The Imposter Staff Engineer’s Journey to Leadership
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:04
Have you ever been in this situation, a situation like this? Maybe in a conference room or in a Zoom meeting, you feel like you don't belong there. People around you are smarter than you are, and you are struggling to keep up.
00:23
This is in spite of your accomplishments, hard work, abilities, skills. Has anyone experienced that? Cool. So this feeling is even more when you have to lead a team, right? You are struggling to keep up,
00:41
but people are looking up to you for directions. And this feeling has a name. It is called imposter syndrome. Like, many of you know it. I'm just going to talk about it. So the good news is we are not alone.
01:01
All these celebrities have openly spoken about imposter syndrome moments in their life. Now, according to a survey in 2020, about 82% of the people have told that they have experienced imposter syndrome at least once in their lifetime. How about the rest of the 18%?
01:22
Maybe they are real imposters. I don't know. So I'm Maniv Anand Selvraj, as Mark told. I worked as a staff software engineer at Salesforce, Slack, and PayPal.
01:43
And what does the term staff software engineer mean? I just learned from Wikipedia that the term staff software engineer comes from military titles, U.S. Army titles. So they have a title called staff sergeant, which is E6 level.
02:02
Similarly, level six in many software companies is called staff software engineer, I mean in technical career level. So a staff sergeant would have a small squad of their own. A staff software engineer will have a small team which they lead and complete projects.
02:22
And I have had imposter syndrome since the beginning of my career. So why am I giving this talk? I strongly, strongly believe that if I had known about imposter syndrome and overcoming it, I would have done much, much better in my career and also life.
02:43
And let me start with a story, interesting or boring story. I'll leave it to you. So maybe it was in 2017, I was working for a company and we had a production incident.
03:01
And we were in a war room troubleshooting the incident, debugging what is happening. And I was in so much pressure, I accidentally deleted the whole database, whole Mongo database, zero data. And it cost like several hours of outage of the service and that cost loss for the company as well.
03:23
And I was the lead at the time for the project. And I couldn't forgive myself, how could I do that? How could I do that? I'm the lead, people are looking up to me, I did this. And fortunately, we were able to recover from a backup that was an hour old within a couple of hours
03:42
and the service was up and running. Still after going home, I couldn't shake this feeling. And the next day, when I came into the office, my manager called me for a one-on-one meeting. And the thoughts running into my mind at the time was, okay, I'm done. I'm going to get fired. I was working in US at the time in the H1B visa.
04:05
So if I get fired, I'll have maybe 60 days grace period, I believe, to find another job. Otherwise, I'll have to go out of the country. All these thoughts running in my head. Then my manager told me, Mani, congratulations. You are promoted to staff software engineer.
04:21
You should be kidding me, right? I didn't believe that. And I ran immediately to my mentor. And she also congratulated me. And I told her, I don't even deserve this promotion. Why are you congratulating me? So with all the screw-ups I did yesterday, do you think I deserve this promotion?
04:42
Then she told me, Mani, you definitely deserve this promotion. You did all the hard work. You led the team, you mentored the team. In fact, we were able to come back up, I mean, bring back the service up and running because of the backup that you set up. You definitely deserve this. And also, I believe you have the imposter syndrome.
05:02
The what? That was the first time I heard about imposter syndrome. So I started reading about imposter syndrome in books, listened to tech talks, and then like, I mean, read articles, blogs. So have I come out of my imposter syndrome?
05:24
No. But I have managed to, like, I know how to manage my imposter syndrome. So the first thought, I can tell you an example, right? The first thought, when I knew that my abstract for this talk, first time I gave it in PyCon CC,
05:43
when I got to know that this talk got selected, the first thought I got was, I made a mistake. Second thought was, the panel made a mistake selecting this talk. So that was the first time. Now I'm here standing in front of you all,
06:01
talking to you, pretending to know that what I'm talking about. So what if we don't address imposter syndrome? You might miss out on a very good opportunity because you think you don't deserve it. You might be missing out a promotion
06:23
or not applying for a promotion because you think you are not up to it. You still need to upskill or whatever you need to do. You might be pushing or procrastinating a startup opportunity because you think you are not ready for it yet. And that will in turn cause impact on your career growth,
06:44
stress and anxiety, and burnout. So what is imposter syndrome? I think I told you already in the first slide. It's consistent fear of being exposed as a fraud. And the good news is it is common among high performers like you all.
07:02
It is a belief that I just got lucky in spite of all the hard work, skills and abilities. We'll be sensitive to feedback about our work. Whenever somebody criticizes our work, we have a feeling that, okay, this person has found out that I am a fraud.
07:22
So again, effects of imposter syndrome. Number one is perfectionism. I think perfectionism in general is a good thing, right? But with imposter syndrome, we'll try to be over-perfect. Like although your work has received a lot of praise already, you will still keep optimizing it.
07:44
Have you ever done that? Thinking that people will find out that you are a fraud. Or people will find faults in that. Number two is comparison. So the dissatisfaction always arises when comparing with others.
