underestimate themselves, sure, but they also grossly over estimate everybody else.
sfink 5y ago
Uh, no, don't do that. Anyone who has survived a round of layoffs is very familiar with survivor's guilt, which manifests as an intense form of impostor syndrome. "Why was it X instead of me? How did I manage to trick my way into staying when X (and Y and Z) went?" It doesn't have much to do with your honest self-evaluation. It's kind of unavoidable. Whether or not it's accurate doesn't really matter.
eru 5y ago
> Honest question, imagine if at your company tomorrow they decide to fire one principal engineer. Would you find it fair that the one is you? Would yo find it fair if you were among the 10% they fire? The 20%? The 30%? That's an interesting thought experiment. Though not as straightforward as it sounds like at first. For example, I think I'm pretty good at what I do, but I'm also pretty expensive. But more importantly, companies don't have a good handle on people's performance. They have biased estimates, at best. See https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ for an exploration of this topic from a hiring point of view, but it also exists to a lesser extent when people are already working for you.

123pie123 5y ago

I can relate to most of the things you've said for me, my imposter syndrome comes mainly when I look around and see everyone working hard and struggling to do stuff well and I feel like I'm not even in 2nd gear and doing as well. So I think I feel like I'm only putting in less then 25% effort and getting 100% of the normal results (relative to others) - it feels wrong, it's like finishing a test or exam too soon and looking around seeing everyone only half way through the same exam. I then start to worry what have I done wrong? with many years of contract work, I've realised It's not me!! I used to try and hide it since no-one likes a smart arse - especially a contractor. but now I do blow a my little trumpet now and then

nerpderp82 5y ago
I am going to use this for my humble brag training next week.
- 123pie123 5y ago
  I should have added: I really do think I have ADHD and I do become obsessive about things, my job is my hobby, so I probably put more time in to things than what i realise, but I still do feel like an imposter occasionally (less so with getting older)
ASalazarMX 5y ago
Used to be a midrange programmer who others thought as brilliant. It was hard to start two decades ago, but always looking for a challenge meant consistent growth for years. After five years it felt too easy, like cheating. My peers would struggle for a week with what I could deliver in an afternoon. Seeking better opportunities I migrated to web development, and boy, it's hard to be a novice again. Everyone I worked with was better than me at everything. It's hard to feel like the impostor when you know you're the less skilled one. Now web development doesn't pay that well, so the natural path was cybersecurity. Still learning, and I feel like this will be my last career change because it takes years to stop feeling dumb and start feeling like an impostor again.
- 5y ago

RIDDLERTHIS 5y ago

I think I agree with your description. I'm currently sitting on three job offers - I originally thought it would be easy to choose, but I find myself absolutely paralyzed right now with an inability to make a decision on any of them because I feel as though I will be expected to know more than I think I know, or to perform at a level beyond what I feel comfortable performing at. I've had a lot of great feedback from my peers and those in more junior roles, as well upper management, but still do not feel confident. How do you if you are capable of moving from a familiar set applications and systems to one where you've never worked with any of the applications and only know the system by theory? Some folks are pushing me to move entirely out of code and into management but my passion is writing code, working in databases, and designing systems but the opportunities I have before me now pay more for management rather than getting my hands dirty in the code. Can't sleep or eat because of constant anxiety over "what if I can't perform to their expectations and get fired?" - How do others deal with this?

sb52191 5y ago
It's your job in interviews to accurately describe your abilities and talents. It's the company's job to determine if that's the right fit for them. If they sent you an offer, I'd just assume I don't have a clear enough picture on what they will expect of me and when, and just trust that they did their due diligence in my evaluation. Of course, if it doesn't work out, you had three offers so you'll likely be able to get a new job no problem.
- chinchilla2020 5y ago
  Expectations and company culture can be difficult to communicate during an interview. Sometimes the interviewer doesn't even realize what would be relevant to the jobseeker. If the company fails their 'job', you end up with the black mark of a missing block of time on your resume, plus the major hassle of switching jobs and re-interviewing. It isn't "No problem" as you say. It's a major problem that could set you back by months.
baby 5y ago
Care less, stop comparing yourself. And read this: https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-breakthrough-disregard-others/ https://stepsandleaps.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/feynmans-brea...

joshuak 5y ago

You have fooled them all. The fallacy of imposter syndrome is not that you are better than you think you are, but that others are worse. You have fooled them, but you discount the fact that they have fooled you too.

