Intro

What’s up every body. I am Edson Philippe a software engineer whose mission is to share his experience with you. The topic of today’s short talk is: Overcomming Imposter Syndrome as a software engineer.

Hook

Feeling like an imposter as an engineer is a very common situation that many junor or even senior engineer has experienced in their carreer. It’s generally impact younger people more than senior people because usually younger people have less experience and can sometime find themselve in a new role with impresive salary and great title which make them think their level of competence doesn’t match with their current skill. Because of that, they might feel like there is a gap between the role and the level of responsibility and their level of competence.

For a moment, let’s pause and dig deeper into what an imposter is? An imposter think that they don’t have the skill to get the job done and they are fooling everyone around them; it’s just a matter of time before they get caught. At the same time, they are doing such a great job at fooling people around them, they convinced everyone around them that they indeed can do the job. At the heart of this sentince, there is a contradiction.

If we think deep into it, the reason we develop imposter syndrome might be because of lack of candor feedback. Usually, if you talk with anyone in your teamate that has more experience with the current position, or if you talk to your manager and ask for candor feedback as early as possible, you will get some relief from the imposter syndrom.

A second thing to consider, is that no body really know what they are doing. Every body in a form or another is also faking it. This might be a hard pill to swallow but there is some truth to it. Since no body really know what they are doing, they usually take sometime of their day to figure out things. I think that’s where new engineer might be at a disavantage. Usually, they may not yet have seen someting or are not familiar with some concept. That is normal, no boday are born knowing.

As for me, I am still dealing with imposter syndrome myself. Here are a few example for myself. During my graduate study, I have to somtime work in team. I am usually part of team of students working together on a project. Usually, when I hear about places those students worked at, project they have been part of or the number of classes they have already taken, I would feel intimidated as if I dont belong. Another place where I feel like being an impster, is at work. For me, that feeling is more on trying to consistenly prove myself because I feel I don’t belong. All of this is in my head and when I talk to my teamate, they are so pre-ocupy with their own stuff, no body really care about how i feel. In both situation, I was here to produce quality work, and to be honest, no body really cared how I feel as long as I produce work.