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Comment by rjh29 | Hacker News Reader

Writeup ignores the nuances of mental health - there is a gradient between "I am definitely an imposter" and "I have imposter sydrome, these thoughts are not real". In between is a miasma of self-doubt and anxiety. And it can change depending on the time and the situation.

If a friend or colleague confided in me that they felt like an imposter (but weren't sure) I would treat that as a tremendous act of trust, not an attempt at 'humble bragging'.

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This. We exist in a weird situation where on one hand we are encouraged to be open and transparent about what we don't know, in order to grow and improve, but on the other hand, are paid and valued largely according to what we know.

Crossing that boundary required a lot of trust at times. Company culture valuing growth over outright performance can go a long way, but is also sometimes not aligned profits.

I wonder how much of imposter syndrome is driven by environmental factors. I work in an environment that's on the bleeding edge of software, hardware, and physics and hardly anyone actually knows everything in their subject area off hand, but "I can ask someone else, or do some reading and get back to you" is not an uncommon phrase here. There's a huge difference between not being able to understand something (via referencing external sources) and being able to answer an arbitrary question about it from memory.

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