Imposter Syndrome: The OODA Loop Framework from Fighter Pilots with Major Hayden

Major Hayden — longtime Fedora packager and Red Hat engineer, formerly of Rackspace — joins host Jay Faulkner to talk about imposter syndrome in tech, and the framework he's used for over a decade to work through it: the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), originally developed for fighter pilot decision-making.

Major explains why imposter syndrome tends to resurface with every new team or stretch role, why that's often a sign of growth rather than a warning sign, and how he mentors engineers moving into core maintainer roles. He also shares his personal rule for using AI responsibly in open source work — if he can't independently explain a piece of code, he won't submit it — and tells the story of a kernel patch that drew a detailed, frustrated response from Linux kernel maintainer Alan Cox.

Also discussed: reading audience reaction after a talk that didn't land, the culture of the Fedora Linux community, and why documenting tribal knowledge is easier to justify now that AI coding agents rely on it too.

Important Links

• Major Hayden's Blog https://major.io/
• Zellij - https://zellij.dev
• Pytorch - https://pytorch.org

G-Research is hiring in Dallas, TX and London, UK! Apply at https://gresearch.com/vacancies.

For a video version of this podcast, check out https://youtu.be/MFU-0hZ47zU.

The GR-OSS OUT Podcast is produced by Ben Wiley.