[mendelk]

Welp, now that my Imposter Syndrome has returned in full force, any concrete advice on leveling up in engineering skill (other than getting hired at Google circa 1999)?

Edit: I now see that Paul coined the "Don't be Evil" slogan[0]. I'm curious what his thoughts on its removal and what that portends for Google today. u/paul?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22540

[pvarangot]

Get hired at any place where good engineering is done, or at a startup where no engineering is really done and you get to make the calls about how engineering is done. Work for 10+ hours a day, and on your free time read about engineering from blogs or books, see conference videos, and go to conferences.

After 4 or 5 years of doing this you'll maybe know enough about how "everthing works" and what books says how to do what, or what company did what in what way, or the "state of the art", at that time you can start doing original contributions in order to not fall back.

Oh and also the Imposter Syndrome sometimes never really goes away :(

[jsutton]

This seems like generally good advice, except for having to spend every waking moment using your brain for work. Balance is important. Spending some of that free time on learning engineering is good advice, just not all of it. Make sure you spend some free time with friends/family, physical activities, and relaxation.

[obstacle1]

> Balance is important.

Not for everyone.

[pvarangot]

Balance is sometimes overrated because most of the expectation about how to be a great professional comes from overzealous 9 to 5 mediocre professionals. That doesn't mean life is about burning out and crashing against a wall of mind wrecks every few years of course, but for many people it's possible to keep let's say a 85% work 15% hobbies, relaxation and workout and society needs those guys at their maximum capacities.

[a7776f88862]

> After 4 or 5 years of doing this you'll maybe know enough about how "everthing works" and what books says how to do what, or what company did what in what way, or the "state of the art", at that time you can start doing original contributions in order to not fall back.

For me personally, 5 years was the point at which you start to gain confidence, but still don't realize how much you really don't know. I see that in a lot of people too. Getting my CS degree, I was told I knew a lot more than my peers (and apparently more than some of the grad students...), and did better than most, but it wasn't really until a decade into my career that I would say I really started to "get it." That is after reading dozens and dozens of books, many hundreds of research papers, meetups, conferences (and later watching/listening through whole playlists of conference talks). You are always going to be an impostor somewhere, because there are always things you don't know. The best thing you can do is stop pretending that you know more than you do.

[pvarangot]

It really depends on the person. Also working on the exact same field and industry for 5 years is way different to getting a degree. Also note I said you could start making original contributions, not that they'll be meaningful or groundbreaking...

[pm90]

This is hard, but fair advice for anyone who wants to get "really good". Perhaps there are those who are born gifted with the critical thinking and analytic skills which makes this unnecessary. I am not one of them, and the past year has been intense but a great learning experience. And Paul says as much: you don't start of being good, but you work intensively on your skills over a period of time and get really good.

[sowbug]

Impostor Syndrome is part and parcel of working with amazing people. Sometimes you'll feel like a goofball not because of anything you did, but because you're interacting with someone who is operating on a totally different level. But pushing through that emotion and learning from the experience is how you level up.

[myth_buster]

  Get hired at any place where good engineering is done

Great advice.

[jiveturkey]

Yup. You have 2 choices: Imposter Syndrome or Dunning-Kruger. I'll take imposter syndrome please.

[Regardsyjc]

That sounds like 2 extremes. There has to be a delicate middle ground.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

[hknd]

Strive to find people which are way better than you and learn from them. Get a mentor, and any other opportunity of receiving feedback on your stuff. (All of these things will automatically happen at a faang company)

[noname120]

How can a student find a mentor?

[kelukelugames]

I got better when two things happened.

1) Write a lot of code. Like a ton, more than anyone else on the team. 2) Get feedback from people on that code.

[adamnemecek]

I quit my job to hack on things and to read. My skills have gotten like billion times as good as when I quit.

[pvarangot]

Who are you hacking for or talking about what you read with? It's easy to believe you are getting better when no one is around to give a reality check.

[adamnemecek]

I contribute to open source. However I fundamentally disagree. You can measure how well you are performing tasks that are based on your reading.

[teirce]

"Don't be evil" is still in the code of conduct: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html

[urda]

Don't forget that "survivorship bias" is a very real thing. Don't let the rare success of engineers like Paul Buchheit make you think you're not as smart as you really are.

And that's how you start to beat Imposter Syndrome.