Imposter syndrome plagues many software engineers and when I first started my career, I was no exception. I had just finished a computer science degree that was mostly based on theory and I had virtually no confidence in my abilities to develop software. Over the years I’ve managed to fully put my imposter syndrome to bed and you can too by following these three specific steps:
Develop confidence in your competency
Spend significant time accomplishing many hard things
Untangle your identity from your job
1. Developing Confidence 💪
The first crucial step in overcoming imposter syndrome is becoming confident in your abilities. I want to clarify that developing confidence should not be confused with deluding yourself into believing in abilities you don’t possess. A prerequisite to developing confidence is taking a long hard look at your abilities and assessing them. The truth is, they might not be where you want them to be, but that’s okay. Taking inventory of your skills is critical otherwise you can’t accurately gauge the work ahead of you. Once you’ve surveyed your abilities you can understand the delta between where you are and where you want to be. Once you have your arms around the amount of work that lies ahead of you, herein lies the hardest part: doing the work. If there’s one thing I could encourage you to take away from this article it’s the following: The best way to gain confidence in your skills is by actively working to develop them. I find that many people believe in skirting this requirement in favor of other more watered-down approaches to gaining confidence like reading or receiving praise from others. While reading is one way to supplement learning I don’t believe it to be the most effective. The best way to get better at coding is by writing more code. While receiving praise from others can be a source from which you draw your confidence, it can’t be the origin. Otherwise, your confidence results from external factors, not internal ones like the abilities you worked hard to possess.
2. Developing Your Craft 🛠️
Once you develop confidence in your competency, the next step in overcoming imposter syndrome is investing a significant amount of time to accomplish hard things. To do this, you must consistently commit to working on and delivering impressive feats. This cycle of continuously taking on something challenging and successfully delivering it might continue for a prolonged period. In my case, it continued for years. It took years to build different parts of systems and features at a variety of companies that I felt were impressive or significant. These years of intentionally and meticulously practicing my craft are what eventually allowed me to believe in myself and my abilities. Repeating this cycle of biting off more than you can chew and succeeding, allows you to then bite off even more your next go around. With each cycle, you are effectively expanding your comfort zone. Every time you succeed, you become more comfortable delivering that scope of work thereby redefining what falls within your comfort.
The most important thing largely boils down to continuous learning. It’s hard to be an imposter when you only get better with time. In reality, it’s not that different than weightlifting. You get stronger by continuously putting stress on your body to lift heavier and heavier things. Slowly but surely a weight that felt heavy a few weeks ago feels rather comfortable. While you might feel slight discomfort lifting heavier, what you’re experiencing is growth. Chaining these events together of pushing yourself to lift heavier increases the amount of weight you can lift week over week, month over month, and year over year.
3. Decoupling Your Identity from Your Job ✂️
Never mistake the value you provide with the name of the company you work for. The final and last step to overcoming imposter syndrome is decoupling your identity from your job. One of the most effective ways I found to do this is by coming to peace with the possibility that you might be an imposter. While it sounds counterintuitive, accepting this possibility was liberating to me. It allowed me to start processing the “scary” what-ifs if it were to be true. I found that the worst possible outcome was that I would lose my job. An experience I’d already had after being laid off eight months into my first software engineering job. Reflecting on this, I realized the worst case isn’t that bad and once I understood this fact a lot of my anxiety around the possibility of being an imposter disappeared. Something else that helped me was a simple saying my dad liked to remind me of: work is a four-letter word. There’s a reason “job” is spelled “j”, “o”, “b”, and not “y”, “o”, “u”. The sooner you learn to separate your identity from your job the better.
Imposter syndrome is a measurement of how your present self interprets your past accomplishments. To change the measurement you must change what you’ve accomplished and to change what you’ve accomplished you must get to work.
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I used to look forward to becoming a Senior Software Engineer.
I’d be making the big bucks and my imposter syndrome would finally go away.
I’m here now. Did it work?
Nope. At least not all the way.
Like you shared, I know more, and I can build more things, but I’m also working on harder problems…
I still struggle with imposter syndrome from time to time. But now I see it for what is.
A sign i’m in an uncomfortable 🚀season of growth.
Every time I take on a new challenge or difficult project, it rears it’s old familiar tactics.
3 wks ago I took on my first engineering management position,
and it feels like I started over in a way.
I’m reminding myself what I know to be true.
I’m leveling up in new, exciting, and challenging ways.
it may take a while to get good at these new skills. But…
I’m leveling up. 🚀
Thanks for the reminder Kevin!