
Is there a fix for impostor syndrome? - snaky
http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2018/is-there-a-fix-for-impostor-syndrome
======
alexquez
I've been in software for 14 years without a computer science degree and carry
a chip on my shoulder because I missed out on algorithms and compilers in
school. I'm mostly self-taught and have had the opportunity to run a SAAS
company for six years now (CodePen).

I'm winging it like many other people in our industry. I wish I'd had two
things to when I started my career.

1\. A right of passage that endorsed my skills as a competent developer (or
that educated me on what skills I'd yet to learn).

Something equivalent to what doctors have when they receive a medical license
and become board certified.

After five years on the job, no one cares about your cute degree but the
21-year-old version of me who knew nothing and was a tiny bit terrified of
being found incompetent cared.

You are born with a level of confidence (unsubstantiated and unproven), but
you can also earn it by doing a substantial amount of work.

A right of passage within the software industry that showed a fundamental
level of competency beyond the fizz-buzz test would've worked wonders for the
young me.

2\. A formal mentor.

I spent years flailing within technology. I learned the wrong things, dove
deep into the wrong technology (Java Swing :|) and made obvious mistakes. In
retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started who
could have validated my work and guided my efforts.

Alas, software development is free, unregulated and open to all. That is what
makes it beautiful. That is what makes it frustrating.

~~~
kendallpark
> Something equivalent to what doctors have when they receive a medical
> license and become board certified.

In the US this requires four 8+ hour exams, spread out over at least seven
years of training; each exam requires months of preparation. I have a hard
time imagining most programmers would elect to jump through those sorts of
hoops just to feel more confident about their jobs.

> In retrospect, I would have paid to work for a capable mentor when I started
> who could have validated my work and guided my efforts.

I think this idea definitely has some merit. I was very fortunate that my
first big job after getting my CS degree was on a very agile team that leaned
toward the bleeding edge. I wonder if there could be a way for programmers to
rate the development environment of certain companies.

~~~
Raidion
I think a better equivalent would be something like the FE exam that
mechanical engineers take out of college. It's given right at the end of
college, but could be given at any time for self taught programmers.

Hard part is implementing the test to be (almost) purely problem solving and
agnostic of language.

------
js8
I might have an impostor syndrome at work. And I am somewhat anxious about it.
And I feel like it decreases my performance by quite a bit. And luckily, my
managers understand it and are very supportive of me.

However, I have a question (and this is going meta). Maybe my managers are too
understanding about it. Sometimes I wish they give me a harder time, and feel
like I don't get reprimanded for failure enough and strangely, it exacerbates
the feeling of being an impostor.

It's not like I would enjoy being wrong or beaten up for it, it's just
sometimes I feel like I can afford being somewhat lazy because of that, and I
don't think that's right. So I am not sure I entirely agree with the
recommendation of the article.

Or to reword it as a question: Cannot the positive thinking actually hurt the
person having an impostor syndrome?

Maybe we are all impostors, and I just happen to be the one most suited for
the task.

~~~
madaxe_again
_Maybe we are all impostors_

This, a thousandfold.

I have struggled with impostor syndrome throughout my life - it doesn’t help
that my 35 years to date look like a smacked out Mary Sue fantasy. In my
previous business I often felt like I was pulling the wool over the eyes of
the world - what right did I have to lead these people, to charge those
people, to make these decisions?

Well, none, _and neither does anyone else_.

Through my dealings with other business owners, from small outfits through to
the gods of the world of commerce, I have come to realise that _everybody_ in
any position of power or responsibility is faking it to some degree or another
- or even more interestingly, they _believe_ they are faking it, even when the
results are tangible and real. I often find just talking to other people in a
similar position really helps, as you rapidly realise that not only is what
you’re feeling not unique, it is practically a universal maxim.

Where I ended up was concluding that we are all wittingly or unwittingly
impostors, and the only actual question is whether it’s something worth being
bothered by.

It’s the unwitting impostors you have to keep an eye on - hubris and
incompetence are a dangerous combination.

Being aware of your own limitations brings humility, which is good in that it
imbues striving, through which you grow your limits.

In short, we are all impostors. Being aware of and treating this as a law of
being is a useful step in understanding both yourself and how to optimally
operate the world in which we live.

People will agree to almost anything which makes them feel like less of an
impostor.

~~~
catach
Perhaps we feel compelled to assume that the people in charge know what
they're doing since the alternative is deeply unsettling.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
That's also one hypothesis of why people are prone to believe in conspiracy
theories: the alternative to believing in some malevolent force controlling
everything towards some ultimate end goal is that no one is really in control
and stuff just kind of happens. Some people find the latter more disturbing.

~~~
catach
Ah right, that context is where I first encountered the idea. Thanks for the
reminder.

------
cyberferret
My semi-cynical, 35+ years in the industry advice? Avoid blogs, forums,
podcasts, social media pages, news sites that only focus on the 1% of startups
that make it 'big' seemingly overnight.

Go out and talk to fellow entrepreneurs, hackers, company founders and people
in the industry, and you will quickly find out that _everyone_ , and I mean
EVERYONE goes through a heartless grind and struggle to get things done or to
make a difference. Connect with these people on a far deeper level than just
making money or comparing tech stacks and identify what it is that gets them
out of bed each morning with a spring in their step. If it is the same reasons
that get YOU out of bed every morning, then sign them up as your support buddy
so you can measure (and they can help you measure) the _real_ metric that
makes you tick. No room for impostor syndrome in this scenario at all.

~~~
sus_007
I totally agree with your statement, but how can one compensate for the fear
of missing out of new technologies, interesting discussions among interesting
people sharing their insights to the problem in hand, like you're doing with
us at the moment. That's the only reason I check Hacker News, or some
Subreddits multiple times a day, so that I won't miss that one non-upvoted
post which could have proven significant to me, whether personally or
educationally.

~~~
vitaflo
FOMO is a trap. You're looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead you
should let someone else bring the needle to you.

If something is worth your time, someone you know and trust will bring it up
to you. The more people you talk to and interact with, the more likely you are
to be offered up information that is actually significant to you. It is also
more likely to have a real impact because human interaction is more "sticky"
than a simple website post.

What you're doing now is akin to throwing a Bubble sort at the problem. It's
slow, inefficient and a waste of time.

------
sethammons
On mobile, sorry for typos.

I've experienced imposter syndrome hard. One of my first jobs was a small
programming gig, but I switched careers twice before securing a job as a
"real" developer. Oh, man, what I didn't know. Everything was new. Source
control? Neat! Unit test? Wow! I was so far behind. I worked hard and
researched everything I could that I heard someone talk about more than once.
If I couldn't find information on it and it came up again, I'd ask a person on
the side what it was. I _knew_ I was out classed and I figured I'd never catch
up.

Fast forward a year or so and I was working harder problems and harder code
bases and still felt inadequate. Everyone was so much smarter and experience
than me. They saw solutions before I saw problems. I was still learning so
much, but how could I catch up?!

About a year later, our company introduced 360 Reviews. For those not in the
know, that means your peers (and it should be a mix of people you've worked
with from other teams and your team) anonymously give you a review and talk
about percieved strengths and areas in need of growth. I thought, "oh,
shit..".

I turned out that people I respected and looked up to had really positive
things to say, and they called out where I could improve (and I since I agreed
with the improvement areas, I thought maybe I could agree with the strengths
too). It was so uplifting to read how folks said they could rely on me, that I
had great knowledge that they wanted more access to, and other great stuff. I
began to question my imposter syndrome.

A few more rounds of that while continuing to grow in my roles, and my
imposter syndrome has faded from a roaring stampede to background noise. I
fully credit 360 reviews coupled with striving to do better as a fix for my
imposter syndrome.

~~~
robohoe
We are our own worst critics.

