Miles Per Commit: What Driving Taught Me About Coding
I’ve been driving long enough to notice that a surprising number of lessons from the road translate cleanly to work — especially to software engineering. Here are ten of them.
1. If a crash is imminent, you brake.
When the road ahead is blocked, you don’t accelerate and hope for the best. Similarly, when you spot an issue in your code, pause and fix it. Carrying known problems forward only makes the eventual collision worse.
2. Stuck in a slow lane? Shift gears.
If a project or process is holding you back, it’s okay to pivot. Staying in a slow lane out of habit isn’t loyalty — it’s inertia.
3. Don’t stay on the highway just because it’s supposed to be faster.
If the side road moves quicker, take the exit. Efficiency is what matters, not the route everyone else is taking. Best practices are starting points, not destinations.
4. Learn from others’ mistakes.
Whether on the road or in a codebase, observing what doesn’t work can be as valuable as knowing what does. You don’t have to crash yourself to understand why a design failed.
5. If you’re too tired to drive, let someone you trust take the wheel.
Delegating isn’t giving up — it’s knowing your limits. The best engineers I’ve worked with have been the ones who hand off with clarity and trust their team to deliver.
6. Embrace new technology.
Just as adaptive cruise control and autopilot have made long drives safer and less exhausting, adopting new tools at work can take you further, faster. Resisting them doesn’t make you principled — it just makes you slower.
7. If the vehicle costs more to maintain than it’s worth, replace it.
The same applies to outdated systems and inefficient processes. Technical debt compounds like repair bills. At some point, the rewrite is cheaper than the patch.
8. A practical, reliable car beats a flashy one that sits in the garage.
Focus on what works, not just what looks good. The architecture that ships and scales beats the elegant one that never makes it past the whiteboard.
9. Yelling at another driver won’t fix the traffic.
And frustration at work won’t fix the bug either. Stay calm, focus on solutions, and keep moving forward. The problem doesn’t care how angry you are.
10. Most importantly — enjoy the drive.
Whether on the road or in your career, the journey is most of it. If you’re not finding at least some satisfaction in the day-to-day, it’s worth asking where you’re actually trying to go.
Safe travels — on the road and in the codebase.