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> I find it very hard to say "I did X" for anything except for personal projects that I did myself from start to finish. I come from a culture that has a simil

> I find it very hard to say "I did X" for anything except for personal projects that I did myself from start to finish. I come from a culture that has a similar approach, where taking sole credit for team efforts is typically viewed negatively. Took me a few years to get the hang of lying on interviews and taking sole credit for team efforts. And ironically, it only dawned on me when I became an interviewer myself. That's when I realized everyone lies on interviews. Especially interviewers. When everyone is playing the same game, it's a fair ground.

mewpmewp2 3y ago
You don't have to lie to talk in "I" form. You don't have to take the sole credit. Just be clear about what your influence was on the project. Not everyone lies on the interviews. I have absolutely never lied, and I can still use the "I" form. I usually make proportions of my involvements clear. For example if I start and architect/design the project, I will say so and then I will say I successfully onboarded others to the project and guided them successfully to achieve X results. If I didn't start it, I will describe it like "I worked on the project X, with 3 other people. My responsibilities were A, B and C. etc".
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> Just be clear about what your influence was on the project. God, stop being grandiose and talking about the project and deliveries. Did you implement a specific feature? Squash a a bug? Find a solution to a specific problem? If you didn't do any of those - specifically by yourself (or mostly so) I don't want you. Those are the key deliverables of a software developer.
andrewingram 3y ago
Reminds me of the thing where apparently every guy adds two inches to their height on dating profiles, whereas I deducted an inch because of poor posture. Apparently I was born with no guile (probably an exaggeration), which means in a world where nearly everyone tells what they consider to be harmless little lies, I’m actively damaging my own career prospects. I think everyone has their own definition of deception, and mine is the act of allowing (by making no attempt at intervention) someone to go away believing something you yourself know to be false. Which seems to be quite a strict one from what I’ve seen.

mewpmewp2 3y ago

You don't have to lie to talk in "I" form. You don't have to take the sole credit. Just be clear about what your influence was on the project. Not everyone lies on the interviews. I have absolutely never lied, and I can still use the "I" form. I usually make proportions of my involvements clear. For example if I start and architect/design the project, I will say so and then I will say I successfully onboarded others to the project and guided them successfully to achieve X results. If I didn't start it, I will describe it like "I worked on the project X, with 3 other people. My responsibilities were A, B and C. etc".

phkahler 3y ago
>> Just be clear about what your influence was on the project. God, stop being grandiose and talking about the project and deliveries. Did you implement a specific feature? Squash a a bug? Find a solution to a specific problem? If you didn't do any of those - specifically by yourself (or mostly so) I don't want you. Those are the key deliverables of a software developer.

andrewingram 3y ago

Reminds me of the thing where apparently every guy adds two inches to their height on dating profiles, whereas I deducted an inch because of poor posture. Apparently I was born with no guile (probably an exaggeration), which means in a world where nearly everyone tells what they consider to be harmless little lies, I’m actively damaging my own career prospects. I think everyone has their own definition of deception, and mine is the act of allowing (by making no attempt at intervention) someone to go away believing something you yourself know to be false. Which seems to be quite a strict one from what I’ve seen.