------
antyph
I had it for most of my career until I realized that I should trust the
opinion of the people who employed me. They had read my CV, marked my tests,
interviewed me repeatedly and decided they liked me and trusted my abilites,
so I should too. Sure, in my mind I'm not as good as hundreds of brilliant
people I look up to, but that's ok. It's not about being on a linear scale,
it's about fitting a niche.

~~~
giancarlostoro
This is great advise, I also find talking to the right people about doubts
helps too, we all get trapped by our doubts, and it's up to us to free
ourselves from those doubts, but sometimes you need to hear from someone else
that it's all just a mirage and you were never really trapped to push forward.

------
munin
It's funny how grad school is designed to bring out the impostor in you, kind
of like a negative image of the different kinds of "impostor" listed.
Obviously each of these is false in their own way, but these are messages that
you will be given / experience during your PhD, so it's no wonder how people
come out the other end thinking like this:

1\. "The Expert": your advisor/other professors/students will make fun of you
or berate you if you don't know "everything" i.e. if asked to list relevant
sources you list twelve and forget the thirteenth.

2\. "The Perfectionist": your advisor will never say that a work is "good" and
there are always ways to improve everything, the good parts will go
unmentioned while the warts will be called out for repair until eventually you
run out of time and ship it.

3\. "The Superperson": everyone else is always working, so why aren't you?

4\. "The Natural Genius": these are the words that your advisor and other
professors will use to describe "successful" students: genius, insightful,
gifted. Words your advisor will never use to describe someone positively:
hard-working. Hard-working is assumed. Everyone is hard-working. Everyone puts
in a lot of effort. Get over it.

5\. "The Rugged Individualist": Only work that you and you alone did "counts"
for your PhD, and credit is zero-sum. Debate carefully the authors you add to
your paper because they will take some of the "success" from your work.

~~~
gowld
It sounds like you attended a toxic grad school. Was your program in
Chemistry?

~~~
ent
Is this a joke about toxicity/chemistry or is the field of chemistry known to
be socially more toxic than other fields?

~~~
gowld
Chemistry has a reputation

[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/21/us/after-suicide-
harvard-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/21/us/after-suicide-harvard-
alters-policies-on-graduate-students.html)

> Eight graduate students have committed suicide at Harvard since 1980,
> officials said -- not an unusual rate for a university. > Of those, three
> have been in the laboratory of Mr. Altom's adviser, Elias J. Corey, a Nobel
> Prize-winning chemist. > But Dr. Long asserted today that by all
> indications, the first two deaths, one last year and one in 1987, had
> nothing to do with the students' work in chemistry. > One student, he noted,
> had been very successful in his work, and the other had barely begun.

------
eight_ender
I've felt imposter syndrome badly before, even while I was climbing ranks and
getting excellent reviews. Now I manage developers and, while not a cure, the
best I can do is constant feedback, and to urge them to find their
"superpower". This sounds terrible but hear me out.

Years ago, after a string of programming jobs at, what I didn't know at the
time, "boring enterprise" programming jobs, I felt like the top dog alpha
supreme of developers. I sought out more pay and bigger challenges, and landed
a job at a promising startup with 25 people.

This turned out to be my introduction to hard mode. I was dumped into a team
with probably the eight smartest coders in the region, working on problems
with huge scale, and immediately felt the fear. I cranked out code as fast as
I could, as best I could, and still felt inadequate.

Then, months in, I discovered something that made everything better. My
background wasn't in engineering. I went to college for Graphic Design, coding
was a hobby from a young age, and a career I fell into. No one else was as
interested in the UI/UX of our platform, they were deferring to me because I
was constantly pushing code to improve it. This was my "superpower". That and,
as it turns out, "boring enterprise" experience with Oracle, J2EE, and scaling
also really comes in handy sometimes.

Years later I'm enjoying being a manager but the Imposter Syndrome is creeping
back in. The difference this time is that I'm not scared of it, I see it as a
challenge. I haven't found what my superpower is in this role. It causes
anxiety yes, but also a drive to find a balance and purpose. If it turns out I
don't have any special powers in management then maybe it's not the job for
me, I'll step back and enjoy what I did previously. If I discover I'm good at
it then I'll continue upward.

Everyone can rise to a position where they're incompetent. Imposter Syndrome
is your brain being extra cautious. Sometimes it's off the mark, and sometimes
it's exactly right. The key is that when you agree with it that you understand
that's not a bad thing. Being an extra super great developer is just as useful
as being a ground pounding monster of a VP of Development.

~~~
humanrebar
> ...urge them to find their "superpower".

Might I suggest "specialty", "focus area", or "expertise". Maybe "competitive
advantage" if you're talking to business types.

I like to tell engineers that their job is to be an expert. Find some area
that we need more experts in. Read, experiment, troubleshoot, tweak, document,
teach, and whatever else you need to do to be the person _others_ rely on when
they need an expert in that area.

~~~
Zombieball
For what it’s worth Amazon HR specifically chose the term “superpower”.

Not sure it needs to be replaced.

~~~
sethammons
I'd argue that superpower construes an innate ability, potentially something
that does not need future nurturing to grow. I think this is bad. A term that
suggests you can grow into a niche or area of expertise would be much more
encouraging for someone I'd think.

~~~
Zombieball
But a lot of super heroes are just regular folks who gain their special
abilities (super powers). Granted after being bitten by a radioactive spider
(or something of that nature).

------
zwischenzug
I'm always reminded of a story I read from Orson Welles' daughter. Welles had
dinner with her one night (he was mostly absent from her life) and she
commented that her husband said she was a good writer but lacked confidence,
and this was what was stopping her.

Welles derisively remarked 'Confidence? Forget confidence. If you want to
write, just do a lot of it!'

I'm paraphrasing from memory, but the implication was that confidence as a
prerequisite was bunk. You only get confident by doing more of it than others
and realising that you're the expert now whether you like it or not. That's
definitely been my experience. Every time I've been called an expert I wince
because I know someone else who's better at it than me, or someone I consider
more talented, or whatever. Every performance review I have is an argument
with my boss where they have to reassure me I'm actually capable in my job
title and among my peers. It's surreal.

I've also come to accept that marketing and pushing yourself out there is
fine, as long as you don't get an unrealistic sense of your own worth. You
realise there's a wide band of abilities and knowledge and you won't be able
to cover them all. And that's fine. There's still value to others in putting
yourself out there.

~~~
karlta05
I feel that the problem is comparing yourself to others the "to be the best
you must beat them" attitude.

I tend to feel that you should compete with who you were yesterday and get
assistance from others i.e. learning from them.

------
karlta05
I'm not normally one to comment here but this is just an awesome topic.

I have about 8 years experience in the industry. In the beginner of my career
I did feel a bit of the impostor syndrome. Quite frankly, it was because I had
this ideal of what a programmer ( or whatever buzz word title) should be. As I
got on with my career I slowly realized no-body gives a shit. Its just HR that
give those titles.

I also found that I accepted the fact that I will just not know everything. I
will never tick all the boxes of what a job may require...

So moving forward to now. I don't care at all for titles. I just want to code
and I want to TRY write some good code. I compare myself to nobody else and
just talk and learn from everybody. I have learned equally from a juniors as I
have from a senior developers.

I continue to chug along with the mindset that I am a crappy developer.
Therefore always interested in learning and always open to whatever somebody
else has to add. I will never be the smartest programmer or the best
programmer. That's ok because I will learn more from the programmers that are.

I'm just enjoying the ride.

~~~
abhirag
"The humble improve" \-- Wynton Marsalis :)

------
magice
Frankly, are we overthinking this?

