Latest / The Tech Career Podcast with Fexingo: Engineering Jobs, Interviews, and FAANG Career Strategy / How FAANG Engineers Navigate Impostor Syndrome After Promotion
Transcript
- Lucas: You get promoted to senior engineer. You've been working toward it for two years. Your manager gives you the news, your teammates congratulate you, you update LinkedIn. And then, maybe a week later, you sit down at your desk and think — I don't actually know what I'm doing, and now I have to pretend even harder. Luna: Yeah, that moment is real. And it's surprisingly common. A 2025 study in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research found that 67 percent of senior tech professionals report significant impostor feelings specifically after a promotion. Lucas: So more than two out of three. And the interesting thing is, it's not the same kind of impostor syndrome you get when you start a new job. That's about learning a new codebase, new people, new processes. Post-promotion impostor syndrome is different — it's about the shift in identity. You were a strong individual contributor, now you're supposed to be a leader. Your scope is wider, your decisions carry more weight, and you suddenly notice how much you don't know. Luna: That's the part that gets glossed over in promotion packets. The new title comes with a new set of expectations that are often implicit. Like, you're expected to mentor, to influence without authority, to unblock teams — none of which is part of the coding skills that got you promoted. Lucas: Exactly. And that gap between the old job and the new one creates a psychological dissonance. One senior staff engineer at Meta told me that after his promotion to staff, he felt like he was failing for the first six months. He said the hardest part was losing his peer group. He used to have lunch with other senior engineers who were his equals. After the promotion, he was suddenly in meetings with directors and VPs, and he felt like the dumbest person in the room. Luna: That loss of peer support is huge. You go from being the expert among equals to being the newbie among higher-ups. And there's no onboarding for that. Lucas: Right. And the irony is that FAANG companies actually design promotion criteria to be pretty objective. At Google, the promotion packet includes a set of artifacts — design docs, code reviews, project impact — that are evaluated by a promotions committee. You don't get promoted by accident. The data says you earned it. But data doesn't always convince your own brain. Luna: The brain is stubborn. I remember interviewing a senior engineer at Google who told me about her 'brag file'. She keeps a running document of every positive piece of feedback, every project she led, every compliment from a peer. She reads it before performance reviews, but also before big meetings where she feels like a fraud. Lucas: A brag file is a great tactic. The idea is to have external evidence you can revisit when your internal narrative turns negative. The key is to write it down in the moment, because after a few months you'll start to discount your own accomplishments. Luna: She said the first time she used it in a meeting with her skip-level, she was surprised how much she'd actually done. It helped her speak more confidently. Lucas: And that's really what post-promotion impostor syndrome is about — a confidence gap that's not matched by a competence gap. There's a concept called the 'impostor cycle' that psychologists describe. You get a new challenge, you feel anxious, you over-prepare, you succeed, and then you attribute the success to over-preparation rather than ability. So the next challenge, the anxiety is even higher. Luna: That cycle is exhausting. And it can lead to burnout if you don't break it. Lucas: One way to break it is to adopt what I call the 'three-month rule'. Talk to enough senior engineers, and you hear a pattern — most people say it takes about three months to start feeling competent in a new role after a promotion. Not fully comfortable, but competent. So you can tell yourself, I'm going to feel shaky for twelve to fourteen weeks, and that's normal. After that, I'll reassess. Luna: That takes the pressure off. It's like giving yourself permission to be a beginner again, even though you're now a senior. Lucas: And the other piece is mentorship. One thing that surprised me is that newly promoted engineers often don't seek mentors because they feel like they should already know everything. But the best engineers I've talked to actively seek out someone who's been in their new role for a year or two. They ask, 'What did you wish you knew when you were promoted?' Luna: That's a great question. And I've heard that some FAANG companies actually assign a mentor for the first six months after a promotion. But not all, and it's often ad hoc. Lucas: Right. So if your company doesn't do it, you have to initiate it yourself. Find someone at your new level or one level above, and ask for thirty minutes. Most people are happy to help. Luna: And if you're the one being asked? Definitely say yes. This is how healthy engineering cultures are built. Lucas: Let me also address a distinction that often gets blurred. Feeling like a fraud is not the same as actually being underqualified. If you got promoted through a fair process, you are qualified. The question is whether your self-perception matches reality. And if it doesn't, the fix is internal, not external. Luna: That's a crucial point. You don't need to learn more skills. You need to recalibrate how you see yourself. Lucas: Exactly. And one way to recalibrate is to talk to your manager openly about it. Tell them, 'I'm feeling some imposter feelings after the promotion. Can we check in monthly on my impact?' A good manager will appreciate the honesty and can give you concrete feedback that either confirms you're on track or points to specific areas to improve. Luna: And if the manager is not helpful? That's a red flag, but also an opportunity to seek peer feedback. Sometimes peers see your impact more clearly than you do. Lucas: Another tactic is to 'teach to learn'. When you're feeling uncertain about your knowledge, volunteer to give a tech talk or write a design document for a new area. The act of teaching forces you to organize your thoughts and often reveals that you know more than you think. Luna: I love that. It's like the protégé effect — you learn by teaching. And it also builds visibility, which is part of the senior role anyway. Lucas: So to pull this together: post-promotion impostor syndrome is normal, it's not a sign of failure, and it usually fades after three months. The practical steps are: keep a brag file, find a mentor, talk to your manager, and give yourself time. Also, remember that everyone around you probably felt the same way when they were promoted. Luna: And if today's conversation gave you something useful — and you'd like to help keep the show ad-free — a few listeners chip in monthly over at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That support is what makes this possible. Lucas: It really is. And it's been a steady, low-key way to keep the podcast going without any ads. So thanks to those who do. Luna: So if you just got promoted and you're in that shaky first month, what's one thing you can do tomorrow? I'd say start that brag file. Just a single entry of something you did well today. Lucas: That's a great starting point. And in the coming weeks, we'll talk about how to build influence in your new role, and how to avoid the common pitfalls of being a new senior engineer. For now, go update that brag file.