[throwaway613834]

>> "Easy problems take me 2-5 hours."

> Those problems are supposed to be hard because they're based on ideas discovered by the most brilliant minds. If you can do them in 2-5 hours with no background you might actually be real good.

Putting myself in the OP's shoes, this would be really frustrating advice to hear. The OP literally said they already got a CS degree and that these are "easy problems" taking them 2-5 hours. Baselessly calling into question their own assessment of problem difficulty (as if it's likely that they're that clueless about how difficult interview problems are supposed to be after having received a CS degree) while simultaneously suggesting they might actually be brilliant and simply not realizing it is, honestly, just unhelpful advice, if not potentially actively harmful. If you're going to do this, at least ask them to post a question or two so you can independently gauge their assessment first.

[godelski]

I think you underestimate how common imposter syndrome is. It may be that the OP just isn't good at programming. But it may also be imposter syndrome. Having the degree suggests that they did something and gained some skills. So it isn't unlikely that the OP is selling themselves short. Plus it is better to encourage people than put them down. Most people can learn most skills, but some people require less time to learn some skills. That's really the only difference. And there's no clear evidence into which camp OP is in, but it's unlikely that they can't learn the skills.

[throwaway613834]

You call out impostor syndrome when you actually have evidence to suggest it is the case, not completely baselessly. Like when you give someone a role because you believe in their ability (whether through prior interviews with them, or seeing their prior work, etc.), but they don't feel up to the task. In other words, we know they actually can do tasks that we believe to be of similar or greater difficulty, but they somehow don't believe that that's the case. But we have no single shred of evidence that this is the case here... or if you think we do, well, I don't see it, and neither did the parent comment point to any.

In particular, having a CS degree and finding that you're having trouble with what you believe to be easy interview problems (to emphasize: actually having trouble, not merely thinking that you might have trouble if you were to try) is not in any way evidence that you're experiencing impostor syndrome, of all things. It might be evidence that you don't have enough practice, or you didn't learn the material well, or that you lack motivation, or that you just don't find the topic interesting, etc... but the one thing it does not mean (in the absence of extra evidence) is that you're actually brilliant and yet also incapable of assessing the difficulty of interview problems accurately.

[afarrell]

Impostor syndrome gets talked about so much in conference talks that I think we as an industry have started to classify all confidence problems as impostor syndrome and thats just inaccurate and unhelpful. Instead, there are a variety of things in work that can cause problems.

[flocial]

While I agree that it could be taken that way considering the tone of OP's post there were several considerations going into my reply:

1. OP seemed locked in a spiral of negativity that was aggravating performance anxiety.

2. OP was actually able to solve problems and I assumed OP is not talking about "Fizz Buzz" class problems.

3. OP was nowhere to be found in the comments at the time of posting so I wanted the comment to be realistic but positive and also encourage others struggling with similar issues to take a deep breath and objectively reassess their situation rather than assuming everything is a waste and they truly aren't cut out for it.

As an aside, having just read OP's comment history[1], while he likes problem solving, his main motivation is money (extrinsic motivation) and he seems prone to analysis paralysis and anxiety about raw ability/intelligence. Based on that I wouldn't encourage OP to pursue something that stresses them out and aren't confident in purely for money.

There is enough good advice and feedback in this entire thread for a meaningful discussion with OP. Without the OP's feedback our discussion will only be trading assumptions and suppositions but thanks for the honest feedback, duly noted.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Tmp1234

[noxToken]

> he seems prone to analysis paralysis and anxiety about raw ability/intelligence.

This is what I also gained, and to me, it says that OP has the ability to solve these problems in much less time. I was a lot like OP when I started out. In college, I would get good marks but be one of the last people submitting a test. Whiteboard-style problems would take me forever to complete. I constantly felt that even though I could get it right, it took too long to be of any use.

My problem was much of what you said: I was reinventing crude versions of the wheel while spending an inordinate amount of time comparing different ways to solve problems. I'm not some brilliant mind that's going to have a ubiquitous name in the annals of CS. I've just been really good at breaking down problems and tasks, and early on, I was writing things akin to FizzBuzz EE[0] rather than a 10 line solution that solved the problem.

[0]: https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpris...