My name is Martin and I spend most of my day in an auto repair shop in Bratislava. I work with engines, brakes, diagnostics and customers who just want their car to “finally work again”.
A few years ago I would never have imagined that I’d also spend my evenings looking at JavaScript, APIs and browser dev tools. But here I am – an automechanic learning web development.
In this post I want to share why I started coding and how my life in the garage actually helps me think like a developer.
Why a mechanic started learning to code
In a small car shop you quickly see how many things are still done “on paper” or in messy Excel files:
- appointments written in a notebook
- customer data split across notes, emails and phone contacts
- parts inventory tracked from memory (“I think we still have two of those filters…”)
I wanted to fix these problems the same way we fix cars: by understanding how things work and improving them step by step. Coding felt like a tool that could help me do that.
My first goals were simple:
- make it easier for customers to book a visit
- track jobs and parts in a cleaner, more automated way
- reduce repetitive tasks for me and my colleagues
That’s how I ended up learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript in the evenings after work.
What car repair and coding have in common
Being a mechanic actually translates surprisingly well to programming:
Diagnostics mindset – In cars, you don’t just replace random parts. You listen, test, narrow down possibilities, and confirm the root cause. Debugging code feels very similar.
Systems thinking – A car is a system of connected parts. Change one thing, something else reacts. Same with software.
Patience with problems – Some issues in a car take hours to find. That trains you not to give up when a bug doesn’t make sense at first.
Because of this, even though I’m still a beginner in web dev, the way of thinking is already familiar.
What I plan to share here
On DEV Community I want to document this journey from workshop to web:
- small tools I build to help in the garage
- simple automation ideas for “offline” businesses
- lessons learned while switching from wrench to keyboard
If you’re also coming to programming from a non-IT background, or if you’re a developer curious about the “real world” problems in small businesses, I hope my posts will be useful (or at least a bit entertaining).
Thanks for reading – see you in the comments!
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