The other thing is software developed by large teams tend to be complex, and a new-comer needs more time to understand what's happening. Onboarding can be a very chaotic process especially for teams who don't specifically put a lot of effort into making it smooth for new-comers. This isn't imposter syndrome but rather something that your team probably needs to do better.

The complexity you are probably going to have to get used to. Maybe some of it is unnecessary, but just like the naïve developer trying to refactor/rewrite a complex piece of code realizes, the extra exceptions and special cases were added for some reason and without them the code breaks in various niche situations. (Or maybe they're really unnecessary! The thing is until you get a full grasp of the code, you won't know)

Otherwise just give it a couple months and see how well you adjust. I think just keep an open mind and don't assume things only because other people have different backgrounds from yours. (I mean, what does age have to do with this? You're only a couple years older than those "fresh 20 year old kids", not even "old"...)

One technique I would advise is to use 'git blame' (and/or conversations with your engineering and product managers) to identify authors of components (or even just chunks of code) that you are struggling to understand, and then set up short 1-on-1 meetings with those authors to discuss the system architecture from the perspective of the component(s) that they have written. Rinse. Repeat.

Remember, as you go about this, that what you are really doing here is building a living network of the tribal knowledge graph within your company, so be kind and respectful. Further, consider starting making a guide book of sorts, both for yourself as well as for subsequent new hires, especially more junior engineers (who you may need or want to mentor).

Don't worry. You've got this. Best of luck!

Re: complications, increase your sense of scale beyond anything you imagined. Youre now inside of an industrial process. Depending on your company youve gone from ~100 coworkers to literally 10-40,000 other SDEs working in the same environment. There are probably more dev teams than previous coworkers. All sorts of things get complicated at that scope.

Check my profile if my experience is relevant and youd like a virtual coffee chat.

Ask for help

> Also on a sidenote, I'm a bit disappointed in the sense that I expected more from FAANG. The quality of the apps I'm seeing seems vastly technically overengineered

You have not been capable of fixing bugs in simple React projects yet, I don't think you are in a good position to make this judgement.

Ask for help and asking questions is like a superpower at a megacorp. Trust in your intelligence and experience to know your questions are valid.

So many people nod along and operate on vibes because they all have imposter syndrome and are too scared to ask. Entire meetings where people are discussing acronyms they dont even understand. Functionaries that dont ask or understand why they are doing something, and how it fits into the big picture.

There other thing to remember is not to avoid politics. You dont have to kiss ass, but knowing who has power and building reputation with them is critical.

TBH I think it's just they don't have the capacity to properly train and doc. That's why you got all those weird commands and out of date docs. The company is forever growing or heading for new directions, team gets requests left and right, so they try to hire good developers and hopefully they don't make a big mess.

I "guess" more critical teams like security and ops might be different, because even very good developers can still mess up royally if the doc is wrong. And system programming teams might also be better, like teams that build tools.

That should be normal process when starting a new job, its not a crazy thing to ask

The worst thing you can do is ask no questions and just spin wheels

It’s probably worth sticking it out, as having 1-2 years there will look good on a resume, while a month will not.

I’ve dealt with imposter syndrome most of my career. You never really know how you’re being perceived by others until they tell you. I went into a review a couple years ago 100% certain that I was going to be shredded, because I felt like I had really been phoning it in and the boss had made some comments very early on when he took over the team. When I showed up to the review I was met with 45 minutes of praise. After it was over I just sat there for 15 minutes in shock. I couldn’t seem to integrate the false reality my imposter syndrome created in my head with the reality of what just happened.

Your expectations for yourself and the company might need time to align with the reality of how the business actually runs. Most companies are way more dysfunctional than anyone would want to believe. This is why Dilbert was such a popular and relatable comic for so many workers.

This is my observation with life in general, the model of world I keep in my head is usually far from reality, sometimes too positive and sometimes too negative.

As you start just try to make sure you are working on exactly what your manager says is a priority. Everything else is noise. And try to have 1-1 discussions with your teammates, I think you'll be surprised how pretty much everyone has the same opinion as you in regards to over engineering!

>The quality of the apps I'm seeing seems vastly technically overengineered, almost like 100 different hero engineers added their own "tricks" just to seem clever, make a name for themself, make everyone else's life harder, and then pat themselves on the back while writing extensive documentation about why their little chrome extension or alternative way of doing things solves X,Y,Z (while completely ignoring how convoluted and burdensome they've now made something that, while technically inconvenient, was utterly simple to understand prior).

This is what endless interviews full of leet code questions buys them. At least all their engineers can estimate how many ping pong balls will fit in a school bus.

I still remember when I moved to my own startup from a very regulated finance and realised I can just install a new python library on a server without a month long approval process :D

(Email in my profile is anonymous for HN, but will respond from my gmail)

But ultimately, only you can know who you are, what you are capable of, what you want to be capable of and what you need to get to that next level.

There was a reason you considered/interviewed FAANG. If that reason is more important to you over $, real-world learning, skills, and abilities, you know what the answer is.

TL;DR you will figure it out one way or another.

What you are describing is actually the other side of imposter syndrome. It’s the I know exactly what I am doing and can force this to work if I just cut out all the boilerplate bullshit but will never figure this out without some internal documentation.

This is why Bank of America teams in India were running circles around their American counterparts. They (the India teams) recognized this stupidity early, documented the shit out of it, and then wrote scripts for most of it. The imposters were the people refusing to recognize and confront the internal stupidity openly and transparently.

My suggestion to you, having gone through this many times, is dominate other peoples time. It does not matter how busy they are. This shit is not working and someone needs to show you why. Be very clear about this with your team. Then write your own personal documentation.

There is a lot to learn. Probably more than anyplace else you have worked.

The work is hard. Probably harder than anything you have ever done.

You were hired by people who know these things and they hired you because they believe you will be able to handle learning a lot and working on hard things.

In addition, they know everything takes longer than it would if the problems were ordinary.

The documentation and tools are only engineered to meet the business criteria and get the hard things done. Not based luxurious theories.

In the end, FAANG is enterprise…the problems are not going to be obvious and the optimizations are for longer term time frames.

There is a lot to learn and everyone who has stayed via competence knows that. Good luck.

I also saved a decent chunk of change from my last gig (paid more than FAANG by 20%, pure cash) so I've been coasting without much emotional attachment to this job.

The more time you spend there, the more requests you'll get, so after a couple of years it's not unusual to get 30+ feedback requests.

People that grind leetcode all the way to faang are loaded. You have any idea how many people I've seen with dilated pupils in the office? Unfortunately for OP, he/she will have to roll with this crowd because that's just the truth, there's nothing they will be able to change about that reality.