Going from impostor one day to feeling like a superhuman the next day
That's the feeling when you have been stuck on a coding problem and you wake up the next day and solve it very quickly in 10min!
DoubleCloud - Best performance, highest ROI (sponsored)
Reduce query latency by up to 100x!
Tired of waiting for queries? Well, DoubleCloud can help you supercharge analytics and data management.
With their Managed ClickHouse service, you can reduce query latency by up to 100x. DoubleCloud's Transfer tool can move your data 9x faster than Airbyte and managed Kafka service delivers a 20% price/performance boost on AWS. S3 hybrid solution can save you up to 5x on storage costs.
Here's the best part: companies like LSports have seen a whopping 180x speedup compared to MySQL, while Honeybadger experienced a 30x boost vs. Elasticsearch. Spectrio cut costs by 30-40% vs. Snowflake.
So, if you're ready to save time, give DoubleCloud a try. They offer a free trial, so you can experience the benefits firsthand without any risk.
Let’s get back to this week’s thought.
Intro
There are a lot of UPs and DOWNs in the engineering industry, but that's what makes it truly an exciting industry to be in. I am still feeling this quite regularly, no matter if I have been over 10 years in the industry. And that’s normal!
Everyone feels like an impostor sometimes. It’s a sign that we are growing and learning. What’s really important is that we embrace it and control it so that it doesn’t get to us.
In this article, I’ll share my personal overview of how this has been part of my growth as an engineer, as a manager and how this still affects me at current times as well.
I felt that other engineers were so good, that I’ll never be on their level
This was the feeling, especially when I started my career as an engineer. I am a self-taught engineer, so for a long time, I thought that engineers with degrees were so good, that it would not be possible for me to be as good as them.
I felt this quite regularly and it took some time for me to get over this feeling. I needed to get to work more closely with people who had degrees. And when I did that, I saw that we are all learning all the time.
That gave me the drive and motivation to keep going and always keep on learning. After that, I knew that I could be on the same level, if not better! And that was true.
Nobody is so good that they don’t need to learn continuously. If you are not learning, you are stagnating in our industry. All that I needed was just to get some visibility and clarity.
You can read the full story of how I started my career and how I got my first full-time role here: Starting my career again as a junior engineer (paid article).
You can feel both an impostor and a superhuman in a matter of 10 minutes!
Progressing in my career as an engineer, I could really feel how many ups and downs there are in the engineering industry.
If you get stuck with a certain problem when coding, you are second-guessing yourself and you started to think if this profession is right for you. What happens next is as follows.
You take a 5-minute break and at that time you come up with the solution to a problem. This gives you a feeling of a superhuman!
Well, it’s definitely one of the best feelings out there. I really believe the feeling when solving the problem outweighs any insecurities when we get stuck with it!
So, whenever you get stuck with a certain issue and you are second-guessing yourself, this is my suggestion:
Embrace that coding can be challenging sometimes and that everyone gets stuck.
Move away from the problem and when you get back you will feel refreshed.
The second pair of eyes helps - pair programming does wonders.
I felt like an impostor when I started doing freelance work
When I started doing freelance work, I needed to be able to lead projects from start to finish to success. I needed to become comfortable with leading meetings, asking the right questions, creating documentation and making sure I was building the RIGHT things.
Learning to do this took time and I made a lot of mistakes throughout the experience. And feeling that I wasn’t good at it was quite regular. I knew that doing this was going to help me grow and progress + also have additional income. So I kept going.
Ultimately, freelance work was one of the biggest reasons for my growth from engineer to CTO. The things I learned when doing: projects, consulting & advising and coaching & mentoring were priceless. I became so much more experienced in a shorter time because of it. And it reflected in my full-time career growth.
You can read how freelance work helped me to progress in my career from engineer to CTO here: My secret for growing from engineer to CTO (paid article).
I needed a mindset shift when I first became a manager
After I grew from an engineer to a manager, I thought that what made me successful as an engineer → I could re-use a lot of skills from that. Well, the reality was a bit different.
