Overcoming impostor syndrome

A brief article exploring impostor syndrome, its meaning, and strategies that are effective for overcoming it, especially when starting a job at a large company filled with highly talented people.

Definition of impostor syndrome

Impostor syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, accomplishments, or knowledge and fears being exposed as a fraud, despite evidence of their competence. It’s common among high achievers, but anyone can experience it. Symptoms include feeling like you’ve “just been lucky,” downplaying your achievements and constantly comparing yourself to others.

My observations in years of hiring

As team lead I have interviewed hundreds of engineers. For junior and senior roles. Over time, I noticed that even when I hired top engineers, they often struggled right from the start. Why? Would you ask. Answer is simple. Many of high achievers come from smaller companies or teams that didn’t have a lot of high skilled talent. They begin to feel overwhelmed. These people used to be go-to people at their previous job and had everything under control. This changed now and their bubble burst a bit. The realization, that they are not the ones smartest can be tough. They tend to self doubt and struggle to find their place where they would feel they are adding value.

Overcoming it effectively

Let’s have a look at some of the ways to overcome this situation, since the longer it lasts, the longer you will be struggling with self doubt, bad self image and will in general be unhappy at work. Keep in mind these are guidelines and not exact answers to the issue. Main thing we want to achieve is, to get you to believe, that you actually are valuable part of the team and company. Unless you truly believe it, you can’t move forward from it.

• Recognise it
  It’s important to acknowledge that it’s happening to you and understanding that this is just a temporary feeling. It is not long lived and as you become more comfortable in new environment, it will begin to fade. Understand you were hired because a senior hiring engineer or team lead saw a potential in you. Trust the process! It’s going to be all right.

• Finding your strength
  Focus on finding that thing that you are best at and can really shine if you are given opportunity to show your skills. It’s important to get rid of the feeling that you should know it all, and that you should be best at everything. In large companies it does not work. There is just too much code, infrastructure and technologies used, for you to be able to do that.

• Let your skills shine

  Take time for solving the task that you were given. Research, study, learn. Try to do absolutely best solution that you can think of and write reasoning why you chose something the way you did. This will give you confidence that it’s not a rash decision and that you put thought into it. It will also be ground for senior engineer to look at, read it, and understand your thought process. It will generally lead to much better responses than if you rush and prioritize speed over quality.

• Don’t fear asking for feedback

  Many times when you are in self doubt position, it’s best to ask others what do they think of your solution or code that you produced. Get constructive feedback and take it as an opportunity to learn. Choose senior people for such code reviews, or questions about correctness of your approach.

• Set realistic goals

  Perfectionism often fuels impostor syndrome. Strive for excellence but understand that mistakes and learning curves are normal. It will take time to get there and won’t happen over night.

• Learn, learn, learn

  If you notice that you are “behind” with knowledge, you can catch up faster, if you do a research on technologies that you think you are lacking knowledge of. Ask your team lead to suggest you good resources you can look up, to learn things in depth. It’s really a boost to self confidence if you get recognition by passing an official certification. So, try to do some certificate. Not because you need it for a job, but because of yourself and self confidence.

Final words

In general, the more positive feedback you will get, the more comfortable you will feel. Sense of achievement most effectively helps with overcoming impostor syndrome. Most of overachievers are prone to downplaying their achievements and therefore it takes longer for them to really and truely believe they are valuable part of the team and company.

Keep that in mind and I hope this post helped you at least understand the situation. Good luck and don’t worry too much about it. In time things will get better!