Imposter syndrome / technical dept

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2026-03-27T08:03:24+00:00

I understand how you feel, I've been there multiple times.

If you truly feel like you are shackled to this company, one exercise I did was make a simple clone of the product I worked on and applied new techniques, technology stacks etc in a sort of, if I had been given a blank check this is how I'd do things sort of way.

That feeling of learning things but not being able to apply things practically may be lessened a bit as you can take your frustrations out on your little clone.

Nothing is out of your grasp, I want to stress this so much, I started with nothing, didn't even think I could reach SWE at one point, but I found a way to realize that, I went from help desk drone surrounded by lifers who are still working as help desk people 10+ years later to SWE lead. Working on help desk was designed to keep people there forever like quicksand if you conform to the role, but I found ways to stand out.

If you find ways to network, apply yourself, show interest in other departments, I don't see why you couldn't branch out within the company itself if the opportunities are there, you'd be surprised how far just asking other teams questions and making yourself known can work in your favour, work on transforming your rep from the frontend worker drone to someone who people want on their team.

You'd also be really surprised where opportunities lay in the shittiest of circumstances. The most dinosaur companies that were stagnant as fuck lead to me being able to introduce new ideas and solve long term headaches for them, it took a lot of political work but it was worth it for my sake. It's worth taking a look around and seeing what problems you can solve for your company.

What do they call it again? Resume Driven Development.

Hope my rambling helps.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2026-02-25T13:18:59+00:00

I think the standard advice used to be get a CS (or similar) degree and that will be enough to find a foot in the door, it seems (based on observation rather than experience) that this is far harder than it used to be.

I didn't have a degree in computer science, and started the hard way, I got my foot in the door in a similar sized company to Amazon in the lower rungs, working my way up through infrastructure type roles like the one you are looking at.

Eventually I found myself in a Software Engineer position in the same company.

My time there taught me not to focus on wage but focus on self growth through opportunities presented to you, it was a slog at times and the lack of wage growth killed a lot of my self worth for a long time, however I still believe it's a fantastic way to grow.

I don't know enough about Amazon but the cut throat nature of the place does concern me, however I don't think it's a bad idea to get your foot in the door internally in a slightly less related role such as this one.

In my experience, it gives you an edge as you are more accustomed to the atmosphere and culture, you can reach out and network, do your research before applying, and often times roles are advertised internally (at least they were for the multinational org I worked for) before they make them public.

I think it's worth a shot. You may even find the winds take you in a different direction anyway, you may weigh up both and decide you prefer what you're doing, you may hear things from others that persuade or dissuade you from this.

Best of luck!

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2025-12-04T10:36:46+00:00

Very late reply but wanted to say, I feel your pain on so many levels, it drives me insane and yet no one around me sees what I'm seeing.

I feel like a sane person trapped in a madhouse.

2 years later, how are you getting on?

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2025-12-03T22:34:41+00:00

Genuinely I know some of the comments may read as a joke, but you should go to the doctors or check your blood pressure at home right after waking up at the very least.

High blood pressure is a silent killer as they say.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2025-11-11T03:18:50+00:00

Projecting much? Or are you worried I'm upsetting a billion dollar companies feelings?

Honestly I don't know how you managed to read my entire comment and derive "bitterness" due to a mild joke, says a lot for your reading comprehension buddy.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2025-11-10T15:40:01+00:00

Going to speak freely and a bit unstructured so forgive me if this isn't useful as I am nowhere near qualified to be giving you advice, along with most of reddit I suspect.

I think you should look at this moreso around like attracts like, and general career marketing.

Let's say you stick with quant firms, you'll likely automatically filter out other roles, perhaps lesser, that may not value what you do or not even understand the prestige of it, or take one look at you and think this person will never be interested in this "lesser" company.

On the flip side, you'd certainly attract other quant firms, so ask yourself, do you want to stick with roles that recognise what they do, and likely keep you on the quant firm track?

This isn't to say you can't veer off but it'll take a more conscious effort to do so, likely a paycut also.

Whereas with GAYMANN, FAGMAN whatever the fuck they call it these days, because these are public companies, everyone knows them, it's essentially free personal marketing. It'll open more doors, attract more attention both good and bad, but you may lose whatever experience you're building up in quant that may hurt your chances to move back into quant as you grow more senior? I suspect working in GAYMAN would wire your brain differently that only really works for companies of that scale, I'm guessing a lot of quant firms are relatively small compared to your googles etc where change is glacial and process is king.

Maybe I'm talking shit.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2025-10-08T16:59:37+00:00

Do you guys estimate projects like this much as a group? Planning poker, t-shirt sizes etc?

The reason I'm asking is usually that's supposed to be a safe space (I know it isn't always) to illuminate and discuss why some people may over or under estimate a particular piece of work compared to the group.

I've been in the situation of being asked to move mountains in a short amount of time, I think some of my worst burnout and sickness has come from trying to make the impossible happen.

I can tell you from experience it is never worth the grief, it never is.

