From Engineering Floor to App Store: What 10 Years as a Manufacturing Engineer Taught Me About Building Software

A manufacturing engineer with no CS background leveraged AI coding tools to bridge the gap between domain expertise and software development, shipping multiple iOS apps. Drawing on 10 years of factory floor experience, the author shares five lessons from manufacturing—such as shipping first, embracing constraints, and using Toyota's 5 Whys—that proved directly applicable to indie software development.