Wainlab®
20 Dec 2025Notes

Failure is not the opposite of success

I failed an interview with an international company because my spoken English was not ready. Here is what that actually taught me.

Author
Umar Kodirberganov
Reading time
3 minutes
Published
20 Dec 2025

Not long ago I interviewed with an international company. I did not get it, and the reason was not the code: my experience speaking English simply was not enough yet.

It stung, and it was also the most useful few hours I had spent in months.

What it showed me

That my technical knowledge was genuinely at the level required. That the gap was a soft skill, and a specific, trainable one. That learning and growth do not have an end point you arrive at.

What I did next

I started working on my English actively, with a clear target rather than a vague intention.

This was not a defeat. It was a starting point, and I am closer to the goal than I was before the interview.

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