Senior Software Engineer Imposter Syndrome

What's your secret that could literally ruin your life if it came out? I'm a Senior Software Engineer working for groundbreaking new super secretive projects for one of the companies in the top 10 of the Fortune 500. And I actually don't have the faintest clue what I'm doing. I Google almost everything and string things together in a sorta sensible way, and people are happy as can be for some reason. By now I'm pretty sure I'm in a social experiment, or maybe I'm the village idiot they have to entertain so that I don't go outside and break things that matter. They call it "imposter syndrome" but like, really, guys. I really don't know what the hell I'm doing. It's just Google answering my endless stream of questions. I only successfully passed the job interview because they gave me plenty of time (without me doing it live) to work on their job-interview-assignment. My six-figure salary feels so unjust. I often see people working at a fast food joint who seem smarter than I am. And I could set fire to a kettle boiling water; they're at least flipping burgers, which I can't do without causing gender-reveal-esque disasters.

A long text confession from a senior software engineer says they work on secret projects at a Fortune 500 company while having no idea what they are doing. They rely on Google, barely passed the interview by completing the assignment at home, and feel undeserving of their six-figure salary. The joke is an exaggerated confession of imposter syndrome, used as a relatable reaction to secretly feeling incompetent despite professional success.

• @profunctor_io / 5577 2020-10-12