So there I was bringing prod to its kneesā¦ in my second week.
I was in my home office, properly caffeinated, trying to make a resource-hog of a query more performant. Iād been working on some ClickHouse query optimizations, and it became painfully clear that my āoptimizationā was doing the literal opposite of what it was supposed to do. Instead of reducing resource consumption, every CPU on the ClickHouse clusters weād provisioned was pegged at 100%.
I instantly knew it was me. The timing was too perfect. Iād just deployed the thing, and now everything was on fire.
It was feature-flagged, so the fix was simple: reflag and redeploy. Easy. But that didnāt stop the panic from waking up some dear old fears of mine. What I like to call the 3 Horsemen of Making Work Suck: fear of looking dumb, fear of underperforming, and fear of wasting peopleās time. All manifestations of imposter syndrome.
Whatās funny is that these fears popped up despite the fact that Iāve worked with many of the engineers at Depot for years. It didnāt matter. Fears rarely care about logic.
Those fears turned me into a perfectionist editor. Typing, deleting, rewriting, deleting again. Imposter syndrome convinced me everyone else was superhuman while Iām an intellectual dumpster. The fear of underperforming made me assume I was doing a horrible job and everyone was just too nice to tell me.
These fears arenāt particularly useful. But theyāre real, and they contract my ability to be effective and enjoy my work. They bleed into life after work too. Itās hard to enjoy dinner with my wife when the back of my mind is screaming, āwait til they find out how dumb you are,ā like some cartoon villain twirling a mustache in my brain.
Fear #1: Wasting peopleās time
The fear of wasting people's time showed up right away. The moment I read Depotās āhow to ask questionsā rubric, I thought: oh man, I hope I donāt ask a bad question. I was more self-conscious, not less.
The rubric was simple: be specific, provide context, be clear, be concise. But initially, I saw it as a test I might fail.
Then it clicked. The rubric wasnāt a trap. It wasnāt a list of ways to get yelled at. It was a cheat code for getting the answer I needed without five hours of async back-and-forth ping pong.
A lot of questions get asked like this: āHey, can someone help me out?ā This is not particularly useful. Maybe there is someone who can. We literally have no idea. Whatās the actual question? Do you need a cold brew recipe for your at-home barista kit, or something technical? Either is fine, but no one knows if they can help without context. And now weāve guaranteed async ping pong.
A specific ask with context lets someone answer in one go. High information and impact density.
Once I reframed this from āI hope I donāt ask a bad questionā to ātheyāre literally telling me how to ask a good one,ā a ton of pressure came off. Less second-guessing. Less typing and deleting. More forward motion.
Specific. Context. Clear. Concise. The rubric wasnāt there to punish violators. It was there to help me.
Fear #2: Looking dumb
The thing about joining Depot (or really any company) is that Iām probably the dumbest person in the room. At least thatās what my inner critic says. And shoot, at Depot, that might even be true.
That said, this internal critic, however accurate, isnāt useful. Fear of looking dumb contracts my ability to be effective. If Iām afraid of appearing ignorant, Iām less curious. And without curiosity, Iām not nearly as useful as an engineer.
Fear of looking stupid kills curiosity. You nod along when you donāt actually get it. You avoid the areas where youāre weakest, which means you never get stronger in them. You become less useful, not more.
What punctured that illusion was watching other engineers ask real questions. Questions that revealed gaps in their knowledge. And no one treated them like they were dumb. The questions got answered. The work moved forward.
I realized the people I thought knew everything were also learning. The difference wasnāt that they knew everything. It was that they werenāt afraid to not know.
So I started asking questions. And shockingly, lightning did not smite me for my ignorance. I was encouraged, pushed back on when needed, and pushed forward. I got more shit done, faster. And maybe someone else noticed and felt less fear about looking dumb too.
Fear #3: Underperforming
Whenever I start somewhere new, I assume Iām now the worst engineer on the team and doing a horrible job. At a remote company, that fear takes a special shape: what if Iām underperforming quietly? What if no one notices until itās too late?
Remote work makes your work invisible by default. Youāre not in a room where people can see you typing or overhear conversations. Youāre justā¦ there. Or not there. And if youāre quiet, you might as well not exist.
What helped at Depot was working in public. I was active in Discord, Linear, and GitHub with progress, blockers, and outcomes. When I was stuck, I said so. When I found something interesting, I shared it. When I shipped something, I posted a screenshot.
Communicating all the damn stuff I was doing helped. Not to look busy, but to make my work visible. Progress, lack of progress, and results were transparent. That visibility became its own form of accountability and support.
The fear of underperforming quietly disappeared because I wasnāt performing quietly.
How I overcome it (kinda)
- Ask questions with context. Specific, clear, concise. The rubric is a cheat code, not a test.
- Say when Iām stuck. It speeds things up and shows others where to jump in.
- Work in public. Post in team channels, Linear, GitHub. Let people see the path, not just the final result.
- Treat visibility as clarity, not performance. Iām not proving Iām busy. Iām showing the state of the work so the team can move.
- Share the interesting things I find. Curiosity builds trust and shows Iām thinking about the system.
The annoying part is I don't really "overcome" these fears. I just get better at noticing them and moving anyway. Level 1 might be DMing a fellow engineer. Level 2 is asking the same question in a more public channel. As I get better at dealing with the fear, the game just hands me bigger boss battles. That's fine. The goal is not zero fear, it's keeping fear from driving.
FAQ
What are the 3 fears that make engineering suck?
Fear of wasting people's time, fear of looking dumb, and fear of underperforming. They all stem from imposter syndrome and contract your ability to be effective and enjoy your work.
How do you ask questions without wasting people's time?
Be specific, provide context, be clear, and be concise. Instead of "Hey, can someone help me out?" say what you actually need. A specific ask with context lets someone answer in one go instead of five hours of async back-and-forth.
How do you know if you're actually underperforming or if it's just imposter syndrome?
Make your work visible so you're not guessing. Share progress, blockers, and outcomes in Discord, Linear, or GitHub. When people can see your work, you get real feedback instead of your brain making up worst-case scenarios.
What if working in public makes you more anxious about making mistakes?
It probably will at first. But working in public isn't about proving you're perfect. It's about showing the state of the work so the team can move. The fears don't go away. You just get better at noticing them and moving anyway.
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