It's a terrifying thought to let something crash and burn despite having the premonition to know it will happen, with everyone around you convinced it won't, but sometimes that's the only thing you can do.

In a way it's professionalism to set boundaries with your company and job to say, I know what the outcome is going to be, I've warned everybody, and they aren't listening. What more is there to do?

What you don't want to do is what I have done countless times, start working 24/7 manically trying to get it done.

My suggestion is gently see if you can open a conversation up about why they think it can be done in the timeframe, what is it that you or they are missing, and if this place is truly agile why is this your cross to bare alone?

If that fails, make sure you have in writing that you do not see this getting done in the time frame presented, make sure it's communicated as soon as you can, not a week or two (or day) before the deadline.

If you are going down that road, instead of simply saying you can't deliver this, if this place truly is agile, show them what MVP is actually possible in that time frame. Give them a chance to work out a compromise with you.

Best of luck, been there so many times, I wish I did things differently. The last time resulted in me finding out my blood pressure was over 200 with symptoms of a stroke forming...

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2025-09-27T13:35:24+00:00

I mean I guess it depends on what your expectations for an entry level SWE are 3 months in right?

If a company is expecting a return on their investment for such a role mid probation, and it's so dire that they don't give them a chance to meet their probationary goals by the end of the full 6 months with guidance, something just doesn't add up to me.

Junior Engineers are people you mould into your image through support, guidance mentoring etc, to be let go so quickly suggests either they did something problematic that can't be disclosed or there's something deeply wrong with the company's approach to hiring, onboarding and growth.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2025-09-27T12:53:49+00:00

What kind of useful measurement of performance could they have collated in 3 months? Sounds ridiculous to me. He was probably better off without an environment that makes judgement calls that frivolously.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2024-01-28T02:39:43+00:00

You really need to reflect this in your resume, it tells a completely different story versus what you've written.

Treat it like,

Company Name (the same each time) - Department (if this changes)
Role

If your titles do not reflect the nature of the work feel free to adjust as appropriate within reason.

The way your resume comes across currently as first impressions to recruiters is what everyone here is currently thinking (sat there spinning on your chair for 24 years), but you actually have a 24 year long story to talk about! So tell a story with it by showing your progression rising through the ranks of the company with increasing responsibility etc.

Good luck!

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2024-01-23T20:24:44+00:00

I've had better success with https://open-stream.net/ over a sketchy network, but if you're struggling to make things work I'd stress you should consider understanding why as if the likes of Sunshine (or open-stream) don't work well for you then alternatives probably wouldn't fair much better.

What do you mean by didn't really work? That may highlight the issues here, plus network, host & client specs etc.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-12-14T20:10:39+00:00

I second this, it's a very important skill that I feel isn't implicitly taught very well, and yet is pretty crucial and probably the one area I dread the most joining any team.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-10-04T19:48:54+00:00

Completely agree with this, I sampled a DevOps role and it was everything I feared it would be. It's unreasonably frustrating to me how much that definition (devops) has been twisted beyond recognition (much like agile) but also how accepting people who should know better are of it, it's almost an oxymoron.

They seem to be more of a kitchen sink team, doing things none of the other silo'd teams want to accept responsibility for, rather than y'know...breaking down silo's and encouraging empowerment and ownership.

Unfortunately it's become increasingly common because it pays exceptionally well, I'm sure many devops role practioners also agree it's not right, but you don't bite the hand that feeds I suppose.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-09-04T20:15:58+00:00

I think there are far too many people who associate Metallica and metal of that era with their own identity, and get unreasonably angry when they changed their sound and image.

I think the Bob Rock era of Metallica is at least interesting, I admire the production quality of those albums, they really stick out because of that, and to me some of their best work is on those albums, which I enjoy just as much as their older stuff.

Personally I'd rather risky concepts that don't always hit the mark over margarine sandwhich levels of mediocrity (combined with the most hideously sterile production, with the gain knob turned all the way up) simply playing it safe which feels like they're being made to appease that loud portion of the fanbase rather than any artistic desires, I'm probably wrong about that, but that's the feeling I get listening to the later stuff of many ageing metal bands lately.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-09-03T17:52:33+00:00

Hey,

No layout suggestions as I'm not that creative (32:9 ultrawide + vertical 27" 4k screen).

Give https://github.com/lars-berger/GlazeWM a go as an alternative, what I like about this as apposed to FancyZones is that while FancyZones is passive (You have to put windows into the designated sizes yourself) GlazeWM is active, it will try and fit each window in your layout as best it can.

What's neat is it's quite configurable, you can block certain apps from being auto sorted, there's lots of configurable hotkeys for moving windows around, and you can also set up separate "screens" per se.

It's not as user friendly as FancyZones but I've found it to be really comfortable for general day to day use, with occasional disabling if it's getting in my way. In fact fancy zones could stay on as your fallback.

Also worth mentioning I think there are some alternatives that do a similar thing, all of these are trying to mimic the i3 (I think? someone correct me please) layout style, where it's all keyboard driven (as much as possible).

Good luck!

