Update: Data engineer asked to lead important meeting, realizes they have no idea what they're doing: 'Up until now, the stakes have been low... That era has ended'

Just how long can you pretend to know what you're doing until the boss finds out your secret? 

If you've ever felt some imposter syndrome at work, know that you're not alone! 

A lot of people get that feeling that they're tricking an interviewer into hiring them, or that they're not worthy of a raise, or that they're not good enough at their job to warrant taking on bigger responsibilities. But that's just not usually the case. 

Most of the time when we feel this way, it's just our insecurities talking, while the whole time, we've actually been prepared to handle whatever may come our way. 

However, this guy had a rather special case of imposter syndrome, and he came to the internet searching for help. Luckily, people love to share their finest advice tidbits when people ask for help, and after taking some suggestions in stride, this guy felt more confident in their abilities to host a meeting. 

Hosting a meeting is undoubtedly stressful. Even if you've done it a ton of times, you've still got to put in the work to prepare slides, write out an opener that'll grab your audience's interests, and ensure that you can call on others to carry the topic if you need a few minutes to catch your breath. 

So how did this guy get over those pre-meeting nerves, and did they manage to "fool" all their coworkers into thinking they knew what they were doing? 

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  • Data engineer leads meeting and impresses bosses and colleagues.
    via Getty Images

    Data engineer leads meeting and impresses bosses and colleagues.

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • I've been pretending to understand my job for eight months, and I think I've finally reached a level where I actually can't fake it anymore. Do I come clean to my boss or just keep going?

    So for context, I have a master's degree in something completely unrelated to this job, I got hired because I interviewed well and apparently "fast learner" on a CV is legally binding. Eight months in and I've been surviving entirely on confident nodding, strategic use of the phrase "let me circle back on that," and a browser history that is just Stack Overflow and "what is [word my boss just said]." The issue is that up until
    via ahimaohw
  • now the stakes have been low enough that vibes could carry me. That era has ended. There is a meeting on Monday with actual numbers and actual questions and my boss just told me I'm "leading it" in a tone that suggested he thinks that's a reward. I have four days. I don't know if I should come clean, speed-run eight months of learning in 96 hours, or simply walk into the ocean. What should I do?
    via ahimaohw
  • Employee nervously gives presentation to his peers and bosses.
    via Getty Images

    Employee nervously gives presentation to his peers and bosses.

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Ready to hear all about the work this dude put in?

    UPDATE: Guys, the meeting ended few hours ago. Here's what happened. First of all I was not expecting so many people to witness my unraveling, so thank you for that, genuinely. To many people who told me to be honest with my boss - I want you to know I read your comments, respected your perspective, and did not do that.
    via ahimaohw
  • Many asked about the nature of my work. I am a Data Engineer at a mid-sized logistics company in Germany. The project was building an end-to-end data pipeline that ingests real-time shipment tracking data from about fourteen different carrier APIs (think FedEx, DHL, a few regional ones), normalizes it into a unified schema in Snowflake, and then feeds a dashboard that
    via ahimaohw
  • our operations team uses to flag delayed shipments before they become a customer complaint. The part I presented was the transformation layer. Basically the bit that takes fourteen completely different data formats that all call the same thing different names. One API calls it "estimated_delivery," another calls it "exp_dlv_dt," one just calls it "when" like an actual psychopath and makes them
    via ahimaohw
  • agree with each other. It all turned out to be more complex than that, but whatever, I won't go into details. Here's what actually happened. Over the last 96 hours I slept maybe 12, consumed about the same number of Redbulls, watched maybe 15 hours of YouTube tutorials, and brutally (can't overstate this) abused my ChatGPT and Claude. Many times
    via ahimaohw
  • I thought I should just come clean to my boss, but then I would open this page and your comments would give me confidence that I was built for this. The actual move that saved me was going into that meeting with three very specific questions prepared. Not answers. Questions. Thoughtful, slightly vague questions that I directed at the senior engineers in the room.
    via ahimaohw
  • Those dudes talked for 40 minutes out of total 60. At the end of the meeting my boss. stopped me and said "this is really impressive work." I said "thank you, I've been thinking about this for a while" which is technically true because I thought about it for 96 hours straight without blinking.
    via ahimaohw
  • After the meeting I went to the bathroom and sat on the floor for a little while. Once I got back to my desk, my boss came up and said he wants me to lead the Q2 project.
    via ahimaohw

  • A round of applause for this hard worker

    So. To answer my original question. Do you come clean or keep going. You keep going apparently. You keep going until you either actually learn the job or the whole thing collapses, and today it did not collapse, so here we are.
    via ahimaohw

    I hope they never again feel like they can't handle something, because clearly, they're doing an amazing job. If something comes up at work and they feel unprepared, they now know 1) that they can figure out a solution and 2) that they somehow have the willpower (perhaps superpower!) to work on a project for like, 4 days straight with minimal sleep. I hope they don't make a habit of that. But still. They now know that such things are possible. 

  • Meeting participants discussing topics and praising the presenter following the meeting.
    via Getty Images

    Meeting participants discussing topics and praising the presenter following the meeting. 

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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