The Dunning-Kruger Effect and bootcamps. Watch out for bootcamps/AI bootcamps taught by people with minimal experience who call themselves "experts"... this is the Dunning-Kruger effect in motion and if you don't know any better, you might believe it.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect and bootcamps. Watch out for bootcamps/AI bootcamps taught by people with minimal experience who call themselves "experts"... this is the Dunning-Kruger effect in motion and if you don't know any better, you might believe it. I was talking to someone recently about Dunning-Kruger and they never heard of it, so I wanted to share! **CONTEXT:** Imposter syndrome is real in tech. Even the most experienced engineers with 10+ years of experience barely know 1% of the frameworks out there and can easily feel like an imposter. Bootcamp grads are constantly told they have imposter syndrome, and some bootcamps work hard to overcome this. Which is important, because while it's totally fine to not know much, it can't be an excuse and you have to be **confident in not knowing much** and have the attitude and techniques to work with that and grow over time. **THE PROBLEM:** I'm very concerned when bootcamps try to overcome imposter syndrome by building confidence that you **actually ARE a senior engineer**. Bootcamps often try to boost confidence to combat imposter syndrome. However, when this confidence is based on superficial knowledge rather than extensive experience, **it can lead to the Dunning-Kruger effect—creating overconfidence that isn't grounded in expertise.** [DUNNING-KRUGER](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)**:** In one line, The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability." See this illustrative diagram show the effect: [SOURCE: https:\/\/medium.com\/geekculture\/dunning-kruger-effect-and-journey-of-a-software-engineer-a35f2ff18f1a](https://preview.redd.it/wsxdketss31e1.jpg?width=1246&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe76d519c3231e0ff4751ae22603eae058002878) **WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT:** I see on a daily basis, successful bootcamp grads a year out of their bootcamp with a great job, portraying themselves as experts. For example, doing public talks, or AMAs, or answering questions in public as subject matter experts, or even TEACHING AT A BOOTCAMP! I recently attended a talk where a speaker with just one year of experience was advising others on advanced AI. It became clear that their recommendations were overly simplistic, potentially misleading less experienced developers, but were extremely confident in their tone and language. With AI rolling out quickly and changing all the time, it's easy for you to think someone is an expert in matters they are not, and this can make your journey into AI even worse, potentially sending you down the wrong path. **WHAT TO DO:** The best path forward isn’t to focus on being seen as an expert, but to lean into learning and growth. It’s okay to admit what you don’t know and seek out mentorship. This humility will serve you far better in the long run than a premature confidence boost to "fake it till you make it" into the industry. It's natural to want to overcome feelings of inadequacy, especially after an intense bootcamp experience. But real growth comes from recognizing the gaps in your knowledge and being open to learning from more experienced engineers.

Good question and a bit of a meta question - giving guidance in identifying experts means you need an expert in that skill to give guidance :D There isn't an objective definition of expert, but over the years the people I consider true industry experts have these traits in common: 1. They limit their expertise to areas they are actually experts in and not every topic under the sun. Dan Abramov is a good example of this... very direct about what he knows and doesn't know about React. 2. They have extensive industry experience - meaning a combination of **TIME** (5 to 10+ years in a given focus area) AND their experience was in some kind of not-common way that give the person **insights** another person might not have. Dan Abramov again for example, he didn't start React but he was involved on the internals for a long time and co-founded Redux from that. Whereas some random bootcamp grad that wants to make a framework for React won't have that expertise to be able to do so. 3. They often have lots of caveats and nuances in their advice. An expert might make suggestions that don't academically sound correct, but they are applying their "expertise" in making those assessments for a specific situation that someone without that expertise would never make. Number 2 can really help narrow this down a ton right off the bat: \-you can rule out a lot of people with minimal experience even if that experience sounds impressive, without the time, even 24/7 focus can't develop the expertise needed in a short period of time. \- you can develop expertise faster or slower through ambition, will, and raw smarts, but you need to have the right kind of experience. If you want to be an expert in something, you have to have worked on the core of that thing. Otherwise you are a critic or commentator at best.

Experts tend to have humility but having humility doesn't make you an expert. Manipulators might fake humility to build false-trust, but that's beyond Dunning-Kruger and into genine intentionally manipulation.

Because some bootcamps pay people on Upwork to 'manage their reputations' and they go around manipulating Reddit all day churning through dozens of accounts. DM for hundreds of pages of evidence.