9 days ago, I posted Imposter Syndrome (part 1) and then immediately listened to Heather Downing‘s excellent NDC talk on the topic.

This is the “reflections afterwards” post I’d expected to write (although slightly more delayed than I’d hoped for). I’m not going to try to recap Heather’s talk, because that wouldn’t do justice to it. Please watch the video instead. This is my set of reflections after Heather’s talk – some of it directly responding to what she said, and other parts simply my own meandering thought process.

Responding to praise

This one’s simple. I’ve often responded to praise in ways that effectively negate the opinion of the other person – saying that I’m really not as smart as they think I am, etc. I suspect there’s some cultural influence there; it’s a fairly British thing to do. But I hadn’t considered the flip side of this not conveying humility on my part, but wrongness on their part.

So I’m going to start to just say “thank you” as far as I can. I think there will still be times where it would be important to try to correct a potentially harmful impression – if someone explains that they’re trying to win technical arguments by quoting me, for example – but most of the time I’ll try to bite my tongue, and just say thanks… and maybe try to shift the conversation onto what they’re doing. (If someone says they’re inspired by me, that’s great – so what have they been inspired to do? Does this give me an opportunity to encourage them further?)

Success and luck

There are two very slightly different nuances to being “lucky” – at least in the way I think about it. The first is a sort of “undeserved positive effects” aspect. “I’m lucky to be married to such a wonderful person” or “I’m lucky to have a natural aptitude for computing” for example. Things you can’t really control much. The second is a sort of “the same sequence of events could have unfolded very differently” aspect. “I’m lucky to have ended up in a job I love without making a career plan” for example.

I fear I’m not transferring the ideas from brain to screen very clearly, but there are two important points:

Firstly, I don’t want anyone to try to emulate me in areas where I’ve been genuinely lucky. I have no doubt that in other situations (with a different set of colleagues, for example) some of my actions could have led to very different results. I’ve always spent quite a lot of time learning by experimentation and community writing – whether that’s on newsgroups, Stack Overflow or blog posts. Some of this has been done on company time, and every company I’ve worked for has (quietly) acknowledged that it’s been a broadly positive thing – so long as it’s not been too excess, of course. Other software engineers – particularly those in jobs where every hour has to be accounted for – could see a very different result to the same actions.

On the other hand, I should probably accept the point Heather made that attributing repeated success to luck is foolish. I don’t think I’m lucky to receive upvotes on Stack Overflow: I make a conscious effort to communicate clearly, and that’s something I’ve put a lot of effort into over several years. Some of the further results could be called lucky: if Stack Overflow hadn’t come on the scene, I’m sure I’d still be writing on newsgroups with a vastly smaller potential audience for answers. The more immediate effect of “If I put effort into writing clearly and researching my subject matter, that effort is appreciated by those who read it” isn’t a matter of luck though.

Writing off success as just luck risks undervaluing processes and practices that are genuinely helpful – as well as potentially giving the impression that we won’t appreciate the hard work and diligence of others. (On the other hand, check your privilege before ascribing all your success to your own graft and/or brilliance.)

Dunning-Kruger harms everyone

Finally, the Dunning-Kruger effect is probably worth fighting against in both aspects.

Those who are overestimating their skills are doing themselves a disservice by appearing arrogant or compounding their ignorance by “meta-ignorance” of the scope of the subject matter. Unless they’re trying to represent a larger entity (a consultancy for example) the impact seems fairly localized.

I’m coming round to the idea that those who are underestimating their skills – and doing so publicly – might be discouraging everyone else. If someone I look up to as an expert in a topic were to only rate themselves as “8 out of 10” in knowledge in that topic, that could make me feel worse about my own understanding of the topic. While I suspect it’s hard for anyone in a culture that values humility to rate their knowledge as “9.5 out of 10” for something, I think it’s important that the real experts do so. Yes, they can still be aware of the areas they struggle in – but there must be some way of expressing that while acknowledging their overall expertise.

Beyond simple discouragement, there’s another aspect of underestimating your own prowess that can prove unhelpful, and that’s in terms of explanations. I’ve always found most (not quite all) security experts hard to understand. They’re so deeply immersed in their own domain that they may not appreciate how many assumptions of shared terminology and understanding they need to remove before they can communicate effectively with “lay” people.

I only give the example of security as one where I personally struggle to learn from people who undoubtedly have knowledge I could benefit from. My fear is that I do the same unwittingly when it comes to areas I’m confident in. I tend to make more conscious effort when discussing date/time issues as I’m aware of the common misunderstandings. What about C# though? When I use language specification terminology in blog posts and Stack Overflow answers, what proportion of readers just get lost quickly? I’m not quite sure what to do about this, beyond becoming more conscious of it as a possibility.

Conclusion

This is by no means an end to my thoughts on Imposter Syndrome or related self-evaluation traits, although it may well be my last blog post on it. No impressive final thoughts, no clever tying up of all the strands… this is only a conclusion in the sense that it’s concluding the post. The end.

Note: this is a purely personal post. It has no code in. It’s related to the coding side of my world more than the rest of who I am, so it’s in my coding blog, but if you’re looking for code, just move on.

