[stu_]

Similar position here. CS major who went to work software / FAANG pretty much for my 30 year career.

Something about mechanical engineering feels amazing, unlike software getting real tangible /physical/ results from your work. I feel the CS experience gives a very distinct advantage as well here. Software and CAD isn't scary for a CS brain. CnC (additive and subtractive) seems like logical way to do everything, which is what makes cool parts for projects.

I've acquired a few cheap Harbor Freight welders and oxy/acetylene cutting tools, started with small CnC routers to carve soft metals for parts. 3d print what I can't do in metal.

One really easy area to get into for a software dev is robots, look into RoS, an open source robotics OS based on Linux, order some parts from the RoS wiki. And you can get to your own advanced little r2d2 pretty quickly (real-time 3d mapping of your house, arm with gripper control, voice control, image recognition in real time) - most of the software pieces that ME might struggle with are not so difficult for CS folks, and it enables some really cool results!