IMHO, 99% of human emotions have reasons of existence. It just makes
evolutionary sense (or, if you prefer, it helps us serve the intelligent
maker(s) better). Maybe we SHOULD have impostor syndrome, as well as shyness
and awkwardness and diffidence and stress and whatnot. Maybe we should EMBRACE
them instead of treating them like unwanted baggage of lizards.

One of my memory on this: one night (2 yrs ago?), I woke up with cold sweat,
with a terrible dream: I just got paged and I didn't even know where to start
debugging. It's horrible time.

You know what happened next? Next few days, I compiled a list of "essential
documentations" (plus all the juicy links for debugging). On-call rotation
came. I did get page. Different from the dream, I did not forget all of the
crappy code (that I had lovingly written). However, the list helped immensely.
And whenever my teammates had on-call cold feet, I shared the list. Life
rocked. (for a while....)

I was told that we humans freaked ourselves into actions. Deadlines press for
action. Pressure elevates the flow and sharpens the focus. Challenges inhibit
daydreams and sweeten successes.

So, again, here is my take: why can't we just embrace impostor syndrome? After
all, we need some fire on our behind of get our acts together, no?

------
ztjio
Funny story, in 15 years of professional software development I never
experienced the sense of imposter syndrome until very recently when I decided
after 12 years at one employer (on many satisfying projects) I needed to
consider expanding my employment options. AKA I started looking for a new job.
Once I got a whiff of the putrid state of hiring in our industry today holy
hell...

Sure, I’ve been successful at this for 15+ years, delivering at or above
expectations at almost 100% rate with some great individual excellence tossed
in for good measure. But I am 99% sure I’d never pass an interview for a new
job doing exactly what I do now. Am I even a software engineer developer
programmer whatever?

It has been a very disconcerting experience.

Anyway, I figure the feeling of being an imposter is just a natural
subconscious reaction to what seems like an entirely alien definition of what
my job is vs. what other employers seem to expect from someone doing my job.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed this disconnect as so many
links/threads on HN allude to.

It certainly has given me a good deal of anxiety, though, I don’t really see
what choice I have but to accept this nonsense and try to prepare for it.
Luckily I haven’t been feeling any depression or burnout or any other obvious
mood impact from the whole experience, but, I could see that happening if I
had less confidence in my ability to fill in my knowledge gaps, even if it’s
for nothing beyond an interview.

~~~
naner
Similar situation: I have a history of obtaining lower level positions and
then quickly rising up to higher level engineering position within the same
company (this has happened with two employers). I don't think this can
reliably be used as a general strategy, I just have been lucky with employers.
This doesn't give me a huge amount of confidence when considering my chances
at getting a new job comparable to the level I'm at now.

Also the past few times I have seen the job posting for a position I've held,
based on the job posting I'd assume I was unqualified. There's a bazillion
buzzwords and technologies in our industry and it's difficult to account for
how experience carries across related technologies (or not directly related
technologies) in a job description. So employers end up just listing every
technology you may touch and add an 'X years experience required'.

On the other hand, having worked with several engineers of varying backgrounds
at my company and our partners I don't feel like an imposter at all in my
actual abilities, knowledge, and performance.

~~~
donkeyd
This week I got to see the job posting for a replacement of a colleague of
mine. The first requirement was 3 years of experience with a product we don't
even directly use. I'm pretty sure the only reason it's in there, is that HR
requires it for working in our department, even tough our specific team
doesn't even touch it. The same line also requires "Java, Java script", while
it's a backend Java position with literally no JavaScript work.

I already told my manager that with the maximum wage (shown in the posting)
and the listed requirements, none of my peers would even try to apply. Even if
they were an extremely good fit for the actual job.

~~~
jacquesm
The process through which a typical job posting is created is seriously broken
in most organizations.

------
karmicthreat
My first for real full-time software engineering job was for a very small
company. I was self-taught and their only software developer was leaving in 3
months, but had mostly checkout out already. The company environment was find
but all the software was terrible.

Over that first year there it was basically the Klingon Rite of Ascension.
Fighting fires and trying to keep the company afloat. I had no backup/mentors
and if I failed then the company was done. I was near tears (or privately at
tears) at a few points from frustration and stress. In the end I think this
experience made me a better person for it.

First I was forced to learn how to manage stress. This was a big one and one I
had never mastered before. Next I need to be able to juggle and prioritize
actual company needs, not just what people told me to do. I couldn't spend all
my time fixing things when our customers also needed our product to work. I
also handled much of the customer support at this point because most of the
issues were software related.

In any case, in the end I pulled the company back from its instability. This
gave me a good amount of confidence that I am a good engineer. That no matter
what gets thrown at me I can fix any of our problems and develop new systems.
Even if I need to outsource some of the work to people who are better at
particular platforms.

This probably isn't a healthy way to overcome impostor syndrome, but its how I
did.

------
ardit33
My theory is that "impostor syndrome" is just another facet/manifestation of
anxiety.

While many people do have anxiety time to time, for some the degree is high,
and it manifests as the impostor syndrome. (worrying if they are good enough,
or over anxious about the tasks not being done correctly, feeling not being a
good performer, etc, when they are actually performing great).

I'd say, the same CBT techniques that help people deal with anxiety will help
with the 'impostor syndrome' as well. (things like gradual exposure, getting
used to the new situation, stepping back and accurately assessing the
situation (like a third person) etc).

~~~
vvanders
I dunno, I feel like imposter syndrome has a bit more existential roots rather
than just a manifestation of anxiety.

------
MR4D
I’ve read thru a bunch of the comments (many of which echo my own thoughts on
my career), and have a thought:

Why is computer programming taught in universities?

Seriously. There are many people who learned some things but not what they
would have wanted to learn when they look back on their life.

I wonder why programming can’t be like welding [1]. There are many different
types of welders, from the person welding a spacecraft, to your backyard bbq.
And everything in between. Welding stainless steel is totally different from
welding aluminum. And welding on alloys is like it’s from a different planet.

The welding field has many certifications for different things. We depend on
their work every day. Yet they don’t go to college. And their mistakes can
kill people.

Programmers on the other hand, should be able to have cerifications on things
like data structures, communication methods, data stores & indexing, UX, etc.

That would be a much better use of people’s time than what we’ve been doing.

[1] [https://www.aws.org/certification/page/certified-welder-
prog...](https://www.aws.org/certification/page/certified-welder-program)

(EDIT): yes, I read the article, but my post is more targeted at the HN
comments. For what it’s worth, the article didn’t reference overly-worked blue
collar fields like welding, hence why I used it as an example.

~~~
bluejekyll
Programmers are not just welders, or should not be equated to welders. Welders
have a blueprint, generally, to work from. There is someone who’s had to
design how to form the thing being welded.

Software engineers are constantly asked to design and build the things they
work on. It’s not a straightforward process of sticking two things together,
based on some predefined blueprint.

We make the blueprints while we code. On top of that, systems as they come
together sometimes show problems that need fixes, because of the scale of the
system. Then we need to completely redesign for the newer bigger problem.

Using the welding analogue, sometimes you start building a BBQ, and end up
making a bicycle or a rocketship.

~~~
MR4D
Good clarification. Programmers are like welders. Architects aren’t. They may
be welders or programmers, but they lay out the structure and define how it
connects to the world.

