Before we get too far into this I want to say one thing. I am not a medical or mental health professional. I’m a Jamf Engineer who has thought a lot about this but by no means am an authority on the subject. The following article is my reflections and not any type of mental health treatment.

Now that that’s out of the way…here we go!

Nobody goes to school to be a Jamf Engineer or Admin. The vast majority of us ended up in this field because we like to tinker with things, eventually break them and are forced to fix them without any help or education. For a lot of us, we ended up in this field by doing other things in a job where we do have formal training.When you fix what you’ve broken, you feel great. But when you can’t fix it, some of us give up, others seek advice, some keep plugging along to find the solution. 

But what happens when you end up in a corporate environment and you have to tackle things that you inherited, need an upgrade or you just need to do maintenance, most of it will probably go smoothly. What happens when you either A) Cause an issue or you don’t know how to fix something. That’s where imposter syndrome sets in. The definition of imposter syndrome that I relate to is “repeated feelings or thoughts that you are incompetent or not good enough, despite evidence to the contrary”.

This statement is in 2 sections. The first talks about feeling that you aren’t smart enough or good enough and the second states evidence to the contrary. Remember, you were hired for a reason. You went through an interview process that probably involved some sort of technical assessment. That could have been a Q & A session with a team, a review of your git repository, or just a discussion of things you’ve done. The hiring manager or team sees something in your knowledge and/or technical skills that made them think you can do this job. So by that metric, you are good enough to be in this role. You didn’t offer you the job. Someone saw something in you and offered you the job. And if being a Jamf admin is something you’ve never done, but it’s an expansion of your current role. Kudos to you. Your management (and by extension you), believe in you based on your current work so much that they are giving you this added responsibility. 

In my experience, imposter syndrome (I purposely am not capitalizing to not give it credence!) creeps up when I can’t solve a problem. I start to think that there are people better than me, if I can’t solve this I will get fired and a variety of other thoughts. But then I remember, I went to school for Hebrew Studies and taught myself computers by taking apart my parents computer when I was 12. (Note: It did work after putting it back together but I had a piece left over. Later in life I realized it was probably a RAM stick.) Later on I got my A+ certification and realized a lot of what we do is problem solving and logic. 

There’s no need to be an expert in everything in IT. As with many things in life, you need to do the following:
1) Have a working knowledge of the field to figure thoughts out 

2) Know what resources you have available to you (Mac Admins slack, podcasts, web blogs, Jamf nation, etc.)

3) Continue learning. This is like number 2 but it deserves another mention. 

The MDM/DDM/Declarative Management Service is always changing. Apple releases new OS’s yearly (as we all know), some changes are documented, some aren’t, some are at the last minute. Staying on top of these is so important. You’re never going to know all of them, but utilize the people in your network and your community. I’ve said it before and will continue to say it. The global mac admin community is one of the most supportive groups I’ve ever seen. We all support products in the enterprise that, frankly, were mostly designed for the consumer space. It can be challenging, frustrating and stressful. But believe in yourself, keep learning and keep growing. Just because you don’t complete a task on the 1st try doesn’t mean you can’t. It means you need to learn more and try again. 

While researching for this article, I went to one of my favorite groups of people, Jamf Heroes. If you don’t know about Jamf Heroes, Jamf Heroes is a group of Jamf super users who work together to help others succeed with Jamf. I asked if anyone feels like they have imposter syndrome and there was one response that says everything.

I've struggled with perfectionism for as long as I can remember. That feeds the critical voice in my head and messes with self-doubt and fear of failure. It comes and goes. I know that I'm generally pretty good at my job. I receive recognition from others, but it's a struggle to listen to those outside voices and turn down the volume on the inner critical voice.

Silencing the inner voice is, to put it simply, really hard. Remember, you’re there for a reason. You may not have all the answers. That's OK. As long as you remember the resources around you, you will succeed. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I can hear some of you saying “But I’m the only admin here. Who do I ask?” As someone who’s asked that question, here are a few resources.

• Mac Admins Slack (macadmins.slack.com)
• Jamf Nation
• Tech/Apple focused podcasts (I like Jamf After Dark and the Mac Admins podcast…if you like others, put them in the comments)
• Conferences (PSU Mac Admins, JNUC, Objective By the Sea, MacADUK)
• Past Conference talks on YouTube
• If you’re having trouble scripting, use an AI to help solve problems and learn. (Don’t just take the code and run it, dissect it to try and learn what it wrote for you.)
• MacAdmins.news newsletter

My last (tech) thought on this is a simple statement…YOU GOT THIS!