Impostor Phenomenon in Software Engineers

• Paloma Guenes PUC-Rio
• Marcos Kalinowski PUC-Rio
• Maria Teresa Baldassarre University of Bari

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/cbsoft_estendido.2024.4132

Abstract

The Impostor Phenomenon (IP) is the feeling of inaccurately perceiving oneself and frequently facing a significant fear of being exposed as a fraud, with impacts that can lead to mental disorders such as depression and burnout. This dissertation describes research that investigates the extent of impostor feelings among software engineers, considering aspects such as gender, race/ethnicity, and professional roles. Additionally, we explore the influence of IP on perceived productivity. Our results indicate that 52.7% of software engineers experience frequent to intense levels of IP, which has a statistically significant negative effect on perceived productivity.

References

Clance, P. R. (1985). The impostor phenomenon: Overcoming the fear that haunts your success. Bantam.

Guenes, P., Tomaz, R., Kalinowski, M., Baldassarre, M. T., and Storey, M.-A. (2024). Impostor phenomenon in software engineers. In 2024 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society (ICSE-SEIS), pages 96–106.

Rosenstein, A., Raghu, A., and Porter, L. (2020). Identifying the prevalence of the impostor phenomenon among computer science students. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 30–36.