08:00
You're thinking, I mean, in this era, right, that is Instagram, LinkedIn, where the people post the shiny version of themselves, where we compare and see, okay, I'm not adequate. I'm not good enough. I still need to learn more or like I need to do more. And third one is fear of failure.
08:22
So you would avoid taking risks, stay in a safe zone to avoid failure. And number three is, sorry, number four, this is a very important one, denial of competence and praise. So when people congratulate, saying that you did a great work,
08:40
you just deflected saying that, no, I just got lucky. This is because of timing. I didn't do much. So now that we spoke about imposter syndrome, right, I'm just going to tell you four strategies to overcome imposter syndrome.
09:01
And these are not just, I mean, not anything new or magic stuff. These are things which you probably already know. I'm just going to tell those in the context of imposter syndrome. Number one, be vulnerable.
09:20
So what is it? In all our life, we have been taught, or at least I have been taught to show the successful side of me. Always show that you are shining, shiny side of yourself. But being vulnerable is opposite of that.
09:40
When you talk about your success to people, you tell about your struggles as well. When you talk about your strengths to people, you tell about your weakness as well. Sounds strange, right? But, I mean, most trusted relationships in this world
10:01
are built with vulnerability, not with strengths. I can tell you an example. Not so long ago, we had an offsite at my company. It was offsite with leaders high up in the chain, senior architects, directors, vice presidents.
10:20
And we were all sitting in a conference room. And a person explained that we'll all start with a journey line exercise. So everyone have to start sharing their life journey, both highs and lows. I mean, struggles, successful moments. And they can share whatever they are comfortable with.
10:43
But, I mean, there was an understanding that nothing goes out of this room. It has to stay within the room. And hearing this, my heart started pounding immediately. What am I going to share here? I shouldn't overshare anything. And I immediately volunteered.
11:00
I just wanted to get it over with. So I went first. I started sharing how I grew up in a lower middle class family in a small town in India, and how I wanted to become a computer engineer after watching movies, Swordfish, starring Hugh Jackman. And then joining an engineering college
11:20
and having so many backlogs. Like, all of my friends completed the degree. So I had to go back to college after four years and complete my backlogs. So, and then how I got into an IT company, a small startup, and then got promoted, all those stories.
11:42
And also the health issues I had because of stress and anxiety. Then a panic attack, which I mistook for heart attack. And I had to be taken to emergency room. Then I was done with it. But I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe I overshared. I shouldn't have shared so much.
12:03
Then to my surprise, people in the room, one by one, they started sharing their life journey. So some people shared the family issues they had, financial burdens they had. I mean, one person had, like, filed bankruptcy and recovered from it.
12:20
And another person shared that they had legal troubles early in their life. So hearing all this, I instantly felt a connection with these people. Like, these people are not some invincible leaders. They're people like me. They have a fair share of struggles in their life.
12:40
And I have been working with these people for years back then. But within that one hour of exercise, I felt an instant connection with these people. And that is the power of being vulnerable. So if you are interested, I highly suggest this exercise if you want to do it with your team or your peers.
13:03
So I've linked this in here. You can try it. I mean, I'll share the slides after this presentation if you want to try this out. And next one is find a mentor and find a mentee.
13:21
So any path that you want to take in life, right? I mean, let us talk about software engineering. Maybe you want to become a staff software engineer. Maybe you want to take a management career path, a product manager, or anything. You are not the first one taking that path, right?
13:41
There are millions of people out there who have already taken that path. So you could ask those people for mentorship. And I mean, on the other hand, having a mentor is like having a you are not a fraud hotline. Like I told you my story, right, when I got promoted
14:01
and I thought I didn't deserve it. My mentor was the one. She told me that I deserve it. And that is understandable. I mean, having a mentor will help kick out your imposter syndrome. So how does having a mentee would help?
14:21
Would mentoring someone really help with imposter syndrome? I can tell you an example. So this was more than a decade ago. I was in my office. I was asked to mentor a new journey in our team.
14:41
And this new journey, he passed out of Indian Institute of Technology. So people here from India would know it. So Indian Institute of Technology is the premier engineering college in India. So every year, about 1.5 million people
15:01
apply for this college. And only 3,500 people get selected. And I told you how bright of a student I was. Now, what could I possibly mentor this brilliant kid? I mean, I didn't even believe what I could possibly mentor him.
15:21
But I didn't have a choice but to accept the offer. Then when I started mentoring him, the things that I learned over my bumpy career, I could share with this brilliant person. I mean, it would help this person with his growth in his career.
15:42
I mean, that thought itself, I mean, that experience itself boosted up my confidence and helped kick the imposter out of me. And that is why you should mentor someone. And who should mentor? I believe everyone should mentor.
16:02
So if you have only one year of experience, there are people who just joined and need mentorship. You can mentor them. And if you're just getting started in IT, there are people who are still in college who might benefit from your mentorship. So mentoring is for everyone.
16:22
You should mentor someone. And number three is don't be a tour guide. Be a co-explorer. This is just an analogy. So when I got to be a team lead,
16:43
what I thought a team lead was a person who should know all the answers. Team lead should be the smartest person in the room. Team lead should never ask for help. These are the assumptions that I had, what a team lead is. But I was all wrong.
