I feel this. I’ve done pretty well for myself — I have decades of practical experience and have risen to be a principal engineer at my work. I can write what I

I feel this. I’ve done pretty well for myself — I have decades of practical experience and have risen to be a principal engineer at my work. I can write what I feel is pretty solid, robust, performant, and well-architected code in many different languages across all ends of the stack from high-level UI to low-level system-level components. I don’t have a CS degree and am largely self-taught. I tend to struggle a lot with theory and I stink at algorithms. (I can generally understand them, but coding one from scratch would be a struggle since these fundamentals aren’t committed to memory and in the real world are rarely necessary to recall at the drop of a hat.) Given my non-traditional background and keen awareness of my blind-spots, I really struggle with impostor syndrome. I also fear the interview process because I don’t want to look stupid and come to realize my past success was driven by chance rather than smarts. I also know how much of a grind the entire process can be and how it seems like many interviewers are more interested in making themselves look smart rather than honestly assess a candidate. All of these things are probably more of a function of projection and insecurity rather than reality, but they all feel real to me.