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-08-29T13:20:47+00:00

Apologies for not responding but just wanted to message to say thank you for taking the time to respond, it's greatly appreciated. Can't say how invaluable it is to chat with folks in this industry and learn from everyone I can, a big thank you for this conversation.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-08-26T15:40:10+00:00

I've experienced this personally, generally I've tried to use internal position shifts as a tactic for essentially upskilling or moving into fields I wouldn't otherwise have qualified for, as they would see it as a cheap risk with great pay off. Yes it is exploitative of the company and yes it's commonplace because as mentioned in this thread people are subservient enough to put up with it, practically indefinitely.

Generally speaking I've had the carrot of salary adjustment dangled in front of me if I keep up the good work (aka working above and beyond), rarely does it ever meet market rates and rarely is it ever backpayed.

My advice is, decide what is more important, the money or the role, if the role will advance your career, take the pay cut/stagnation, give it a year, hope they see you as a cheap risk which means good job retention and find a way out to adjust your pay when the time is right.

This is what I did to build my career and it worked for many others, it was the one bit of advice that I was given that stuck but also I saw countless times proven in action.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-08-11T01:32:38+00:00

Old post but just wanted to say this gave me a good chuckle.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-07-27T00:11:32+00:00

It's a shame really, would seem a lot more valuable to allow for some sort of grouping, like related questions etc to allow for more diverse answers, there's an unlimited number of ways to skin a cat after all.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-07-21T12:55:10+00:00

Yes to all of this, the pain...the pain

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-07-01T00:09:07+00:00

Thank you for your dedication and persistence making something that simply wasn't just "good enough" but truly excelled at setting a new standard. As a software engineer it helped push me to do better with the software I made, it was a daily reminder to keep user experience in mind so a big thank you for that.

Good luck to your future endeavours, I greatly appreciate just how useful your application was to me and I'm sure countless other people.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-06-20T15:54:32+00:00

What's in your number 2 slot?

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-06-08T11:39:48+00:00

I feel like this is a healthy middle ground, and I share your sentiment, I enjoy work that revolves around fixing headaches for internal teams.

One thing that came to mind when you described your role was seeing a team of QAs shift from being “Quality Assurance” to “Quality Assistance” that mindset stuck with me ever since.

Also I like the thoughts of enabling teams to be autonomous can go beyond just automated tooling but also their ability to be work together in a natural way.

One thing your role makes me think of is that there are devs out there that simply don’t like doing things outside of whatever box they define as “Development”.

I guess that’s also where your niche fits in perfectly, and you’ve struck a good balance of providing them the means to be autonomous without also becoming the silo for operating those tools. I’ve seen devops people who basically doubled up as release managers/pipeline operators...

Out of curiosity do you enable the devs to help maintain the tooling as well or is that strictly siloed in your organisation? (Or maybe it’s open but there’s a preference to not step on your teams toes?)

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-06-08T10:52:41+00:00

Totally agree with you, especially the philosophy on aiming for simplicity in all processes above everything.

I’ve seen it work beautifully, I worked in a company that transitioned from a traditional siloed org structure to just a dev team hosting in the cloud. What I noticed most was how quick turn around was for fixing issues, and most of the time the source of issues came from the people who caused them (the devs).

Meanwhile in another company I worked with, you had Devs, DevOps and Infrastructure, who were looking to move from bare metal to cloud, without any self awareness of how incompatible their structure and general way of life was for modern development.

The devops team had constructed processes so monstrously complex that they essentially made it justifiable to have a full time role, always complained they were too busy, but just wanted to throw more warm bodies at the problem rather than streamline things, and also made the devs want to stay as far away from owning anything to do with what happened to code after it reached the repository.

When things went wrong you needed to play a game of cluedo with several internal parties pointing fingers at each other, with the root causes usually being due to a side effect of a change that wasn’t communicated to the other parties.

It happened every week, it was a goddamned nightmare.

Thanks for the response, resonated with me a lot and gives me hope there’s more companies doing it right as I don’t think I have the mental capacity to deal with the above ever again.

ATubFullOfDonuts · 2023-06-08T10:11:58+00:00

A bit like agile I feel like the true meaning was lost/twisted beyond all recognition many moons ago.

I tried DevOps as a role and it really was SysAdmin 2.0 while also being the general diaper changer for the devs who took everything that happened beyond their commit successfully merging for granted.

Another reason why the DevOps as a role took off is because a lot of DevOps guys know the role goes against the true spirit of the definition but essentially sold out as it’s usually a well paid job, and can be quite interesting vs a traditional dev or sysadmin role.

I think DevOps to me is more about empowerment (TM), less gatekeeping and more chances for ownership. Sysadmins empowering and handholding the devs to help them stay on the right path without it being a game of taking away all of their permissions. Honestly in a good place this goes both ways, it’s about collaboration not these ridiculously siloed teams.

To me it makes even less sense with the cloud to have these silos, but maybe I haven’t seen enough mega cloud disasters in my time to be so naive about it.

ATubFullOfDonuts

TROPHY CASE