Programming is different (way different) than architecture. In my mind, and
part of the reason for the post is that we are expecting programmers to be
architects. We shouldn’t. It’s a different discipline.

~~~
karlta05
I really agree with your point on certifications. We are similar to welders in
my mind as well.

In my country, our software industry holds certifications higher that degrees.
Certifications require to be updated and redone every so often. Even though a
degree will teach you fundamentals, I do believe you will learn those in the
job and with the certification but a certification really is that.... its to
certify that you are adequate in a certain technology.

All of my job interviews have required me to show them my abilities with
whatever tech they require.

Another point I would like to make is that I work with people with degrees and
I have certifications. Their degrees are more than 10 - 20 years for some. How
much has technology changed in that time? I have to keep redoing my
certification every 2 years (microsoft for example). And to me 2 years is a
long time in the software industry.

------
spronkey
IMO the fix is for our industry as a whole to stop reinventing the wheel with
yet-another-incompatible-alternative.

My personal imposter syndrome feelings are almost always related to either a)
not knowing the "replacement" to an existing technology I am already familiar
with (in almost all cases it's two steps forward one step back anyway), or b)
not using a technology for a somewhat extended period of time, then coming
back to it and realising that the landscape and ecosystem has completely
shifted from underneath me.

The latter has hit me most hard lately in iOS development with the move to
Swift (and then v2, v3), deprecation of NS*, autolayouts, APNS' http2 etc etc,
and in JavaScript development.

We have far too many technologies that have established niches that all
accomplish largely the same goals, but aren't transferrable. These days,
boosting the toolchain for these technologies is a big feature too, which
increases the differences between ecosystems. They require sometimes hundreds
of hours of learning to become competent in, even for an expert in another
similar technology.

It's some sort of crazy arms race that we don't seem to want to stop...

~~~
jacquesm
Frontend work is brutal. It's as fickle as the fashion industry, only it
doesn't have quarterly updates but roughly every second Monday.

------
jeffreyrogers
Yes. Make something hard. Impostor syndrome comes from feeling like you can't
do the things people expect you to be able to do, so if you can point to
concrete evidence that you're capable of doing something difficult (whether on
a team at work or in a personal project you did 100% yourself) you'll greatly
reduce any feelings of impostor syndrome you may have.

~~~
jjuel
But what if you struggle with it (even if you eventually finish)? What if you
look back and think that code could be much better? There are still so many
things that can creep into your mind making you think you aren't as good as
you might actually be. Sure it may reduce a little, but it is a temporary
relief. At least in my experience.

------
roselan
After 20 years as a programmer with various employers/clients, I noticed the
impostor syndrome when I was alone on projects (or in small teams). But when I
was working with big teams in traditional fields like bank or retail, I felt
something more akin to the Dunning-Kruger effect...

When alone, I compare myself to people in the videos I watch, People like
Hickey, Carmack, Crockford, etc. I can't handle a candle to them! But when in
BigCorp, intertia is massive, people souls have long been sucked out, and you
feel shackled. This make you believe that you can accomplish way more than the
median person (which is of course probably wrong).

~~~
jonbarker
This is a great explanation. I've long thought about these two conflicting
effects, and I think as you pointed out it has something to do with what
nowadays gets described as 'culture'. Dunning-Kruger seems to dominate in the
'everyone gets a trophy' culture in which I was raised; whereas in cultures
that (at least in the way they speak about themselves) pride themselves on
meritocracy, leaderboards, stack ranking, and the like, the impostor syndrome
probably takes over.

------
proverbialbunny
Imposter syndrome is caused by improperly comparing ones own abilities to
others.

The better one is at modeling another person the more accurate they will
compare themselves to others, and from that the less severe their imposter
syndrome will be. This is a learned skill.

>Is there a fix for impostor syndrome?

To outright nuke imposter syndrome permanently first some new vocabulary that
will explain how to do this:

In Pali there is the word māna, which is sometimes called conceit, but is
definitely not a standard use for the word conceit, and is very much not
English. A quote to explain the concept behind the word māna:

"There is conceit or pride when we consider ourselves important. Because of
conceit we may compare ourselves with others. There can be conceit when we
think ourselves better, equal or less than someone else. We may believe that
there can be conceit only when we think ourselves better than someone else,
but this is not so. There can be a kind of upholding of ourselves, of making
ourselves important, while we compare ourselves with someone else, no matter
in what way, and that is conceit." source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81na](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81na)

These comparison cause many kinds of anxiety, including imposter syndrome. The
solution to not create māna, but to instead create a kind of comparison that I
think of as an "Apples and Oranges" comparison. It is seeing the differences
in everything, in a way that has all of the benefits of a normal comparison,
but one that does not construct a better and a worse. Everything is different.
Everyone has their own advantages and disadvantages. With no better and worse,
especially when this better or worse is attached to ones identity, there will
be no more psychological stress in this way.

~~~
karlta05
awesome post. Thank you.

------
dbliss
Being prepared. This is what I have found to be the most helpful. I'm an SDM
at a big tech company, and when I was hired I thought they must have made a
mistake. I felt like an imposter in meetings and managing my team for a long
time. I was able to relieve the anxiety by focusing on always being the most
prepared person in the room (ie. read everything before hand, try to
anticipate questions and answers, speak with confidence [fake it 'til you make
it]). Eventually this just became second nature and the thing I was doing
didn't feel like I was an imposter anymore. I just recently changed roles to a
new org and I feel the same anxiety creeping back in, so this a pep talk for
myself too. The thing to remember is you got where you are for some reason,
try to think about the positive attributes you know you have, and just keep
practicing the rest. Good luck!

------
darkerside
> This is perhaps why women may be more likely to feel like impostors, because
> they typically do not see themselves reflected and reinforced—in some sense,
> validated—in the same way that men do.

For some reason, I was irked by this comment which seems to be completely
unsubstantiated.

~~~
Regardsyjc
The author says you can feel like an imposter when you're a minority, whether
gender or race. I think there's much evidence out there about women that are
not being validated in the tech and startup space the same way as men... Just
look at female founder statistics.

~~~
darkerside
I just find it best to keep those kinds of complaints extremely specific.
Maybe the founder validation statistics you're talking about have changed
since the last study was done. Imagine we'd fixed all race and sex
discrimination problems (bear with me for a moment). By leaving unfounded
statements like the above littered across the internet, we'd be ensuring that
future generations of minorities also feel a vague sense of inferiority. This
causes the exact kind of uncertainty the author is concerned about.

~~~
Regardsyjc
I interpreted that you could feel imposter syndrome simply from the fact that
you don't look like you belong and thus minorities have a more difficult time
because they can't hide because their difference is literally visible.

When it comes to women or minorities in tech or female founders, if the
statistics aren't good enough I believe it's easily visible. Even Google has
an atrocious amount of Hispanic or African American engineers. If you work in
tech look around your office or at the next tech conference. The lack of
visibility is a big problem because it gives the subtle message that you don't
belong.

Future generations of minorities won't feel a vague sense of inferiority from
reading comments like these, they will have the benefit of seeing who was
right or wrong. In fact they might be more amazed by the amount of
ignorance...

~~~
darkerside
People ride to the level of their expectations. If you expect them to feel
isolated and alone because others "don't look like them", it's more likely
they will. If you expect them to not work about it and do good work, they're
more likely to do that. And the end result is more diversity, just like when
East Asian and Indian engineers started working in tech, did good work, and
continued to be gainfully employed.

I'm not denying there are systemic problems that affect different ethnic
groups differently, but I'm very confident that moaning about visible
diversity in tech is not the best way to fix it.

------
Traubenfuchs
Stop treating being an impostor as something bad. See yourself as con artist
who succeeds in senior developer, architect and management jobs without the
required skills.

~~~
onion2k
Impostor syndrome is bad because you fear being fired for not being able to do
your job, or being dropped as a speaker because you're not worth listening to,
or your career stalling because you can't compete with other people who seem
to be better than you.

Suggesting that sufferers _accept that might actually be true_ is not helpful.

~~~
ramblerman
> Suggesting that sufferers accept that might actually be true is not helpful.

On what are you basing that? It's an interesting insight. Thinking of the
world as one big pool of impostors might be equally relieving.