ajmurmann 5y ago

That's why I always fail to write blog posts. "This looks super interesting" -> do research/think about it-> "I understand it, so it must be trivial and nobody else will care" Edit: phone auto correct

tails4e 5y ago

This is me exactly. I feel like 10x and 0.1x at the same time, depending on the area.

secondaryacct 5y ago

I'm in the same exact boat, generalist to the extreme, lots of technical role models, big company, hard to find a value there. But more and more I get that I m put in places where nobody cares what I ll code but that instead I ll enthusiastically push everyone around, make them try new fun ideas, and have a general blindness to boredom - I guess being an idiot means everything sounds fascinating and I unblocked more than a few dead end just trying or proposing stupid ideas.

taf2 5y ago

Interesting - I just always blindly focus on the end goal... wonder if that is in someway also a impostor syndrome thing?

agumonkey 5y ago

I'm in a strange position. I'm burnt out on every side of every candles from trying too hard too long with no results (due to life chaos, lack of luck, bad choices, who knows). To survive I took brainless jobs and I find myself in a different form of pain, being eroded by uneducated, learning-resistant cogs. Right now reading you say "measuring my self against people ahead of me" feels tempting, even after all the problems I got. It's a bit like exercise .. my brain needs it or it shrivels. ps: I didn't know generalists could fare well pps: have all your workplaces well accepting of your working style ?

deanCommie 5y ago
re: PPS. More than you know, but going into detail about my weird and unorthodox working style would reveal too much personal info. re: PS. I should clarify. I was a damn good programmer who could pump out clean, readable, maintainable code, faster than most. But only once I found myself in a job I loved surrounded by people who encouraged learning, were curious, and loved to teach me. You gotta find your tribe. Don't let your brain rot.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I often have the 'find the right tribe' idea in my head; it's staggering how important it is to find the right people.
- no-s 5y ago
  > But only once I found myself in a job I loved surrounded by people who encouraged learning, were curious, and loved to teach me. You gotta find your tribe. Don't let your brain rot. I have a corollary: badly managed companies make good people go bad. Even worse is the delusion where you believe awareness of bad influences protects you from the consequences...some things can not be mitigated. For example “the culture of mediocrity” :<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257623179_The_Culture_of_Mediocrity https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257623179_The_Cultu...>.

hyperpallium2 5y ago

If you present yourself as equal to one of your role models, you are an imposter. If you present yourself as the BEST (in the world?) at something, then you are an imposter. If you present yourself as a perfectly rounded engineer, then you are an imposter. But if you present yourself as good at the billion things you are good at (even if you find them easy), then you are not an imposter. 5 year old little brother looks up to 8 year old big sister, and turns to her for guidance and protection - and it is right that he should do so.

redis_mlc 5y ago
The above is totally false. I work in SV, and know engineers who are actually #1 in the world at particular subjects. If you aspire to being #1, over time you will become that. Based on what you wrote, I can say that you do sound like an impostor. Since you don't know what being world-class is like, I will say this. Talking to an average person about an advanced topic is difficult because there is an experience and knowledge gap that is insurmountable in a casual conversation.

lhorie 5y ago

Here's an unpopular opinion: this whole thing about impostor syndrome honestly seems like a thinly veiled humble brag. The narrative seems to be "nobody's perfect, but I am aware that I have imperfections so brownie points for me". IMHO, there's no real correlation between confidence and ability. There are extremely capable athletes with terrible ego problems and there are people that legitimately fall into death spirals. There are those that talk the talk but don't walk the walk, as well as those that quietly sweat away in their pursuit of mastery. Lacking confidence in something, judging oneself, etc are just being human. Pretty much everyone goes through that. Sure, some might project confidence in the face of the unknown, but that's just one of many coping mechanisms we have. "Laughing to not cry", screaming in fear when startled by a spider, YOLO, panic lies, etc are other similar mechanisms where we do seemingly illogical things in response to the respective stimulus. And of course, people are multidimensional and topics/disciplines are multidimensional. You can't possibly be great at everything, but most are certainly capable of getting very good at something (even if that something is being a generalist in software engineering - which is itself a form of specialization in the grand scheme of society). And you might experience impostor syndrome at work but still be one of those people that think they're above average drivers or some such. Or you might experience it and be confident about your looks. Etc. When you consider that reality isn't a flat 2D grayscale spectrum, it seems fairly normal that one would experience discomfort with their lackings when compared against one of infinite arbitrary scales.

