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.