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by saalweachter 4868 days ago
I personally find question-answering great for helping me feel like not-an-impostor. Answering questions helps you recognize both that you have valuable skills and knowledge and that your coworkers are not the brilliant godlings you think you're just impersonating. They're smart, capable people, just like you, who know some things and don't know other things.

Now, you can't force people to ask you questions (although you can avoid discouraging it), but you can ask more questions. Even if you're stubbornly certain you can find the answer to your question if you only dig into the poorly documented codebase for another 45 minutes, occasionally giving up and asking one of your coworkers can (a) save you time, (b) maybe make them feel less like an impostor, and (c) make you more approachable so they'll come to you for help.