texuf 5y ago
I guess anyone can interpret it however they want. If you’re challenging yourself in your career, you will eventually find yourself in a position where you legitimately don’t know what you’re doing, and people are depending on you to figure it out. Early in my career I thrived in these situations, because they mirrored my experiences in college. Later in my career, the problems got bigger and I found myself wondering if I would ever figure these things out, saying to myself, maybe I’m actually not smart enough, maybe I took the wrong career path? But, if you keep your composure, read the docs, ask the right people for help, you figure it out and move on. I always assumed that’s what people meant. Seems like young people today have much more anxiety that we used to though, so maybe the definition has shifted.

surajs 5y ago

i agree i think who you're measuring yourself against is responsible for it. comparison is the thief of joy but in a professional competitive setting it becomes a rather vicious and pernicious thief, thankfully once you realise the only competition is with your past/present self, it subsides.

justicezyx 5y ago

> I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company Since when one's employer becomes a secret?! And in fact, a principal engineer title in these corps mean vastly different skill and prestiges. For example, a principal engineer in Google is usually treated as equivalent to a Google director. While a principal in Amazon is just a more senior engineer than a Senior engineer. Because there is no staff level at Amazon, while Google has staff and senior staff... In msft, a principal probably means just a senior engineer in other places.

itsumoiru 5y ago

> My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) I see you've rediscovered Rothbard's law: "People tend to specialise in what they're worst at." (Because anything too easy seems like it's not worth doing) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/27/change-your-life-rothbards-law https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/27/change-...

anovikov 5y ago

Impostor syndrome is only a problem if you need to sell yourself. If you are a freelance developer or a salesman in an outsourcing company you absolutely need to make every effort and probably work with professionals to get rid of it because it's killing your life. But you are not. I don't think in your case it's a problem at all.

dougSF70 5y ago

I totally empathise with the thought "I know this, so how can it be difficult to know". The only thing to do is to continually learn new things, and become the BEST at that.

andrea_sdl 5y ago

I feel the same way and being a 'Generalist' mostly because of my ability to adapt any environment is both amazing and terrible. The terrible part is mostly because I got too many roles and zero help to grow (I'm often the icebreaker of a tech or role), which lead me to myself doing the actual criticism to ensure I'm doing my best. On the other hand this kind of continuous self-doubt is stressing, so reading a comment like yours is a relief :) Thanks for writing it :)

throw_busfactor 5y ago
And thanks for writing your comment about his comment. I think I sail the same kind of ship as you, at work I'm like a jack of all trades and pretty isolated. Took me long to realize it wasn't my fault if management put too much on my shoulder and I have no peer to share with. It's a management issue if our bus factor is 1 on many project. While I often get praise from my CEO the impostor syndrome is part of my daily routine. Out of work, I'm currently in the process of finally releasing to GitHub a half-baked side-project I invested 100+ hours of personal time but was really too ashamed of to publish. It's not perfect, it'll never be and it's ok. Maybe it will even help me migrate to a better workplace. Lot's of comment int his thread ring a bell for me! Thank you all!

junon 5y ago

Summed it up quite well.

thanatos519 5y ago

Me too

mike_hock 5y ago

Top tier humble brag.

jlg23 5y ago

> My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) This reminds me on a cartoon in which a rocket scientists plays down his work "it's not brain surgery, after all", while in the next picture the neurosurgeon says "it's just brain surgery, not rocket science".

stavros 5y ago

I can't relate with these at all. I realize that most people have an internal measure of "worth", but why? I don't assess myself, in interviews I detail facts about what I've achieved and let others do the assessment themselves. What good does it do to say (or even just feel) that I'm not good enough for a job that someone thinks I'm great for? I just do my best and hope that's enough. If not, they can always fire me. Why worry about it?

endofreach 5y ago

Just keep the lie going. I keep writing shit code - i am just lucky it doesn‘t look or run like shit, so nobody realizes. And i charge way too much for things that make my clients rich and work pretty good but are actually not good enough. And these idiots are falling for it happily and come back. I always thought of myself as an honest guy, though it seems that I am not. But then: who is. Honestly: I just hope some day this feeling parts.