I lift steel for a living. Now I'm learning to build software.

Most days I'm running a crane off the back of a 26-foot flatbed, setting bundles of shingles and steel on rooftops around London, Ontario. Early starts, tight job sites, and a lot of thinking time on the highway.

This year I started using that thinking time differently.

A friend who works in software sat me down with Claude Code and said "just build something." So I did. Then I built something else. Then I couldn't stop.

Since then I've shipped or started:

A delivery operations app for the roofing supply company I drive for, because I was tired of the paperwork chaos I deal with every day

A price-drop tracker that tells you when to claim a refund on something you just bought

A recipe app built around "cook once, eat three times"

A Discord music bot, a town-building game, and a pile of half-finished experiments

What I've learned so far: operating a crane and building software have more in common than you'd think. You plan the lift before you touch the controls. You respect the load. And when something goes sideways, you stop, figure out why, and fix it properly instead of forcing it.

I'm not a developer from a CS program. I'm a guy who knows exactly what a real job site needs because I'm standing on one every day. That's the edge I'm building on.

So I'm curious about this community: What did you do before you got into design, dev, or freelancing? And what skill from that old life do you still use every day?

Let's hear yours. 👇