Imposter Syndrome

Some History

 In 2001, I did a pretty significant career change.  I went from a printing pressman to working in Information Technology.  It was not a smooth transition, for a variety of reasons (some of which you can read about in more detail on this past post of mine).  One of things that made it challenging for me is that the vast majority of the people working in IT have some kind of college/university degree.  I don't.  I went through a 'fast-paced' 9 month training transition.  In my first few years as a Java Developer, I was painfully aware of significant gaps in my IT education.  This led me to feeling like a bit of an imposter every time I started a new job or contract.

Some of the IT books I've continued to learn from.

Recent Challenges

Fast forward 20 years, and I found myself invited onto a small team of senior developers by a vice-president in the company I was working for.  We were tasked with building a new platform for one of the company's main software products, used by construction and architectural customers around the globe.  We were trying to do 'bleeding edge' work - getting software and infrastructure to run on systems that were documented as 'supported' (read: it 'should' work), but not many people had successfully implemented 'in the wild'.  The guys on our team were really smart, and I consistently felt  insecure with my abilities and out of my comfort zone.  It was stressing me out as the only contractor on the team.

Encouragement

One day in the middle of this my wife and I were walking through Rona the hardware superstore. I shared my struggles, concerns, and insecurities at work with her, and basically broke down crying.  We prayed together about it later that day.  Several weeks afterwards, we were visiting some friends and I shared this struggle with them.  Randy, the husband about 15 years my senior, encouraged me.  He shared how he felt similar in some of his positions as the financial leader (CFO) at a couple of companies, but felt God tell him "I've placed you here in this position, for a reason.  If I put you here, know that I will support you with the expertise and answers you need to do good work here, and be a light for me."

I took this advice to heart.  In the following days and weeks I tried to remember that God placed me there, and that I needed to trust that he'd give me the answers, wisdom, and confidence I needed to do my job well.  You can see from this post that I had been thinking about my work struggles a lot :-)

Me and some colleagues at the 2025 Google Cloud Platform
conference in Las Vegas this spring

Further Up & Further In

Our team's 'proof of value' project for the new platform was successful, and we began to move live customers onto it.  God provided an opportunity for me to become a full-time employee at the company, which I accepted.  The following year, I receive a 'Founder's Award' from the company for 'Product Advancement!' as well as a promotion to a manager position.  God is good and faithful!

In this new position, I continue to struggle with thoughts of insecurity and feeling like an imposter.  The team has grown and the our customer base on the platform has grown as well with more than 200 customers running on it now.  God continues to teach me (almost on a daily basis) lessons of humility and trust as I help our team grow this platform.  There's lots of prayer and 'standing on the promises' in the Bible, like:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths"

"He will keep in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed up Him, because he trusts in Him"

"God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind"

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything through prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving, make your requests known to God; and the God of peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus"