Take IQ Test?

Just don't do it:

• IQ tests are notoriously a poor barometer for intelligence
• If you don't do well, it's a huge ego hit
• Your time as a Senior Software Engineer is valuable and time spent on an IQ test could be spent on doing something actually productive instead

On top of that, raw intellect is far from a great predictor of how you'll do in a tech career. A clear example is leveraging social/emotional intelligence. I know many engineers (including those at FAANG) who were kind of slow at grasping complex technical concepts. However, they were a genius with relationships and communication, being very likable overall. This allowed them to build a dense network around them who could provide mentorship and quality teaching to greatly overcome their lack of raw intellect.

There are many ways to succeed in tech besides just being purely smarter than everyone else. In fact, it's much healthier to rely on more fundamental skills for your success in tech compared to raw intellect as many engineers have the raw intellect but not the fundamental skills (i.e. they are very awkward with poor communication).

Like a lot of people in tech/software, I've always thought of myself as an intelligent guy. More than that, I've derived a lot of my identity and self-worth from that.

I would be very careful about making intelligence a part of your identity because it's something that can't be changed.

It can backfire if you end up falling flat on a task that requires high cognitive abilities . You can end up having an existential crisis about whether you are as smart as you thought you were.

It can also backfire because you won't pursue endeavors that seem like they are out of your cognitive reach because you don't want the illusion of your intelligence to be shattered.

Instead of having your identity grounded in your intelligence, I recommend grounding it in your work ethic because that is something that you can change.

The plus-side seems to consist of confirming that I'm smart if I get a good score (yay!) and perhaps even finding out I'm a secret genius (and way underperforming my potential, lol).

I would say that the underperforming would be more of a result of work ethic rather than intelligence.

IQ tests are like astrological tests in India.

The astrologer will say that you will have a good/bad year, or you'll marry someone of a specific type, or anything else they feel entitled to 'predict.' The issue becomes that you start to consciously or subconsciously change your behavior based on these predictions.

You can see that they're made up since different astrologers will give you different predictions, and you can change the answer by paying a bit more 😅

If you take multiple IQ tests, you'd probably get very different results. Especially if the assessment is done by a company that will then charge you for being part of the 'high IQ club.'

There is probably some validity in IQ tests, but they don't have much practical value, and it could hurt you if you find the score higher/lower than what you expect.