HACKER Q&A
📣 pesfandiar

Anyone switched from software to physical world engineering?


Most of the people I know have gone the other way, from mechanical, civil, or electrical into software, but I’m curious if anyone here has managed the reverse: leaving a software development career for mechanical, civil, mechatronics, robotics, or related fields where you design and build physical things. If you’ve done it, how did you navigate the skills gap, credential requirements, and job market, and what was the experience like compared to staying in tech?

  👤 markus_zhang Accepted Answer ✓
I’m wondering if anyone goes from a high level programming such as data engineering to very low level like OS or compiler or embedded in profession. Hobbies don’t count but major OSS contributions count.

How did you achieve that? Is there any spring board profession you need to hop to and from?

👤 gpi
Transitioning to civil. There's a lot more laws, discipline and regulations involved as opposed to tech.
👤 oldsklgdfth
Studied EE and went into software after college. Started out system programming and now I work on high level backend services and frontend SDKs.

I've been drown more to engines and power generation. Specifically, control systems that are able to maintain stable operation despite changing conditions.

Few pieces of software I've worked on operate as "control systems". Most have been business logic.

Lately, I've been viewing "keeping the lights on", more important that "keeping engagement up".

Maybe I'll try to get into embedded/FPGA programming. Last time I applied I got passed up due to lack of experience.

👤 entrepy123
The normal approach would be:

1. Get a college degree in the engineering field of interest.

2. Get a job as an engineer in that field.

3. Optionally, become a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) according to however that is done in your location.

It's not like "software engineering" where liberal arts people get to be called engineers without the matching blood, sweat, and tears.

(If all you want to do is make stuff, you could learn the requisite sciences to know how things work, teach yourself CAD to design something close enough, and then either put in the hours out at community hacker spaces or contract someone overseas to actually make whatever you came up with. But, it seems like you are considering a much more serious career shift?)