I had been a software engineer for 2 years when my friend and I got a year's worth of money to build a startup for an idea I had. The timing ended up not being

I had been a software engineer for 2 years when my friend and I got a year's worth of money to build a startup for an idea I had. The timing ended up not being right due to family reasons, so we ended up not doing it. It was really disappointing, but I knew it was the right thing for my family. Four years later, I'm incredibly glad I didn't do it. I'm convinced I would have made bad technical decisions and doomed the company. I'm not a perfect software engineer now, but I'm worlds better than I was. Writing and deploying software on someone else's dime has given me invaluable experience, and I'm certain it's prepared me to be successful in my own company some day soon. While at a big company, I'd still encourage you to work on side projects and see where they go. Doing that will give you even more experience in building an MVP.