17:02
Like being a, who's a tour guide, right? I mean, tour guide knows a place very well. They can take people and give them a good time, show around the places, and they keep doing it again and again. But unfortunately or fortunately, in software industry, every project that we do is different.
17:24
Right? If it is the same that you are doing, then you should have already automated it. So every day is a new thing that we are doing. So having a tour guide mentality, you won't be able to lead your team.
17:40
On the other hand, what is a co-explorer? So being a co-explorer is, you are not afraid to say that I don't know. You don't have to know all the answers. You have a team. You just need to help find the answers. And co-explorer team lead are never afraid to ask for help. So having this mindset would help with imposter syndrome as well.
18:05
And number four is, this is again a simple thing. Document your wins. So what you think successful is at the end of every day. So it could be a small bug that you solved, a feature that you delivered,
18:21
or an open source contribution that you made. So having this journal will help, like whenever you have an imposter moment, you can go back to this journal and look at that and reaffirm yourself that you definitely belong. I am not an imposter. I am a rock star. You can have that feeling
18:40
when you have this success journal with you. So that's pretty much I have. To summarize, we discussed what imposter syndrome is, the effects of imposter syndrome, and strategies to overcome imposter syndrome. I want to give a small homework to you all.
19:07
Write down a moment where you felt like an imposter, and think and list down three contradicting evidences that says otherwise.
19:20
So for example, if you think you don't deserve that promotion, write down three concrete or contradicting evidence that demonstrates your competence in that.
19:41
So these are the sources which I referred for this presentation. And if you are interested to know more about the things that I talked about, I highly suggest you can read these sources. Thank you for listening to me so far.
20:02
And here are my coordinates if you want to stay connected. Fantastic. Thank you very much. I can see we've already got a question. Is that your other microphone? Excellent. Kind of not a question. Just thank you, thank you, thank you.
20:23
This was so valuable. And this should have been one of the keynotes. Thank you. Thank you so much for the kind words. I want to thank you here.
20:40
Thank you for the speech. Because for me, probably it's one of the very worst fun. Because when I came for the very first day, I was almost close to Penny Kataka, like, oh my God, I'm so stupid. Why am I coming? And like, no one share you. And like, yes, thank you so much for the speech. Thank you. Thank you so much.
21:05
Thank you also from my side. Well, since in the title you said you transitioned also into leadership, my question is, do you notice imposter syndrome in the people you're leading? And how are you dealing with them in that case?
21:20
Because I think those people need a lot of advocating for themselves on behalf of maybe you on your side. Absolutely, absolutely. Because like, when we see people, we find ways to connect with them, right, what is common between you and me. I mean, it could be same interests, same networks,
21:41
show, or something like that. So imposter syndrome is a connecting thing for me. So when a teammate has imposter syndrome, I can instantly connect with them. I also have imposter syndrome. Let's work with it together. Thank you for asking this question. Very good.
22:00
Yeah, I have to repeat that. Thank you so much. How did you find your mentors? And your mentees, did it just happen because your workplace just happened to have such a program in place, or how did that work for you? That is a very good question. So finding mentors.
22:22
So if you're clear about what you want, like if you have something that you want to achieve, it could be getting a promotion, or like getting into a specific field, like getting into management or something. If you are inspired by someone who is already in that position,
22:43
it doesn't have to be within the company. It can be outside the company. You can reach out to people even in LinkedIn for mentorship. And most people won't say no, because people will be happy to help you. When you ask for them for directions, it's actually giving them credit, right?
23:01
And they're also happy to know that somebody values what I have and where I am. And most people will say yes, too, for mentoring. And there are different types of mentorship. I think mentorship itself would be a different talk, like peer-to-peer mentorship, new higher mentorship,
23:23
cross-generational mentorship. There are different things. But if you are clear about what you want, and if you think somebody has already taken that path, you can ask for mentorship within the company, or in LinkedIn, or somewhere that you see. But on the other hand, getting a mentee,
23:43
you can't go to a person and say that I'll mentor you from tomorrow. That won't work. But you can post in LinkedIn that I am ready to have some time, and I can mentor two or three people. Please reach out to me. And I believe people will reach out to you.
24:01
So, or in your company. And there is another thing. I mean, you can also reach out within the company. Manager or HR should be able to help start a mentorship program as well. I mean, if it is official. Thank you so much. Maybe you can propose a talk next year about mentorship.
24:21
Sure. Thank you. Do you think it's useful to reach out, get a, or to even try to find a mentor if you're at a stage where you're not really sure what you want to do next? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good point. That's a good point.
24:41
Actually, I mean, if you are not sure, like you said, I was happy with my career, but right now I'm not very happy. I don't know what I should do next, which phase of career I am. I mean, should I take this direction or this direction? If you're not clear, that also mentor can help you. Like, if they have gone through similar phase.
25:01
I mean, people might have gone through similar phase, right? So, yeah, there also mentor can help. Thanks for asking the question. Thank you. Do we have any more questions? No, in that case, I think a fourth round of applause, please. Thank you. Thank you very much, Manish.