I've always felt like I don't deserve my role, I climbed the proverbial ladder quick and I am very young for my position (Principal Engineer). But I sleep fine at night because at the end of the day I was always honest with my skills, my intentions and my motivations, and I'm always sure to get full agreement from everyone before doing stuff. If after all that nobody figured out I'm a fucking idiot just making an informed guess, that's on them.

I always fear the next company I join will have "real technical leaders" who will inevitably show me my place, but it hasn't happened so far (3-4 massive companies in the last decade).

Maybe one day I will meet this person, but it is not this day... And then I try to teach the same to younger engineers to work through problems as a team and just do it until somebody stops you, because in a lot of cases nobody has a clue either, and that's what it means to lead.

Now as a senior dev, I've seen enough shit to realize that most people have no idea what is going on, and are flying by the seat of their pants.

What's helpful in my industry is that new development happens so frequently that the absolute best answer today is probably the wrong one in the next few years. Since I'm never on the absolute cutting edge, I have to trust my team to pitch the plan and we roll with it.

What I think makes me a senior is me knowing that we don't know anything, but being able to create a plan if/when we have to make changes.

When I was working stand-in positions such as after a move, for example retail, my favorite go-to when asked "Whyyyy?" was "I have no idea. No one told me anything." I sometimes miss those days.

You're right though. Most people have enough knowledge to do the steps of the job or task. For many of them skipping a step shuts down that memory, if only temporarily. I've met only a handful of true experts. People who can do things forwards, backwards, upside-down, and mix things up on the fly. They are BY FAR the most uncommon.

This is how the world is. No one is really an expert. No one really has the answer.

This is how all enterprise companies I worked for operates too. Only when I joined a smaller company with 80 people I realized that it can be really fun to work. We get a lot of stuff done and hardly any meetings. Really enjoying it.

One of my favorite managers once told me while I was struggling with a severe case of imposter syndrome "if you're faking it well enough that others can't tell, you might not be faking it as much as you think."

It’s funny you say this, because my junior is complaining that I micromanage too much. I prefer to make the critical decisions. Whenever I don’t make them, I end up putting out fires.

I tell them that and they respond, how am I supposed to learn if I can’t make mistakes?

Then I remind them they can fuck up all they want in the dev env.

to paraphrase hl mencken: ask and ye shall receive -- and receive it good and hard

Here you go. https://theycantalk.com/post/667874745661915137/predicament

Yeah I’m shocked by some of the things I read in these types of thread. I’m not perfect, we all make mistakes, but I am definitely confident in that I know what I am doing.

I mean you can do this in the first year.

I however slipped much faster into the senior dev position than I liked. Basically after 2 years full time (and 5 years as a student on part time) I am now expert in a few things and the go to person for questions. For people who work longer in there than me.