~~~
onion2k
_Thinking of the world as one big pool of impostors might be equally
relieving._

He said "See yourself as con artist...", not "See _everyone_ as con artist..".
Believing that most people feel this way may well be helpful. Believing that
you're not good at what you do but you've successfully faked it definitely
isn't.

------
wakkaflokka
I have always had impostor syndrome, but also a somewhat revelatory idea that
most people are just human beings full of shit too. Let me explain.

In college, I revered my professors - always thought of them on a higher
plane, so much smarter than everybody. Same with doctors. Then I go to grad
school, and realize that my fellow classmates (who have become professors, or
the ones in MD/PhD programs doctors/surgeons), are smart indeed - but not on
some super-human super-intelligent level who's batting way above my level like
I felt in undergrad. It's like all of a sudden I realized that people in those
positions are humans like me and aren't on some higher plane. I mean, maybe
there are a few people who truly are. But most of the people I revered are
regular joes (who most definitely work hard). Similar to looking up to adults
when you're a kid, then realizing they're human beings with flaws once you
grow up.

On the flip side, I constantly feel like I don't know what I'm doing compared
to other people. Doesn't matter what level I reach in my career, it's all the
same - that data scientist over there _truly_ knows his stuff, I'm just faking
it. That manager over there _truly_ knows his stuff, I'm just faking it. And
you know what? Maybe there's some truth to it. But the truth I've found is
that if that's the case, there's probably an exceeding number of people who
are 'faking it' too, so I'm in good company at least.

I also tend to conflate 'faking it' with confidence. In grad school, all of my
published papers would have so many caveats - "the results suggest that maybe
possibly potentially .... " or "the results suggest that ____, with the
caveat" or "we possibly found evidence..." My advisor always had to change my
wording around to be at least a little more definitive because journals would
pick up on the wishy-washy statements. Now in the corporate world, people
expect definitive statements because putting 'possibly, maybe' in every
sentence doesn't exude confidence that higher ups or customers want. So in a
way when I say something in a confident manner when I'm only 80% to 90%
confident, I feel like I'm faking it.

------
mirimir
> I asked some of my male colleagues whether they also experience impostor
> syndrome and got a resounding yes. In researching the topic for this column,
> I read an article that suggested even Albert Einstein felt this way at
> times.

Damn.

It's hard to compare oneself objectively with others. Not that it's ever such
a great idea. For others, you only know what they accomplish, plus whatever
they're willing to share about the process. But for oneself, everything is
laid bare. All the uncertainty, false starts, mistakes, dead ends, and so on.

~~~
flyingcircus3
I've thought about it in the converse. Imagine it's just after Einstein
releases his paper explaining the theory of special relativity. Given what we
know now about it, and it's ramifications, if Einstein truly understood this
idea at anything close to this level we do now, how difficult must it have
been to explain the bedrock concepts to those first few people that read it.
Simply because it was such a radical idea, whether true or not, it must have
been a pretty tall order to get his peers on board, as it changed so much
about the current understanding of the universe.

I also think in this frame of mind for people like Copernicus, and how
controversial his mathematical formulas and expertise must have been, simply
because of the magnitude of the sea change that ensued from confirming the
ideas.

~~~
mirimir
As I recall, his intuitive insights about special relativity were the easy
part. But he had to learn the mathematics required to coherently explain them.
There must have been many opportunities for confusion and self doubt.

~~~
flyingcircus3
And that's my point. Just imagine how many times he must have heard some
variation on the phrase "Newton has been right this whole time. His laws and
ideas are too big to fail"

The accumulation of frustration of not being able to elucidate what is obvious
to your inner thoughts, to the satisfaction of your peers, precipitates
impostor syndrome.

------
nambit
What's the opposite? I feel like I'm smarter than everybody else here (big 5
tech). Including Principal engineers, CEOs and VPs. I'll talk to some random
engineer who might impress me once in a while but for the most part, there's a
lot of smart people but there's a lot of dumb people. I consider myself near
the top.

I know this might feel like /r/iamverysmart but I'm self aware enough to know
that what I feel is not necessarily the truth. How do I combat this feeling of
superiority?

~~~
matte_black
Prove it and erase the doubt once and for all.

Too many people try not to feel superior but secretly feel deep down if they
tried to prove it they would come out superior, and so they keep a
subconscious sense of superiority under a veil of humility.

You will either discover you were not as great as you thought or you actually
are the best. There’s no other way.

~~~
soVeryTired
Exactly. We tend to judge other people by their actions, but we judge
ourselves by our intentions.

Similarly, we tend to judge others' intelligence by their achievements, but we
judge our own by _what we could do_.

------
eksemplar
I get it from time to time, most recently I got a massive chunk of it when I
was hired as an external examiner at my old university.

Whenever I do, I remind myself of a line from my first managing mentor that’s
stuck with me over the years. He was(is?) this immensely talented guy who
worked 70 hours a week, not because he had to but because he loved to, today
he runs two companies he started on his own since then. Anyway, I was a fresh
manager and had been mentored for about two months and I couldn’t figure out
why he was always so confident in any part of the professional life. Having
him as a mentor I’d seen behind the veil, he had the same amounts of
uncertainty and doubt as the rest of us. So I asked him how he was so
confident in his decision making and natural feeling of belonging. He told me
“fake it till you make it”.

I may have misunderstood what he meant by it. But I took the combination of
what he said and his own uncertainty to heart, and now I remind myself that
everyone feels like imposters, so you just pretend to belong with the other
imposters and eventually you’ll actually feel like you belong.

It’s worked wonders for me at least, but it obviously only works when you have
the required credentials. If you don’t you need to own up to your mistake and
get out.

------
k__
I have the feeling 90% of people who think they have imposter syndrome are
just bad at what they do.

Just because you work with people who are even wors doesn't make you good.

And just because people who are worse than you act like they not doesn't make
you better either.

~~~
rb808
Sounds like you're pretty arrogant.

But you do have a point that by definition 50% of developers are below
average. Nearly all developers are below average in at least some part of
their professional skills - but that is just normal.

For example doctors are the same, but a below average doctor is still
qualified and useful. Below average developers ie (half of us) are still
useful, doesn't make you an impostor.

~~~
k__
Oh no.

For years I had the impression that I'm an impostor.

One day this changed, I found that most people just talk big but are not
better than me, but I'm still average, they are just below average.

While yes, I'm still quite useful, I could be a better version of myself.

------
taneq
I think imposter syndrome can come from 'fronting', trying to always appear
perfect, always have all the answers, etc. which leads to ever-increasing fear
that people will 'find you out'.

Be humble and honest. Don't present yourself as "the expert". Ask questions.
Listen to people. Say "I don't know" if you don't know. You'll be surprised
how often the response is "me neither!"

~~~
baby
> Don't present yourself as "the expert"

This is a requirement for some jobs, like being a consultant :)

------
tudorconstantin
The lack of the imposter syndrome for me as a programmer is a signal that I
start to plateau. Therefore I kind of search to attain it by either negotiate
a higher pay, or start working with a new technology, or switch jobs. I lived
with this syndrome for the most part of my 12 years of professional
programming.

~~~
draugadrotten
I work in management and I treat impostor syndrome as a signal, like you.

I have recognized that I feel impostor syndrome when I am surrounded by people
who are great at what they do. Great coders, greatminds and great leaders. How
could I possibly compete with these people, my subconscious says.

Well, this is how I grow. Steel sharpens steel. I have learned to accept that
I am good at what I do, even when others are great at what they do. If I feel
impostor syndrom, it means I am surrounded by people who, given management is
good, will make everyone in the team grow and prosper. I will connect with the
people I can learn the most from.

When I no longer feels impostor syndrome it is because I am surrounded by
people who all treat me as their mentor or senior - and it is time to move on.

------
wellpast
The truth is you are an imposter. No one fulfills the perfect ideal of
whatever role they are playing (employee, manager, parent, etc). Recognize and
accept that you're an imposter and continually reach for the ideal.

There are various stresses (will I lose my job? etc) that are reasonable and
tangential to this idea of "imposter syndrome". The particular trick to
avoiding stress _directly related_ to this imposter syndrome is to dismiss it
as the scientifically unsound and useless idea that it is: that is to say, it
shouldn't exist: or put another way, your self-worth doesn't _have_ to be
derived from your capability, nor should it. Decouple your self-worth from
your professional ability; this may be hard in general or in our particular
culture/zeitgeist, but I think it's a losing battle any other way.

