5 Sign You have Imposter Syndrome as Software Engineer

Imposter syndrome is a feeling where we doubt our abilities.

On the journey of a developer’s career, more or less must have experienced this feeling.

Have you ever experienced it or are you currently experiencing it? These are 5 signs that helped you.

1. Feel like you got lucky

“Fortunately the question is easy to answer, because I have experienced it before”

“Incidentally this task has the same problem as the one I used to do, so it’s easier to do it”

You get a great job, can complete a difficult task (even with the help of google), help a confused friend, and so on. But you still feel that what you do is just luck. You never acknowledge your ability.

2. Feel like a fraud

This is also related to point number 1 above, even this feeling seems more negative than the previous point. You feel like you’re deceiving other people, feel like what you’re doing right now isn’t who you really are. In fact, you are the one who did it with the ability you have.

3. Devalue your worth

An example, someone / friends giving you a money / bonuses cause you did the great work for them. But then, you say “Oh no no, i feel i didn’t anything that well.”. Others have recognized and appreciated the quality of your work, but you don’t feel that way. You devalue your worth, you underestimate your ability.

4. Fear of Failure

You are afraid of failure, for fear of disappointing many people. You are afraid of not meeting other people’s expectations. Even though other people believe and support you and they don’t have excessive expectations of you.

5. Apologize for Doin Nothin Wrong

An example, co-workers just asked you something that you are not yet understand:

“Hey buddy! I have a problem with this X,Y,Z. Do you know how to solve this with algorithm A ?”

“Hey Bro! Do you know how to call this function inside other components ?”

And you said : “I’m so sorry, i’m still don’t know about that. But i promise i will try to learn it…”

Hey, you did nothing wrong, but you still apologize ? They just asked about your opinion, they don’t blame you if you are not understand. And remember this, people don’t expect you to know anything.

Summary

Imposter syndrome is all about doubting our abilities, not believe in your self (even though everyone trusting you). And it’s a feeling that every developers will / was faces in their career journey, you are not alone. And yes, you can overcome this feeling time by time. I will make another post about the causes and how to overcome this imposter syndrome.

Please believe in your self, your skills, your abilities. Cause if “you” don’t believe in “you”, then who else can trust “you” ?