Impostor Syndrome aka “How did I even get here?”
Ever feel like you’ve ended up in a (tech) job that you don’t deserve because you’re not good enough? Yeah, me too.
My part
I work as a 3D Technology Evangelist at ESRI, the market leader in GIS (Geographic Information Systems). As a Technology Evangelist, I am responsible for “showing off” our technology, speaking about it in front of large audiences, creating demos, networking, finding new market opportunities, new customers, and user stories.
To do what I do (and to do it well!) requires technical knowledge as well as a bunch of other “soft skills” (edit: I strongly dislike the term “soft skills”, because it somehow implies that these skills are not as important).
“I work in tech” is my standard response to the question of what I do for a living. I often notice that I am met with a sense of awe when I say this. To date, the amount of women in tech professions worldwide is at 25%, women in leadership positions is 29% across all professions, women in tech leadership positions are rarer with women occupying only 10% of top management positions.
It’s taken me a long time to feel like I deserve to be where I am, which is just ridiculous in itself because I know that I am good at what I do. I’m fortunate, I never had anybody doubting my abilities, never had anybody question my judgment, I have no reason to feel like I don’t belong.
Studying and moving countries
I grew up in Australia, also known as “the lucky country”, I studied at Melbourne University and finished my first degree, an Arts degree, in 2007 before flipping through the University handbook in search of something else that I could study after realising that Criminology would require me to essentially “switch off” my empathy. Empathy was too big a component of my being for me to no longer tap into it as easily anymore.
I discovered something called “Geomatic Engineering”. I had no idea what this was or what it would entail, I just knew that I ticked the pre-requisites to enroll in the course. Geomatic Engineering (also often spelled Geomatics Engineering) is a relatively new area of study and essentially kind of lives in the cross-section between “Land Surveying” (Geo comes from the Latin word for earth) and “Informatics”.
In 2011, with my Geomatics and Arts degrees in hand, I left the lucky country and moved to Switzerland where I worked various jobs in land,- and construction surveying before finding my feet as an “Application Engineer” at a company called “Leica Geosystems”. Leica Geosystems is the world leader in surveying technology and is headquartered in a small town called Heerbrugg which is nestled between mountain ranges and the Rhine river and hugs the Austrian border.
The Tech-y part
These days surveying equipment consists of more than just a measuring tape and a plumb-bob, it is a technology that at the very least, is capable of measuring distances of 1,500 meters (4,900 ft) with an accuracy of about 1.5 millimeters (0.059 in) ± 2 parts per million.
Through my position at Leica Geosystems, I transitioned from working as an Engineer in the field to an Engineer responsible for creating the software for the equipment that needs to be so accurate that it can be used to build the world's tallest skyscrapers.
As a construction surveyor building skyscrapers, every tiny error in measurement perpetuates from floor to floor and if you really mess up, your skyscraper won’t be level in the end, which at the very least would cost a lot of time and money to fix. Or imagine driving along a freeway that is essentially a rollercoaster. Things like this happen if you don’t build accurately.
Finding my place
I relished working in software engineering, I was working alongside all these ultra-smart people who could basically code their way out of a paper bag, I would specify to them what functionality a new feature should have and in the end, my feature would be in the software for me to test.
I was literally shaping the products that up until this point, I had only been an end-user for. I had found my place. From here, I had big plans. Next step: product manager and the step after that: director of an entire department.
I moved cities and changed jobs and became a project manager at ESRI’s R&D Center in Zurich. In my mind, I was surrounded by the elite, with most of the developers holding a Ph.D. in computer graphics or rocket science or something else really intimidating. They were basically astronauts to me. The Scrum meetings quickly took a deep dive into territory where all I could do was “smile and nod” and I left work every day feeling defeated and quite frankly…dumb.
Impostor syndrome kicking in
Before I changed jobs, I did an MBA focusing on technology and innovation because my goal seemed so clear at the time, but now…the more I thought about it, the more time I spent in this world, the more doubt I placed in my own mind.
How can I work in software engineering when I am not a software engineer myself? The little bit of object-oriented programming in Python that I can do certainly doesn’t qualify me to lead a team of software cracks, the fact that I made a webpage using JavaScript and CSS many moons ago as part of a course at Uni doesn’t help my case either.
Sure, I have a good understanding of technical and software concepts, but the only other things I have going for myself are these useless “soft skills”. I’m a fraud. I’m surrounded by all these geniuses, and I don’t deserve to be here. I wrestled with this thought daily — I’m an impostor and it’s only a matter of time before someone realises. But funnily enough, nobody ever did realise.
I’m surrounded by all these geniuses, and I don’t deserve to be here. I’m an impostor and it’s only a matter of time before someone realises.
The End part
I kept on advancing my career, hoping that nobody would uncover my dirty little secret: that I had somehow slid into the field without knowing anything (that’s truly how I felt as if I knew nothing at all compared to anyone else).
I went on to do some pretty cool things. I’ve been all over the world to speak at conferences, I’ve found new customers, trained new customers, built our community, been part of visibility programs in big companies, created demos, hosted events, met some really interesting people, created business opportunities, brought products to market, strategized and built business models…and the list goes on. I thought to myself: “I sure am lucky that, as an impostor, I somehow managed to not only be part of these things but to actually drive them!”.
Realising the value of soft skills
Then, one day, I made a realisation, the soft skills that I kept denying in my tech career are actually the very same soft skills I deemed too important to switch off when it came to a career in Criminology. I don’t need to diminish or ignore these, I need to grow them.
So I honed in on these soft skills even more and today, I fully embrace them for exactly what they are: skills. Real skills! Skills that make me a good leader and a reliable worker, skills that make me enjoy my job, that make me feel like I have a purpose, that help me to grow, and skills that set me apart from the rest.
My soft skills are real skills. Skills that make me a good leader and a reliable worker, skills that make me enjoy my job, that make me feel like I have a purpose, that help me to grow, and skills that set me apart from the rest.
These skills together with my technical knowledge are what make me a valuable asset even if my domain knowledge is not on par with those smart Ph.D. software engineering, rocket scientist Einstein’s that appear to be revolutionising the tech industry on a daily basis.
Working in tech isn’t a “one-size fits all” career. You have earned your place in tech even if you’re not a software engineer or haven’t followed the traditional “tech” path. Don’t dismiss those “soft skills”, welcome them with open arms, and use them. They are so very important.
I work in tech, I’m awesome at my job, I’m not an impostor, I deserve to be here because I earned my place here by embracing exactly who I am.
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