~~~
jm__87
I'm not sure that means you are an imposter. If your coworkers are equally
unfit for the job as defined by whatever high bar you've set for yourself,
then you belong there just as much as they do and you likely have a higher bar
for yourself than your employer has for hiring people. I agree that everyone
should strive to be the best that they can be but I think imposter syndrome is
a delusion some people have where they feel that they know less than everyone
around them and they worry their colleagues will find them out, when in
reality they are quite qualified. It doesn't automatically follow that if you
recognize that you haven't met your own standard that you would also believe
you haven't met your employers standards. I regularly feel I haven't done a
good enough job by my own standard but realize it is good enough for the goals
my employer has with regard to the work I'm doing.

------
gerbilly
I have a four year degree in Math/Comp Sci.

Most everyone else in my group have PhD's, and I don't feel I have impostor
syndrome.

I also have never been afraid of asking 'stupid questions' in meetings etc.

If they hired me, they must have done so for a reason (PhD's are not good a
writing production code, their words).

My advice for people who might have impostor syndrome, just put it out of your
mind, do a good job, and look for good feedback.

People with PhD's or Olympic gold medals or famous rock stars are people just
like you and me. They have some skills that are very developed, but others
skills may be shockingly lacking.

We are all a blend of abilities, and we are all on a journey. Where you are on
your path right now is exactly where you need to be, just as they are exactly
where they need to be.

------
rajacombinator
It seems to be a very 'millennial' syndrome. Were people complaining of
imposter syndrome 20 or 30 years ago? I wonder if it's because people born
after, say 1990, didn't have to 'hack' on computers much growing up, and hence
lack some of the environmental osmosis comfort level some older folks have. Or
could it be that programming has proliferated enough as a profession, and
programmers generally lack the social skills needed to mentor younger
generations, that more people seem to be experiencing this syndrome these
days?

~~~
arghwhat
I wouldn't call it "millennial" rather than "modern", and not just because I
_despise_ the American generation names.

I believe impostor syndrome requires both a bright mind, a successful career
in a mental labor job (academia, engineering, ...), and exposure to minds that
seem _brighter_. I doubt impostor syndrome is much of a problem in physical
labor jobs, as physical labor is easily observed, both by others and by
yourself (you can't hide failure in installing a tire on a rim).

Higher education, autodidactism through the internet and mental labor jobs are
much more wide-spread than they were a generation or two ago. Here in Denmark,
education inflation has basically made Ph.D.'s the norm.

The extremely filtered connectivity of social networks only showing each
others "best side" making them appear perfect, as well as a vast amount of
information available on the internet from brilliant scholars making your
knowledge seem insignificant, are great catalysts for an inferiority complex.
Combine that with an accomplished career, and you have impostor syndrome.

------
kornork
Makes sense to me. It's a vicious cycle: feel like you're an imposter, get
depressed and anxious, be less effective at your job, feel like you're an
imposter.

~~~
jonhendry18
And depression can cause you to overweight negative memories and discount or
ignore positive memories, which seems like it would exacerbate anxiety and
imposter syndrome.

------
talmand
I often have conversations with some of my juniors about imposter syndrome.
It's interesting how each of them think of it differently and apply it to
themselves differently as compared to their peers.

Some don't seem to have it at all and I've been unable to grasp why one is
different than the other. Sometimes it seems connected to self-confidence and
sometimes it is not.

Personally, these days I'm feeling it's connected to their seniors and how
they interact with them. Or at least how that interaction goes. It's something
that I've been pondering over but haven't gotten far enough along to have a
theory worthy over a blog post or anything.

As for me, a senior with a dozen plus years experience; I don't feel I've
really suffered from imposter syndrome. I've always felt comfortable in what I
know and the role I play in each of the positions I've had over the years.
I've always been honest with myself and others in what I know and don't know.
I suppose that helps in that aspect.

The only times I can think of that I felt the pains of imposter syndrome over
the years is during interviews. Mostly trying to equate what I know and my
experience with the expectations of people I don't know in an environment I'm
not familiar with.

------
alexashka
> _Impostor syndrome is associated with overwork, with an overly keen focus on
> pleasing others, and with an almost desperate drive to constantly achieve
> more._

We know the wages have stagnated, we know there are fewer and fewer jobs, and
stiffer competition.

Sane people as a result, overwork, try to achieve more, and try to please
superiors to get head.

It's just survival instincts. When you're on a sinking Titanic, you're pretty
stressed to get to be one of the people on one of the boats!

The alternative is to get together with your buddies, face your fate and play
some music together, while everyone else is scrambling.

Since playing music (playing computer games in your mom's basement) is frowned
upon, most people choose the 'try to make it' route. That route is stressful -
especially when you KNOW in your heart, you shouldn't be on that boat. Knowing
you shouldn't be on the boat, and yet trying to get on it, feels shitty. Yes,
yes it does.

Another way to look at it is, are we really on a sinking Titanic? Or are some
fuckers hoarding money at our expense making it so? I don't know that people
are intelligent enough to figure that one out, so it goes.

------
henriquemaia
From my experience, if you become too entangled in abstract tasks, this
impostor feelings starts to inevitably creep in, as you don’t have an actual
measure of success for what you are doing.

So my take is that once you start feeling that, you should find a manual
hobby, something that you produce with your hands, by your effort, even if
simple things. In my case, I sew. Since I do manual work, crafting solutions
for mundane things, I see the results of what I’m doing, I have a direct
contact between doing something and achieving something — again, even if just
a mundane thing.

This takes me out of my abstract world, where I tend to get lost, and from
measuring myself by the standards of others in tasks that are not quantifiable
in terms of real competence. By doing manual work, I take a much needed break
from the my intelectual work and demands. For a bit I feel more like a
_normal_ person, competent enough to do this particular manual job.

------
Regardsyjc
This article was very refreshing for me because each bullet point was like yes
this is totally how I feel. Even reading about this issue gives me a lot of
anxiety.

I built a 6 figure business on my own from $1500, imported my first goods from
overseas, been validated with mentorship from 7 and 8 figure business owners,
I'm now a board member of an org in my industry, and I still have extreme
amounts of imposter syndrome.

Even when I realized that the reason I'm not as successful as some of my peers
is because they started with a bigger investment than $1500 or that they built
their success over years... I can't help but be anxious over what I've
achieved in comparison to theirs when I end up thinking about it. I try not to
because it's not productive.

I wish there were more resources to overcome imposter syndrome as a founder or
business owner.

------
buserror
I've been trying to coach my wife out of this for years and years. She's very
smart, dedicated, hard working, talented, analytical and you name it -- she's
a fantastic person...

And she has perma-doubts. She recently refused to apply to a directorship
position in her job, because she didn't think she could do it.... even tho we
both agreed that she'd do a better job than the last _3_ in that same
position... And still, she doubts... I keep repeating her that the only thing
preventing her from doing anything is _herself_ and that _I_ have zero doubt
she'd grow to be excellent at that job as well...

Oh well, it'll take time :-)

------
simonswords82
The fix for imposter syndrome is to stop comparing one's self to others.

The definition of an imposter is: "a person who pretends to be someone else in
order to deceive others, especially for fraudulent gain."

