Imposter Syndrome at Staff Level: Yes, It Still Happens

The Promotion I Didn't Deserve

In March 2025, I was promoted to Staff Engineer. It came with a 40% raise, a fancy new title on LinkedIn, and the expectation that I was now a "technical leader" who would "shape the engineering roadmap."

I accepted the offer. I posted the LinkedIn update. I got 300+ congratulations.

And then I had a panic attack in the bathroom.

Because I didn't feel like a Staff Engineer. I felt like a very lucky Senior Engineer who had successfully convinced everyone I knew what I was doing.

The Voices in the Meeting

Staff Engineers are supposed to lead architecture reviews. We're supposed to make Big Decisions™ about which database to use, which framework to adopt, which cloud provider to bet the company on.

In my first architecture review as a Staff Engineer, I sat at the table with three Principal Engineers and a VP of Engineering. They were discussing whether to migrate from PostgreSQL to DynamoDB.

One person argued for consistency. Another argued for performance. Another argued for cost.

They all looked at me. "What do you think?"

What I thought: "I have no idea. Both options seem reasonable. I'm terrified of being wrong."

What I said: "I think we need to run a load test to validate the latency assumptions before making a decision."

(Translation: "I'm stalling because I don't know the answer.")

They nodded. "Good point." The meeting adjourned.

I walked back to my desk convinced I had just faked my way through the most important technical decision of the quarter.

The Stackoverflow Tab I Hide

Here's a secret: I still open Stack Overflow multiple times a day. Not for advanced topics. For basic stuff.

"How to iterate over a Map in JavaScript."
"Python list comprehension syntax."
"Git rebase vs merge."

These are things I've done hundreds of times. But my brain doesn't cache syntax. So I Google it. Again. And again.

And every time I do, a little voice whispers: "A real Staff Engineer wouldn't need to Google this. You're a fraud."

The Junior Engineer Who Knows More

Last month, a new grad joined our team. Let's call her Maya.

Maya is brilliant. She has a PhD in Distributed Systems. She casually references Paxos and Raft algorithms in code review comments. She wrote a custom Kubernetes operator in her first week.

I have never written a Kubernetes operator. I barely understand how Kubernetes works. I just know you "apply" YAML files and pray.

During a pairing session, Maya asked me, "Why did you choose this data structure?"

What I thought: "Because it was the first thing that came to mind and it worked."

What I said: "I wanted to optimize for readability over performance since this isn't in the hot path."

(I made that up on the spot. It sounded smart.)

She nodded. "That makes sense."

I felt like a con artist.

The Dunning-Kruger Reversal

Here's the paradox: The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.

When I was a junior developer, I thought I was great. I could build a CRUD app in Rails. I could center a div (sometimes). I was full of confidence rooted in ignorance.

Now, as a Staff Engineer, I've seen enough production outages, architectural failures, and "temporary hacks" that became permanent technical debt to know that building software is impossibly hard.

Every decision is a tradeoff. Every solution creates new problems. There is no "right" answer, only "least wrong" answers that you discover in hindsight.

The confidence of the junior dev is replaced by the qualified uncertainty of the senior dev. And uncertainty feels like fraud.

The Therapy Breakthrough

I started seeing a therapist in June. (Yes, therapists for Imposter Syndrome. It's a thing. Tech workers keep therapists in business.)

She asked me to list my accomplishments. I rattled off a few.

"But those were team efforts," I qualified. "I didn't do them alone."

She asked, "If you didn't contribute, would they have happened?"

"Probably not," I admitted.

"Then you contributed," she said. "Why are you discounting that?"

I had no answer.

She pointed out a pattern: I attributed successes to luck or my team. I attributed failures to my personal incompetence. This is textbook Imposter Syndrome.

The Reframe

Here's what I've learned to accept (slowly, painfully):

1. Everyone Googles Everything:
I asked three other Staff Engineers if they Google basic syntax. All three said yes. One of them said, "I can't remember my wife's birthday, why would I remember JavaScript array methods?"

2. Uncertainty Is the Job:
Junior engineers are given problems with known solutions. Senior engineers are given problems with unknown solutions. If I knew the answer immediately, they wouldn't need me.

3. Leadership Isn't About Being the Smartest:
My job isn't to have all the answers. My job is to ask the right questions, synthesize perspectives, and create a decision-making process. Maya can write the Kubernetes operator. I can create the environment where Maya thrives.

4. Competence Isn't Confidence:
Confidence is a feeling. Competence is a skill. They are not correlated. The fact that I feel uncertain doesn't mean I am incompetent.

The Confession to My Manager

Last week, I had a 1:1 with my manager. I decided to be honest.

"I don't think I'm qualified for this role," I said. "I fake it in half the meetings."

He laughed. Not meanly, but the laugh of recognition.

"I feel that way every day," he said. "I'm a VP of Engineering and I still Google 'what is a load balancer.'"

He told me about a study: 70% of high-achieving professionals experience Imposter Syndrome. It's not a bug. It's a feature of people who care about doing good work.

"The impostors," he said, "are the people who don't doubt themselves."

Conclusion

I still have Imposter Syndrome. Probably always will. But I've stopped seeing it as evidence of fraud. I see it as evidence of growth.

If you're feeling it too, know this: You were hired because someone saw your potential. Trust their judgment, even when you don't trust your own.

And next time you're about to Google "how to reverse a string," just know: a Staff Engineer three desks over is Googling it too.