Imposter Syndrome - My Number One Tip For Software Engineers

so in this video we're going to talk about impostor syndrome and in particular how that might apply to you in a software engineering role and I wanted to talk about this topic because I feel like it's actually way more prevalent Than People imagine and I think the more time you spend in industry and the more people you talk to especially about this topic if you bring it up the more you'll realize that lots of people go through this so what is impostor syndrome I can I'm going to summarize it but I'm going to pull up a Wikipedia article just so I can kind of give you what they say and that way I can't actually butcher it but um it says impostor syndrome also known as imposter phenomenon or impostorism is a psychological occurrence in which people doubt their skills talents or accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed is frauds so in software engineering this is probably applicable to other careers and roles as well but the focus will be software engineering for this conversation Um this can definitely show up um you know super early on in your career even think about your first job right so for for those of you watching who have not actually landed your first job in software engineering um and some of you maybe that have just landed your first job um you might not have quite realized this yet but it's probably something you'll experience early on which is like holy crap I made it into this company like they've accepted me and you know you were confident in your abilities and stuff going going into the interview they obviously they gave you the offer so you should feel confident that they trust in your abilities as well and then once you start working um what can happen is that when you're tasked with things that they could be they could be slightly outside of your uh area of expertise it could be a matter of someone asking you questions about stuff that you've always felt confident about and you're finding yourself when you go to explain things you're trying to make progress on these um you know pieces of work that you've been tasked with you start to question yourself you start to think like am I actually qualified for this and it sounds kind of funny right especially if you've never been through this before but you start to basically second guess yourself the the Wikipedia article kind of framed it you know this internalized fear uh I wouldn't personally I wouldn't go so far as to say like like um when I've experienced imposter syndrome like around the clock I feel like you know I'm afraid of of things happening but um or like being exposed right I think the the way that I would look at that though is that you when you self-reflect on what you're doing you start to question like am I actually you know cut out for this so what I wanted to talk about in this video was you know to introduce what imposter syndrome was but um I just wanted to keep this video short and talk about what I think the most important part about impostor syndrome is uh with respect to it's not like how to fix it I'm not going to stand here recording a video saying oh you know one simple step to fix your impostor syndrome but I had a intern a few years back who went to a women in Tech conference and uh we let her go and I said the one rule is that you come back to us and you teach us what you learned and she went to an impostor syndrome or a few I guess and she was frustrated that all of the talks were just like basically oh you're a victim of impostor syndrome and she said that's just not okay like so she took the information from those talks and when she presented it to us at work she actually inverted everything and said like here are the things that I think that you can do so that you stop feeling like a victim of your impostor syndrome so I'm not going to attempt to um you know bring that back in in the way that she did cuz she did an amazing job she's actually been an external speaker so to Microsoft she's presented teams that I have at Microsoft about this very well received and she has like again not Solutions like oh fix it with you know three simple steps but I think that she does a good job of trying to elaborate on like you can be in the driver's seat of this if you identify that it's happening and some things that you can think about but the most for me the most important takeaway from what she was trying to explain and when we did an interactive exercise as a group was that realizing that every single person goes through impostor syndrome and the more successful you are and the higher up role that you have the more frequently you experience impostor syndrome and the more severe it is kicks in so let that sink in for a second if you are someone who is highly motivated you know say you're a software engineer and you're like I can't wait to be a senior I'm going to be a principal a staff I'm going to be an architect someday and you're doing everything you can in your career to get yourself there odds are that you're going to experience imposter syndrome and you're going to experience it a lot as you progress and I don't again I'm not here to explain the psych the psychology about why that happens but the most important part for me was like when I understood that I'm not alone that other people and not just like oh people that are more Junior than me cuz like I went through it too like sure you're new to a big tech company or you're new to a team yeah you're going to have impostor syndrome not even like sure you will that's fine like you know that's that's going to be part of the process but like it it will continue to happen so hearing like people that like my managers my manager managers I've had VPS at Microsoft telling us in a group like they've experienced impostor syndrome and that they still do in their role right my my opinion on impostor syndrome is that the more that you start to recognize that these people that you look up to that you're like wow look at their career look how awesome they've done the more you realize that they go they have gone through impostor syndrome and they still do I think is a really powerful way to help ground and go like I'm Not Alone um this is more than likely something you've made up entirely in your head I realize it doesn't fix it for you but I think it's a good first step in and trying to realize that like you know it's a it's part of the process and that like I said you're not alone in that Journey so um you know one takeaway that I want you to have from this video is that if you're reflecting on periods in your career where you are experiencing impostor syndrome I want you to and you know it's not going to be like every day you do this or something but when you start to you know you're kind of in your own thoughts about this pause and reflect and and try to remember this video and and keep in mind that people that are you know your boss your boss's boss the the owner of the company you're working at they all experience this they all have experienced it and they all will continue to experience it in different ways it's part unfortunately of being a high achiever um and it's likely self-inflicted so keep that in mind uh you're a very capable person right that's why you're in the position that you are people vetted you they trust in your abilities you trust in your own abilities don't second guess yourself but yeah keep in mind that other people go through it so I hope this helped uh it's my my major my number one tip for you know reflecting on impostor syndrome but not a solution so thank thanks for watching and we'll see you next time