So, if you feel you're an imposter, it's only because you're comparing
yourself to others who you feel are either doing it better than you in their
respective roles, or perhaps worse still you fear they could do your job
better than you.

In my experience, as a man with a semi successful software business and no
formal education in the industry - the only thing that has kept me from
falling under the imposter syndrome bus is just working harder and ignoring
others around me.

I love this snippet I saved from a Reddit post some years ago, I come back to
it from time to time when I've demotivated myself - typically by comparing
myself to others more "successful" than me:

\--

You do not make progress in climbing a "mountain" (neither real or ethereal)
by standing around gawking and whining about how much further or faster others
are climbing it.

You make progress climbing by putting one foot in front of the other, minute
after minute, hour after hour, day after day.

You gauge your progress ONLY and SOLELY on how much further up that mountain
you are NOW than you were a minute, hour or day ago.

As you continue to climb, you use the distance you have recently come to
motivate yourself to climb further and faster than YOU have done in the past.

You only need worry about others when they are directly in your way and
preventing you from making forward progress -- and even then it is best to
simply sidestep them and continue on your journey up.

When you reach some higher plateau, if you then want to take a breather and
greet the fellow climbers that have reached a similar plateau, that is fine,
but it does not matter if they have reached it faster or slower, before or
even after you -- the journey further upward for everyone is in the future,
not the past.

\--

P.S. I killed all my social media except for Linked In - that helped a bunch
too.

------
RivieraKid
Weird, this seems so common. I would guess that most of the people who feel
like frauds, actually are to some extent.

The impostor syndrome concept is so popular because people want to believe it.
It provides a simple black-and-white answer: I deserve my success, the
unpleasant emotions in the back of my head are just the result of impostor
syndrome, totally normal. But in fact, success is usually the result of both
ability and luck. Successful people have above-average ability and luck. So
from the point of view of a typical successful person, most equally-able peers
are less successful.

------
Bekwnn
Becoming a confident, capable solo developer. If you're able to make stuff by
yourself at decent speed and with good features, you can generally be
confident in your own skills based off results.

This doesn't account for interpersonal skills or skills for working in a team,
but if your imposter syndrome is about programming skills, just program by
yourself.

BUT, important to add is that you should be focused on improving, learning,
and experimenting. If you're just staying in your comfort zone you won't be
doing much more than busybody work.

------
incredible12345
In my experience - a large minority of developers, especially among young,
inexperienced, perhaps insecure developers, act like condescending know-it-
all's their colleagues. I think this is borne out of a fear of being
incompetent in comparison to other people who are also in the field.

For those who are not this way, or try not to be this way, I believe the
festering of gross dog-eat-you cultures in regards to hire-ability can also
fester imposter syndrome in many of us younger devs.

------
mythrwy
Gawd I get sick of hearing about impostor syndrome. Some people who claim to
have it really are impostors and use the syndrome to somehow indicate they
aren't.

No one knows everything. But do you know enough to get done what you need to
in an economically feasible timeframe relative to your peers? Or do you
perhaps do even better than they do? Not an impostor. If not then maybe you
are an impostor and should work on that. It's not a fixed state.

------
cejast
The worst thing about impostor syndrome for me is knowing whether you're
actually suffering from it, or whether you're actually an impostor.

It really is a vicious cycle.

~~~
upatricck
What i think helps, is not even asking if you are an impostor because it can
lead doubting yourself. We focus on doing our best work, then it will be to
others to determine whether we are good or not.

------
qubyte
I took the nuclear option and switched careers (there were other reasons too,
but it was one of the big ones) from academia to software engineering. Since
then I've stayed in a job no longer than 3 years and the constant need to
learn may have killed it off, which seems paradoxical.

Then again, I'm also honest to a fault since the switch. Nobody can think I'm
an imposter if it's obvious when I don't know stuff!

------
solipsism
I feel it and it works to my advantage. My workplace is very good about
reminding everyone that imposter syndrome is normal. Knowing that, I use it to
motivate me to try harder and get better.

I guess part of this is coupling the inevitable feeling of "I don't belong"
with the idea that "I can belong". Knowing it's normal keeps me from being
truly worried about losing my job (for the most part).

------
ryandrake
I don’t think I’ve ever had a job I was qualified for, and to me that’s
totally ok. My personal view is that if you can land a job in a week of
interviewing, and/or you feel very comfortable/qualified to do your job, then
you are probably “punching way below your weight class” and need to reach
higher. If you’re not faking your way through at least something then you’re
not learning or growing.

------
bazza451
This is what helped me: on a level, everyone in every industry is bullshitting
one way or another because the future is unwritten. Who knows what may happen
tomorrow, you can only deal with it in the best way you can.

Just try and do the best job possible you can at the time. There will always
be people who know more but everything is a learning process, you’ll get to
that level eventually.

------
rdlecler1
Are people who are predisposed to imposter syndrome worse hires because this
becomes a self fulfilling prophecy? Are there even indicators?

~~~
sanderjd
> Are people who are predisposed to imposter syndrome worse hires because this
> becomes a self fulfilling prophecy?

That's an easy one: nope! All the best people I've worked with have struggled
with not feeling good enough while simultaneously doing stand-out work.

------
jancsika
Consistency, a non-didactic intellectual environment, and free speech go a
long way.

I'm only speculating that "non-didactic" is key. But let me put it to the
test:

Does anybody have an example of a person who swooped into a FLOSS mailing list
and posted a long didactic screed that ended up qualitatively changing that
FLOSS project for the better?

------
amelius
From the wikipedia page:

> It is not considered a psychological disorder, and is not among the
> conditions described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
> Disorders (commonly known as the DSM).

However, I'm wondering if that is justified. Also, I'm wondering if a
treatment for a mood disorder would affect impostor syndrome.

------
jonnybgood
I fixed it when I stopped comparing myself with other people. Why care what
other people are doing? I look at myself and focused on what I’m doing. How
well I do my job has absolutely nothing to do with how well they do their job.
And more importantly, life is bigger than my job. It’s not worth stressing
over.