You need to shift focus from being good individually to empower and uplifting your team. I felt like an impostor again. After a lot of mistakes and some wins, I started to get a hang of it and it became easier over time.
Being a good engineer helped me, but what really made this adjustment a lot easier was that I had already done a lot of freelance projects, advising & consulting + coaching & mentoring before that.
You can read my full story of how I went from IC to manager here: From IC to manager (paid article).
When I first started writing online the feeling that “is not good enough” is very real
I needed a lot of time in order to become semi-comfortable with posting regularly on LinkedIn and sending out weekly newsletters. I questioned myself a lot, like: Do I know enough about engineering and leadership? Or is it good enough to be interesting to read?
Well, I didn’t let this stop me from doing it. I published it anyway and nothing really bad happened.
What I learned is that it doesn’t matter how much you know and if you are an “expert” in something. The intention is what matters and the thought behind it is important. If you are trying to be helpful and provide value, people will love to read it.
And now it’s been more than 80+ weeks of consistently sending out this newsletter! And more than 300 days of daily LinkedIn posts.
If you are thinking about starting with a newsletter, this is a great read: How to start, grow and monetize your engineering newsletter (paid article).
I still regularly feel it even after 10+ years in the industry
At this time, I still regularly feel like I am an impostor on all of the things that I have mentioned above. I just know how to control it better and embrace it. It’s going to always be a part of what I do.
It also tells me that I keep progressing and I am learning new things all the time and not stagnating!
I can feel that when:
there is a tough decision that needs to be made,
when there is something new to learn,
when there is a time to make an important presentation,
even when I am sending out this newsletter.
It’s all a part of the process and it’s always going to be like that. It’s not going anywhere, so the best thing we all can do is to embrace it and not let it get to us!
Bonus: Keeping a brag list of wins is a great way to counter the imposter syndrome
Whenever you feel like that you don’t “belong” or that you are not “good enough”, take a look at your past success and remind yourself how far you’ve come.
Therefore keeping a brag list of wins is such a great way to ensure that you stay on your path driven and motivated to keep going.
This has been really a great thing for me. I use Notion where I regularly fill the wins in and I also define my goals in there as well, so I can regularly compare my wins with my overall goals.
You can find my personal template that I use + a lot more info about why keeping a brag list of wins is such a great thing to do here: Keep a brag list of the wins you achieved, thank me later (paid article).
Last words
If there is one commonality in all of the experiences across my career is that:
Embracing the self-daughts and feeling like an imposter leads us to growth and learning new things!
Next time when you feel like an imposter, think about what you have already overcome and all of the great new things that you are going to learn!
Liked this article? Make sure to 💙 click the like button.
Feedback or addition? Make sure to 💬 comment.
Know someone that would find this helpful? Make sure to 🔁 share this post.
Whenever you are ready, here is how I can help you further
Book a Coaching and Mentoring or Consulting and Advising call with me here.
Interested in sponsoring this newsletter? Check the sponsorship options here.
Get in touch
You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
If you wish to make a request on particular topic you would like to read, you can send me an email to info@gregorojstersek.com.
This newsletter is funded by paid subscriptions from readers like yourself.
If you aren’t already, consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive the full experience!
You are more than welcome to find whatever interests you here and try it out in your particular case. Let me know how it went! Topics are normally about all things engineering related, leadership, management, developing scalable products, building teams etc.
Great article, Gregor. I could relate to almost all of them (except the freelance part), but overall I totally see how every new role make us feel "not good enough".
I'm currently at the stage where I feel what I'm writing online isn't good enough, easily getting caught up trying to obsess, compare numbers. Your story certainly motivates me. Thanks for sharing, loved the bag of wins idea, I have used them to get back from unproductive patches.
This is very relatable. It’s like trying to ride a bike. Whenever you lean too much on a side, you need to shift your body weight to the other side, and you always need to maintain the balance.