Why Imposter Syndrome in Tech Is So Common—and What We Can Do About It

I write code and comments, plead for pull request reviews, attend countless meetings, and respond with emojis all day long. And although I’ve been successfully doing this for decades now, I actually don’t feel like a software engineer when I’m writing code any more than I feel like Kurt Vonnegut while I’m trying to write what you’re reading right now.

What’s a software engineer supposed to be, anyway? If we could buy a programmer action figure off the shelf, there are a few configurations we could imagine from what popular culture tells us. Do you want the “fleece vest and computer science degree from a name-brand university”? Or the “hoodie with homemade mechanical keyboard, never awake before noon”?

The reality is that the field of software engineering is so incredibly broad—spanning many industries and a variety of different capacities—that these dated clichés can’t come close to capturing the many personalities in a group that some say includes more than four million developers in the U.S.

But there is one unifying condition for many of us: imposter syndrome. First described as “imposter phenomenon” in 1978, imposter syndrome is characterized by a persistent belief that your work accomplishments and success aren’t deserved, and a feeling that you’re about to be revealed as a phony at any moment.

I write code and comments, plead for pull request reviews, attend countless meetings, and respond with emojis all day long. And although I’ve been successfully doing this for decades now, I actually don’t feel like a software engineer when I’m writing code any more than I feel like Kurt Vonnegut while I’m trying to write what you’re reading right now.

What’s a software engineer supposed to be, anyway? If we could buy a programmer action figure off the shelf, there are a few configurations we could imagine from what popular culture tells us. Do you want the “fleece vest and computer science degree from a name-brand university”? Or the “hoodie with homemade mechanical keyboard, never awake before noon”?

The reality is that the field of software engineering is so incredibly broad—spanning many industries and a variety of different capacities—that these dated clichés can’t come close to capturing the many personalities in a group that some say includes more than four million developers in the U.S.

But there is one unifying condition for many of us: imposter syndrome. First described as “imposter phenomenon” in 1978, imposter syndrome is characterized by a persistent belief that your work accomplishments and success aren’t deserved, and a feeling that you’re about to be revealed as a phony at any moment.