As part of a Twitter exchange, I discovered that Heather Downing (blog, twitter) would be talking about Imposter Syndrome. This is a topic that interests me for reasons I’ll go into below. I figured it would be interesting to jot down some thoughts on it before Heather’s talk, and then again afterwards, comparing my ideas with hers. As such, I expect to publish this post pretty much as I’m sitting down for the talk, for maximum independence. (Ed: it’s not somewhat rushed. Back when I started it on Tuesday, it seemed like I had loads of time. It’s now Friday morning and I’m desperately trying to get it into some kind of coherent state in time to post…)

There are two ways I could write this post: one very abstract, about “people in general”, and one very concrete, about myself. The first approach would probably end in platitudes and ignorance – the second could well feel like a mixture of egocentricity, arrogance and humble-bragging. I’m going for the second approach anyway, so if you suspect you’ll get annoyed by reading about my thoughts about myself, I suggest moving along. (Read Heather’s blog, for example.)

Aspects of Imposter Syndrome

I think about Imposter Syndrome in three different ways. For some people they may be very similar, but in my case there are pretty radical differences. (For some reason I tend to be a corner case in all kinds of ways. Basically, I’m awkward.)

• What do people say (and think) about your skills?
• What skills are expected or required for what you do? (e.g. the job you’re in, success in the community, speaking etc)
• What do you say about your skills?

I think of Imposter Syndrome as believing that your true set of skills or abilities is lower than the evaluations listed above. It’s possible that the third bullet really doesn’t belong there, but it’s sufficiently closely related that I want to talk about it anyway.

What do people say (and think) about my coding ability?

The Jon Skeet facts page is the first thing that comes to mind, followed by the Toggl “Rescue the Princess” comic. While both of those are clearly meant to be comedy rather than taken seriously, I suspect some of the hyperbole has rubbed off.

I get attention at conferences and on Twitter as if I really showed exceptional coding ability. There’s an assumption that I really can answer anything. People talk about being inspired by me. People still show up to my talks. People ask how I “get so much done” – when I see plenty of people achieving much more than I do. (I slump in front of the TV at night with Holly far more than the question would suggest…)

What skills are expected of me?

Back in 2012, I talked with Scott Hanselman about Imposter Syndrome and “being a phony”. Back then, I still felt like an imposter at Google – and knew that plenty of my colleagues felt the same way.

In my job, I’m expected to be a proficient coder and leader in the area that I’m working on. I was briefly a manager too, but I’m not any more – so my role is fairly purely technical… but that still includes so-called “soft skills” in terms of communication and persuasion. (I hate the term “soft skills” as it implies those skills are less important or difficult. They’re critical, and sadly underdeveloped!)

In the community, I’m expected to be prolific and accurate online, and interesting/engaging in person, particularly while presenting.

What do I say and think about myself?

I try to make the “say” and “think” match. For some definitions of Imposter Syndrome, I don’t think I actually suffer from it at all. In particular:

• The hyperbole is clearly incorrect. It’s not just fake humility that suggests I’m not really the world’s top programmer… the idea that I could possibly believe that is laughable.
• These days I’m pretty comfortable with what I do at work. I work hard, I’m working in an area where I feel I have expertise (C# API design) and I get things done. The work I do doesn’t involve the same degree of computer science brilliance as designing Spanner or implementing a self-driving car, but it’s far from trivial.
• There are thing I’ve done that I’m genuinely proud of beyond my day job – in particular, Noda Time and C# in Depth. I take pride in my Stack Overflow answers too, but they’re slightly different in a way that’s hard to explain. I’m certainly pleased that they’re helpful.
• I’m confident in my boundaries: I know that I know C# very well and Java pretty well. I know that I have more awareness of date/time issues than the vast majority of developers. I know that I can express ideas clearly, and that that’s important. I’m also well aware of my limitations: if you see any code I write outside Java and C# (e.g. Bash, Python, Javascript) then it’s horrible, and I make no claims otherwise.

Talking about being an “imposter” or “phony” suggests making a claim to competence which is untrue. I don’t think that’s the case here – and that applies to the vast majority of other “famous” developers I know. They’re generally well aware of their limitations too, and their presentations are always about the technology rather than about themselves. There are exceptions to this, and I know my “Abusing C#” talk has sometimes been seen as a self-promotion vehicle instead of the gleeful exploration of C# corner cases it’s intended to be… but in general, I haven’t interacted with many big egos in the tech space. (This may be a matter of the conferences I’ve chosen to go to. I’m aware there are plenty of big-ego jerks around, but I haven’t spoken with many of them…)

Conclusion

I still believe there is a disconnect between even people’s genuine expectations (as opposed to the hyperbole) and the reality of my competence, even though I don’t cultivate those expectations. As a mark of this, I believe my talks are more popular in anticipation than in experience – it’s often a full house, but in the green/yellow/red appraisal afterwards there’s usually a bunch of yellows and even some reds.

Obviously the disconnect gives an ego boost which I try to dampen, but it has genuinely positive aspects too: one of the things people say to or about me is that I inspire them. That’s fantastic. It really doesn’t matter whether they’re buying into a myth: if something they see in me inspires them to “do better” (whatever that may mean for them) then that’s a net benefit to the world, right?

I’m going to keep making it perfectly clear to people that a lot of what is said about me is massively overblown, while keeping confidence in myself as a really pretty decent developer. Am I over-recognized/over-hyped? Yes. Am I an imposter? I don’t think so.

Postscript

Since finishing the above conclusion, I’ve just watched Felienne‘s talk on “Programming is writing is programming” which was the best talk I’ve seen at any conference. Now I feel like an imposter…