Wait… You Can Code? But You're a Mechanical Engineer?
I get that reaction a lot. And honestly, it always makes me smile a little.
Yeah, I’m a mechanical engineer. I deal with stress analysis, CAD models, thermodynamics, gears, tolerances, and the whole toolbox of what you’d expect from someone in my field. But I also code. Not like, hacker-in-a-dark-room-with-sunglasses kind of code, but enough to automate my workflows, crunch data, run simulations, and even make fun little tools to make life easier.
And here’s the thing: it’s not magic. I’m not some coding wizard who grew up building websites at age 12. I learned it out of necessity, and honestly, you can too.
Why I started coding
It didn’t begin with some grand vision to become a developer. It started with simple stuff:
- Repeating the same Excel process a hundred times and thinking “There’s got to be a better way.”
- Needing to simulate something a bit more complex than a spreadsheet could handle.
- Wanting to plot data and visualize things beyond what I could get from MATLAB or an FEA tool.
So I dipped into Python. No classes, no bootcamp. Just Google, Stack Overflow, and a lot of trial and error. Start with the basics first which is ultimately youtube tutorials, then leverage up there. Take down notes in your notebooks if you want to.
TL;DR
If you’re an engineer and you think coding is this mystical realm reserved for computer science majors — let that go. You already have the mindset. You just need to learn the syntax. Start with a problem you care about, Google ruthlessly, and don’t be afraid to make messy, barely-working scripts. It’s all part of the process.
You got this. And when you write your first “for loop” that saves you two hours of manual work? You'll wonder why you didn’t start sooner.