Everyone has imposter syndrome. It’s not just you, and having more degrees doesn’t make it go away!

Very true! As a huge admirer of the Rust programming language, hearing that Graydon Hoare felt like an imposter when he was Rust team lead gave me a lot of reassurance about my own skills. Of course, I’d probably be a lot more reassured if I had been pivotal in the creation of one of the fastest growing modern programming languages :^)

This is a good thing to be reminded of. I often forget that masters are much more targetted in scope.

Formal programming languages instruction could be useful – while I have learned enough in practice to implement most of a compiler, I have often found my foundation in theory to be lacking (e.g. type theory/operational semantics). Then again, I’m fairly sure I could learn the same on my own without having to spend thousands of dollars. The only hard part is convincing a future employer that I know my stuff.

You say you have a lot of coworkers with masters, are they from other countries?

This is an interesting observation – that does appear to be the case. I have noticed that most people in compilers tend to have a masters/PhD, though I suppose it’s likely the implication is reversed (i.e. people go for a masters, end up in compilers, and then get a job in industry).