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Christine
7y

On being a woman in tech...

You lads probably have (and my fellow ladies certainly have) heard of "impostor syndrome" and, if you don't experience it, you possibly wonder what living with it is like.

Here's an example from this weekend.

Be me, about 5 years into my career, graduated from a top college, feeling decent but still unsure of skill.

Company gets a 4 week trial of an online learning website. It includes optional assessments, so that you know where in the video lessons to start. Rankings are novice, proficient, expert.

Hear from our QA that he got ranked "proficient." Which is a pretty broad category, but I become super afraid that I'll also be assessed as "proficient" and it will look like I have the same dev skills as a fucking QA (our management overlords can see our scores).

Boyfriend has me do some deep breathing before starting the test, because it's obvious how stressed I am.

Finally take it and get ranked "expert", in the 97th percentile, even though some technical difficulties made me miss four questions in a row. I decide to use my do over, and get ranked "expert" again, this time in the 99th percentile.

You'd think I'd be like, "Lawl, I can't believe I'd get the same score as our QA!" And there is some of that. But there's also the thoughts of, "that test could have been more thorough," "that score wasn't real because I resaw a question and got the right answer the second time," and "99th percentile isn't that great on a platform where new developers are over represented."

And this is all despite the fact that, if you were to ask someone how confident I am, the answer would probably "confident as hell."

Not saying this to start any fights. Figured it could be some interesting insight into a world that some people don't experience! (not that males aren't allowed to have impostor syndrome!)

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c#

impostor syndrome

women in tech
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  • 5
    7y
    Yeah we all heard of it and it always happens on your first job with a new language or when somebody that doesn't know squat sets a decent bar.

    But my experiance on those kind of test i usually can complete an hello world tutorial and pass as an expert. I guess my standards are more advanced than the people that create those test
  • 9
    7y
    Hah, indeed. If anyone else wants to take the test, it's the assessment test for the C# Path on Pluralsight (left the name out of the original post so that I wouldn't look like I was advertising for the company)
  • 5
    7y
    Hang in there :)
    I wish I meet women like you.
    Ones in uni have a problem believing they're not capable of understanding advanced technical aspects of the career, which actually make it impossible for them... What an attitude and confidence problem they have.
    You have my respect :D
  • 3
    7y
    @jstaiyou is it possible that saying things like this contributes to that confidence problem?
  • 2
    7y
    Nope, I meant it to be the other way around. It is absolutely possible for everyone to do what they want. All it takes is passion.
    Also, I think gender is irrelevant in order to achieve something (or it should, cause we are in 20th century)
  • 2
    7y
    @jstaiyou I guess I misunderstood because it totally sounded like you said "girls at my uni have attitude and confidence issues" which implies that gender is relevant, and that it is entirely their problem rather than a problem of years of them being told they can't do something, or do it as well...Guess I misunderstood
  • 1
    7y
    I saw this movie like a week ago, "Hidden Figures", and there were quite brilliant women who were treated awfully only for being women (and black), but they did amazing things.
    I believe women are just as (or even more) capable as men, and I'd like to see a society without stupid man feeling smarter than women, and without women feeling dumber than man. In every little aspect of life
  • 3
    7y
    @jckimble, to me, it kicks in with every new job. I always feel like I got the job because they asked the right questions.
  • 4
    7y
    @Eariel I have a problem but I don't think it's impostor. It's more like sometimes I get stuck at some point in my current project (handed to me with absolutely not experience and intended to be completed all on my own), which I've been working on the last 6 months, with things I actually don't know.
    When that happens, I start learning other things I'm interested in, so I can clear my mind.
    By the end of that process, I've acquired new knowledge, new confidence and enough motivation to solve the original problem.
    Try not comparing your self to others, enjoy the success you get and embrace the fact that you actually deserve what you've got because you're awesome (come on, we all know everybody here in devRant are awesome)
  • 4
    7y
    I am still afraid someone at one point will notice I know nothing, even as I solve all my problems, and working at good speed. So yeah, I pretty much familiar with the problem.
  • 6
    7y
    I'm a woman who pushes out an exceptional amount of work and am highly recognized by many peers and leadership, but I still, and forever will, feel like I'm faking it. It's an extraordinarily hard thing to overcome and often leads to many anxious nights wondering when they'll realize I'm not as good as they think I am.
  • 2
    7y
    As the old saying goes the more you know the more you understand you know nothing. My favorite poem on the matter is:

    Do not think that
    This is all that exists
    There is much more to learn -
    The sword is unfathomable

    Yamaoka Tesshu

    If you feel that your knowledge and experience is not enough and you do the work to get more of it, you are on the right path. It's not about passion. It's about doing the work to get better. Passion is a byproduct of work. It has nothing to do with gender.
  • 3
    7y
    I takes real skill to know how shit you are (at certain things).
  • 1
    7y
    @xios it has nothing to do indeed. :)
  • 1
    7y
    @edsdame nobody is supposed to know everything and, if you were capable of solving problems, it proves you knew the right thing at the right time. Don't you think that, more than knowing nothing, you know what you need to?
  • 1
    7y
    @AxBack of course, but there must be a balance between honesty/humility and self confidence. One never should feel less than anyone else.
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