Three Times I Thought I Was Failing (But Was Actually Learning)

Here are three failures that felt terrible at the time but turned out to be critical to my success.

The times I broke production or failed in public taught me more than years of smooth sailing ever could.

On social media, we often share our successes but rarely discuss our failures. Yet those moments of failure – when systems break, presentations flop, or projects spiral out of control – often contain the most valuable lessons of our careers.

In this edition, I'll share three of my bigger failures that felt absolutely terrible at the time and demonstrate how they made me a much better software engineer.

Incident #1: "The Email Apocalypse"

It started with a single customer complaint.

'I've received over 200 emails from Amazon in the last hour,' the customer service note read. My heart rate jumped slightly, but I convinced myself it must be a glitch in their email client. After all, our system wasn't designed to... wait.

I checked the ticket queue again …