Hi 👋, everyone, this is Kevin sharing another article from The Software Engineer Weekly. Every week I share insights into working as a software engineer and the lessons I’ve learned.
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This week we cover failure and the importance of failing forward.
If I could’ve looked in a crystal ball right before graduating college and seen to the present day, I’d be exactly where I would’ve wanted to be. Looking back, there are many things I wish I could communicate to undergraduate Kevin — most notably the idea of failing forward. Now that I can look back several years to graduating college, I can not only see the path I took but be proud of it. However, when I lived through those years chronologically, I mostly saw failure and felt disappointment. Now that I can see the whole picture I realize that I was slowly but surely making progress toward what I wanted; I was failing forward.
According to ~generative AI~, failing forward is “a conscious process that involves intentionally using failure to find success”. Coming out of school my seemingly only goal was to work at a large tech company and yet I continuously failed to do so. Every opportunity I had to work at a large tech company was squandered at various stages in the interview process. However, despite my failures, I eventually succeeded and ultimately that’s what matters. While I couldn’t see it at the time, I was constantly moving closer and closer to my goal with each subsequent failure. Many people avoid failure, but this handful of years taught me something invaluable — failure is often a prerequisite to success.
Each time I prepared for my big tech interviews and “failed” I gained substantial consolation prizes like significant salary increases, the opportunity to work at larger companies, better mentorship, and larger scoped work and potential impact. At each new job, I continued to hone my skills and further develop my confidence as a Software Engineer. Repeating this cycle of interviewing and failing is akin to flipping a coin. You might call tails and the coin consistently lands on heads, but the only way you truly lose is if you stop flipping. If you don’t give up, statistically speaking, you should eventually see tails. And especially with interviews, one tails is all you need.
Once you become comfortable with the idea of failing you realize that succeeding is simply a function of two things:
Attempting something enough times and
Learning something from each attempt
Whether it’s tech interviews or anything else, failure is an incredible teacher. Above all else, remember that more often than not success is through failure, not around it.
yeap, yeap, and yeap!!
With a few more squiggles, a loop here, a pivot there and pulled out hair everywhere - love it
Great Article!, Thanks for writing this