------
nl
What do they call it when people wish they had impostor syndrome instead of
just being an impostor? I have that.

~~~
garmaine
That’s not something you’re equipped to tell objectively.

------
vecter
Fake it 'til you make it. The only way to get ahead in life. I've been doing
it for the past decade and it's worked out well.

(To be clear, this doesn't mean go around and blow hot air. It means to
believe in yourself despite what the little voices in your head may be telling
you)

------
cm2187
I have an impostor syndrome when I look at myself. I have a god complex when I
look at the alternative...

------
49bc
I'll tell you what pierced the veil for me: being involved with code reviews
and looking at other people's code. "Oh, THIS is what constitutes senior
software engineering? Then I'm much more skilled than I thought I was!"

------
Bromskloss
Is it taken for granted that the concerns of not being adequate always are
unfounded? What if you observe other people who are inadequate and shouldn't
be there? You can't have impostor syndrome on their behalf, can you?

------
majjam
I found Amanda Palmer's advice on this helpful, she calls it the 'fraud
police': [https://youtu.be/eA8XiC3m7vw](https://youtu.be/eA8XiC3m7vw)

------
peterwwillis
Well yeah, have confidence in yourself and stop judging yourself harshly.

Would you go around calling your coworkers impostors because they aren't smart
enough? No? Then don't do it to yourself. Yes? Stop being a jerk.

------
sigjuice
I for one don't feel smart enough to even experience impostor syndrome.

------
vfinn
I think honesty is a good way to fight against this syndrome. State what you
know, state when you have problems, and be open about your results. That way
simply doing your best should be enough.

------
twoquestions
Is there a way to tell the difference between your being underconfident in
abilities that you are actually competent at, and where you actually do
require remediation?

------
helsinki
I think working at a company where you’re one of the most valued employees,
even if only one job out of ten, it will mostly cure your impostor syndrome.

------
scarface74
I've never had imposter syndrome. I've always been honest about my
qualifications at interviews and I've always purposefully taken jobs where I
barely meet the qualifications. It's a great way to learn. This also meant the
first few months I spent plenty of extra time learning the technology that I
didn't know. If the company hired me despite knowing that I didn't know all of
the required technology, they must be willing to give me ramp up time.

------
cmrdporcupine
Working at Elite MegaBigCorp for the last 6 years... without a degree. My
imposter syndrome has become epic.

Now I just want to leave the industry.

Can I retire yet?

------
sidcool
No surprise to me. Of course the research quantities it, but I always had a
gut feeling of this being the case.

------
smsm42
There's a fix, of course. But it works only for a _real_ impostor syndrome,
not for the fake ones.

------
herbst
For me doing my own thing helped a lot. I learned that I can build and run
something successfull on my own.

------
grosjona
I have the opposite of impostor syndrome. I always feel like I deserve more
than I get.

------
sasaf5
Look at the worth of the things you do, not at the worth of who you are.

------
davebryand
Yes: dissolution of ego.

------
drewmol
Realizing the feeling is common helps.

theimposterroster.com

------
hardwaresofton
Aaaand self promotion:

[https://vadosware.io/post/the-cure-for-impostor-syndrome-
is-...](https://vadosware.io/post/the-cure-for-impostor-syndrome-is-knowing-
things/)

tl;dr - Stop claiming to be an expert at things you haven't delved into
deeply. Conversely, if you've delved into a subject deeply, there's a high
chance you won't feel like an impostor. If you don't have time (or resources)
to delve into something deeply, and understand thoroughly, accept that fact
and move on.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
Absolutely false. Being aware of your need to learn and improve is perfectly
normal and healthy.

Impostor syndrome hits experts, often when they are at their peak, while
beginners rarely experience it, hence the name "syndrome".

~~~
hardwaresofton
Could you restate what was "false"? Are you referring to the article or my
comment?

I didn't mean to state that being aware of your need to learn and improve
isn't normal or healthy -- but you can't learn about _everything_. You
literally don't have the time to learn (and practice, and implement in
production) everything as deeply and thoroughly to make you a tried and true
expert. You have to cut and run at some point, if you want to get anything
done. If you know anyone that constantly keeps every single piece of the
actual "stack" (and I don't mean AWS + your apps, I mean down to the assembly
at the very least) in their head, please direct me to them so I can learn how
they do it.

I don't think widely considered experts experience the impostor syndrome in
the same way that I see it explained. Experts on postgres internals don't
wonder if they're experts on postgres internals... _Maybe_ they worry if
they're good application developers, but that's a different thing.

~~~
anarazel
> I don't think widely considered experts experience the impostor syndrome in
> the same way that I see it explained. Experts on postgres internals don't
> wonder if they're experts on postgres internals...

Um. I'm an expert on PG internals. And I get impostor syndrome on stuff
related to PG internals.

~~~
hardwaresofton
But you don't get impostor syndrome on PG internals itself do you?

If you do, could you expand on the parts of PG internals that you know the
best (I assume that's what you've written/hacked on the most), and the parts
that you feel you don't know enough to be an authorative source on?

A sub-point of my post was that maybe people should avoid statements like "I'm
an expert at X" for a sufficiently complicated X. Maybe just say "I have a lot
of experience using X's feature Y, and dealing with Z when it occurs".

~~~
anarazel
> But you don't get impostor syndrome on PG internals itself do you?

I do.

> If you do, could you expand on the parts of PG internals that you know the
> best (I assume that's what you've written/hacked on the most), and the parts
> that you feel you don't know enough to be an authorative source on?

I've hacked, and in some of the cases authored, on many parts of postgres (I'm
a committer in the project), including physical and logical replication,
durability, locking, executor, JIT compilation, good chunks of the planner,
... There's a few parts of postgres that I don't know as well (SSI, some of
the PLs, gin/gist/spgist), but even there I know a good bit.

But that doesn't really matter. Even on code that _I_ personally wrote and
committed I get impostor syndrome like feelings. I've learned mechanisms to
cope and continue regardless. But I consciously have to do it.

I don't think you should disregard the fact that other people get impostor
syndrome quite so blithely.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Thanks for the feedback -- assuming you didn't mind, I've updated the post
with the conversation here.

------
nottorp
acm.org again... do they still block HN readers because they're an 'automated
process' ?

------
wedgeantilles
Get better at what you want to do.

------
philbarr
Does anyone else get that feeling like, "am I the only one who sees what a
load of shit this is?" I don't think it's imposter syndrome per se, but it's
related. It's like, "I'm the only one who can see the truth."

An example: years ago my old crooked boss brought everyone in to his huge
office to tell us why he couldn't afford to give people the pay rise they'd
been asking for. With a straight face and with his Aston Martin parked in
plain sight behind him. He gave some sob story about how a friend had come
round his house to ask for a loan and how he was so poor he could only afford
to lend the guy £800, even though his wife didn't want him to. It was
pathetic. At the end of the meeting I walked out and duly started laughing,
only for people to reprimand me, "he's doing his best for us! Didn't you hear
the story about his friend?!"

So since then I've learnt to keep my mouth shut. Just yesterday I was in a
meeting where we were giving estimates on things we knew nothing about. On the
way back I glanced at people's screens and there must have been a hundred
people pushing numbers around on excel spreadsheets for presumably no reason.

Quite possibly everyone else is just keeping their mouths shut too. And now we
all go around doing pointless shit all day, every day.

Just now I saw a hare run across the field outside the office and thought,
"you lucky bastard."

~~~
darkerside
All I've got is your word that he's crooked. There are totally reasonable ways
that people can have a fancy looking Aston Martin and be dead broke at the
same time (used cars, financing, underwater on loan, etc).

Estimates are guesses by nature, and it's not surprising you know nothing
about them.

If you hate your job that much, what are you doing about it?

It's weird to see the top post on HN be an immature and empathy-barren rant
that is completely irrelevant to the article.

~~~
philbarr
Yes it's a rant. It's born entirely out of frustration on a bad day.

I called him crooked because he dealt drugs to his favourite staff, or gave
them coke as a reward. He was eventually on Crime Watch UK for fraud. The pay
rise was to get people up to minimum wage.

Not that that matters - it was still a rant. I'm not going to apologise for
that, though. Sometimes it happens.

~~~
philbarr
For anyone interested: [https://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/money-opinion/p-s-
investiga...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/money-opinion/p-s-
investigates/fury-over-graham-ross-ross-534412)

------
throwaway84742
Why is this article about women? Men suffer from it just the same. There seems
to be this perception that men are somehow immune to the various work related
shit. That’s not the case at all.

The best fix I’ve been able to find is to note and recall significant
achievements: delivering projects, getting promoted, getting hired by top
companies in the field, graduating with honors from one of the top schools.
Think rationally about this, and there’s really no reason to complain.

~~~
cup-of-tea
This is a good question. Downvoted because it's unfashionably gender neutral,
of course. This post should be titled "Is there a fix for impostor syndrome
for women?" If you're a man just deal with it, as usual.

~~~
justatdotin
the article acknowledges that it is also an issue for men. There is no reason
to imagine the 'fix' only applies to women.

------
optimalKEK
Imposter syndrome immediately goes away as soon as you make your employer more
money than they are paying you.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
You are touching on something that most post ignored.

When a significant number of employees suffer impostor syndrome that's a
symptom of an overly competitive environment.

Reminding your employees that they are expected to be the best engineers in
the world once a day it's a good way to delay promotions and salary raises.

------
tomerbd
What is imposter syndrome?

