Two years ago, I was finishing a Mechatronics Engineering degree in Rome.This is the story of my journey from mechatronics engineering to writing.
Today, I write for a living — blog posts, SEO content, and stories about the life I’m actually living.
It sounds like a dramatic career change when I put it that way. But the reality was much less dramatic. There was no perfect plan, no overnight success, and definitely no moment when everything suddenly worked.
There was simply a gradual realization that I enjoyed writing, researching, explaining ideas, and turning experiences into something other people could read and use.
This is the real story of how I moved from engineering toward writing — including the parts that usually don’t make it into a career-change highlight reel.
My Journey: From Engineering to Writing
I completed my Mechatronics Engineering degree in Rome and originally expected my career to follow a fairly traditional path.
I imagined working with circuits, automation, robotics, machines, or industrial systems. Engineering had trained me to solve problems, understand complicated systems, and look at how different parts work together.
Then life took me somewhere I hadn’t originally planned.
I moved to Stockholm in 2025 and gradually found myself spending more time writing.
At first, I was simply putting my experiences into words. Moving to a new country gave me plenty to think about — new surroundings, new experiences, different people, and a completely different lifestyle.
I started sharing some of those experiences on WordPress and later on Medium under the name Jammie Ivir.
What started as a personal interest slowly became something more serious.
I discovered that I genuinely enjoyed researching a topic, organizing information, explaining it clearly, and turning it into something useful for another person.
That was when I began to see writing differently.
Engineering taught me to break a complicated system into smaller parts and understand how those parts work together.
Writing requires something surprisingly similar.
An article has a structure. It has individual ideas. Those ideas need to connect logically. And if one part doesn’t work, the whole piece becomes harder to understand.
The tools are different, but the way of thinking isn’t completely different.
Why I Made the Switch
Nobody tells you that earning a technical degree doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your career doing only technical work.
For me, the move toward writing happened for several reasons.
I Enjoyed Creating Something People Could Read
I liked the feeling of finishing an article and knowing that someone could actually learn something from it.
An article can be a finished product in its own way. Someone searches for a question, finds your content, reads it, and hopefully leaves with a better understanding of the subject.
I found that surprisingly satisfying.
My Engineering Background Became an Advantage
At first, I thought my engineering background and writing were two completely separate things.I don’t see them that way anymore.
My engineering education taught me how to research, analyze information, understand technical subjects, and explain problems logically.
Those skills are useful in content writing, especially when the subject is technical.
I don’t need to be an expert in every topic before I start researching it. But I know how to break complicated information down and work toward understanding it.
I Wanted More Location Flexibility
Living between different countries also changed the way I thought about work.
I wanted to develop skills that weren’t completely dependent on where I physically lived.Writing, blogging, SEO, and digital content offered that possibility.
That doesn’t mean online work is easy or automatically provides financial freedom. It doesn’t.It simply means the work itself can be more flexible geographically.
I Was Already Writing
Perhaps the biggest reason was also the simplest.
I was already doing it.
Before I seriously considered myself a writer, I was already writing about my experiences, ideas, and observations.
Eventually, I started asking myself a simple question:
Why not take something I’m already doing and develop it into a professional skill?
That’s really where the switch began.
Setting Up My Freelance Business: The Honest Part
This is the part that many online-income articles leave out.
I’m writing about it while I’m still experiencing it.
I recently created a Fiverr seller profile to offer services such as SEO content writing, blogging, and translation alongside my own website.
I added my bio, skills, and portfolio information. I also included a real SEO blog article that I had written and published on my own website.
It wasn’t a fictional sample created just for a portfolio.
It was an actual article based on keyword research, SEO structure, and metadata.
Then came something I wasn’t expecting.
My account was flagged for identity verification and temporarily restricted while the verification process was reviewed.
I submitted the requested verification information, and the notice indicated that the review could take several days.
That experience reminded me of something important about starting freelance work online:
Creating an account doesn't mean you're immediately ready to earn money.
There are profiles to complete, portfolios to prepare, verification processes to deal with, pricing decisions to make, and platforms to learn.
I also had to figure out basic questions that sound simple until you’re actually doing them.
How much should a beginner charge?
Which portfolio samples should be displayed?
How should a LinkedIn profile be connected?
How do you present your existing website professionally?
How do the different tools, browser extensions, and desktop applications fit into the workflow?
None of these things were impossible.
They were simply unfamiliar.
And when you’re doing something for the first time, unfamiliar things can take much longer than you expect.
What I've Learned So Far
I’m still at the beginning of this journey, but several lessons have already become clear to me.
1. Start Before You Feel Ready
My first published article wasn’t perfect.
But publishing it taught me more than another month of thinking about whether I was ready.
You improve by doing the work.
2. Don't Expect Everything to Happen Immediately
Creating a freelance profile is only the beginning.
There can be verification, profile reviews, portfolio preparation, client communication, and plenty of waiting.
The first few days or weeks may feel slow.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the idea isn’t working.
3. Be Realistic With Your First Prices
When you’re starting, your goal isn’t necessarily to charge the highest possible price.
You also need to build trust.
A reasonable beginner price, combined with good communication and a strong portfolio, can give you an opportunity to prove what you can do.
As your experience and portfolio grow, your pricing can grow with them.
4. Your Background Can Become Your Advantage
I used to think my Mechatronics Engineering degree belonged to a completely different part of my life.
Now I see it differently.
My engineering background is one of the things that can make my writing different.
I understand technical concepts.
I know how to research.
I can approach complicated subjects systematically.
And I can use those skills to explain information in simpler language.
Your previous career doesn’t always have to disappear when you change direction.
Sometimes it becomes the foundation for what comes next.
5. One Real Portfolio Piece Can Be Valuable
You can write a long list of skills on a profile.
But eventually, people want to see evidence.
For me, a real published article is much more meaningful than simply saying, “I can write SEO content.”
The article shows the writing.
The structure shows the research.
The SEO elements show the process.
And the fact that it exists publicly gives potential clients something concrete to look at.
I'm Still Building This
I don’t want to present this as a story about someone who left engineering, became a successful writer overnight, and started making money from a laptop.
That’s not my story.
I’m still building it.
There are things I understand now that I didn’t understand a year ago, and there are plenty of things I’m still learning.
But perhaps that’s the most useful part of the story.
A career change doesn’t always begin with a perfect plan.
Sometimes it begins with curiosity.
You try something.
You publish something.
You make mistakes.
You learn how a platform works.
You create another piece.
And slowly, something that started as an experiment begins to look like a real career.
I started with Mechatronics Engineering.
Today, I’m building my path through writing, SEO, blogging, and storytelling.
Maybe the two paths aren’t as different as I once thought.
Engineering taught me how to understand systems.
Writing is teaching me how to understand people.
And I’m still learning both.
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