Why I built IndustrialProfi.com

Hi there.

My name is Andrey. I'm an industrial automation engineer: I got a master's degree in industrial automation, got hooked on Linux, Ruby on Rails, and open source along the way, and after university worked the trade out in the field — controllers, wiring diagrams, business trips, commissioning, night shifts on site. And the whole time, one feeling never left me: I was learning everything blind. Even a strong university's master's program didn't give me the full picture of the profession — we studied a lot I never once used, and far too little of what I actually needed on the job. I suspect that's a familiar feeling. Back then, there wasn't a single place — not in the Russian-speaking internet, not even globally — where the fundamentals were explained in a way that was interesting, simple, coherent, and to the point; where, for depth, you were pointed to quality, genuinely free official documentation, books, and videos with explanations from world experts — not a retelling of them; and, most importantly, where you were given practical projects as close as possible to what you'd face on a real job site tomorrow. I pieced my own trade together bit by bit: forums, manuals, trial and error.

IndustrialProfi is the platform I desperately needed back then. The idea never let go of me for years: I started from scratch five times, in five different repositories, and all five prototypes with different architectures ended up shelved. This version is the sixth, and I'm finally happy with it. I've been building it since 2024 — in my spare time, alone, but seriously and for years to come.

The problem

Look at how programmers learn: hundreds of structured resources — pick one up and grow from zero to professional without paying a ruble. For the trades and engineering professions — electricians, welders, commissioning engineers, instrumentation techs — nothing like that exists. Knowledge is scattered across forums, paid courses of dubious quality, and retellings full of errors. Someone who wants to learn a trade is left alone with a mountain of unstructured digital noise — with no map. And the priceless experience of master craftsmen is locked in the heads of people who'll soon retire, and almost no one is writing it down.

And this isn’t just our problem — it’s a global crisis. According to ManpowerGroup, 74% of employers worldwide can’t fill vacancies with the specialists they need, and the World Economic Forum names the skills gap as the main barrier to company growth. The shortage is sharpest for exactly the people who create tangible, physical value: in the European Union, a shortage of electricians, welders, and installers is recognized almost everywhere — master craftsmen are retiring faster than replacements arrive.

People who can work with their hands and their head at the same time are an endangered species today. There are critically few of them worldwide, and the shortage will only get sharper.

Why this is your chance

A shortage isn't only an economic problem. It's an opportunity for one specific person. An in-demand trade is currency that doesn't devalue: a good specialist is wanted everywhere, from small towns to the capital, and in a downturn, employers hold on to them till the very end, because there's no one to replace them with. Over time, that specialist gets to choose where, with whom, and for how much they work. It doesn't take connections, wealthy parents, or a big-city address. It takes a map, discipline, and years of honest practice.

If you're from a small town or a village and want to give your family a decent life — one of the most realistic paths there is to become a world-class expert in an in-demand, useful trade.

Let me be honest about the timeline: it’s not a couple of months, it’s years of daily work — that’s exactly why formal apprenticeships for electricians and welders run 4–5 years. But it’s not “time served” that matters. Anders Ericsson — the researcher behind the “10,000-hour rule” — showed there’s no magic number: growth only comes from deliberate practice, pushed to your limits, with feedback. That’s exactly how every article here is built: read the primary source → do it with your hands → write down the result. To be honest: grades and safety clearances are still issued by certification centers, not websites — this platform won’t replace the paperwork. What it does instead: you show up for that paperwork already understanding, not just having crammed. In an era when trades change before your eyes, the ability to relearn fast and structure knowledge is a superpower in its own right. You train that here too.

How the platform works

We're a librarian, not a lecturer. We live in a genuinely unique time: the best experience of master craftsmen from around the world is no longer locked away — you can study it and apply it yourself. Our job is to gather it. For every topic, we explain the fundamentals briefly and clearly, sometimes with diagrams and drawings, so the full picture comes together — and for depth, we point you to quality sources: official documents where they exist (GOST, PUE, PTEEP), and the world's best books, videos, and breakdowns where no standard exists. All of it as vetted, ranked links, laid out as a convenient, sequential path — not a dump.

And every article ends with a practical task as close as possible to real work, or self-check questions. That's not an add-on: without practice and self-checking, reading gets you almost nothing — you can only build real skill with your hands. You log the result in a practice journal (on paper or digitally, on the platform) — and what accumulates isn't a “course you listened to,” but real experience, an understanding of the process, and muscle memory.

At the same time, we respect the rules that actually apply. Where a trade is governed by official documents — GOST, PUE, NAKS — there's no shortcut around reading them. Yes, reading regulations is dull. But it's exactly in that dry text that the nuances live, the ones that safety and quality depend on — so we're honest and point you to them, instead of substituting a retelling.

And there's something that can't be skipped: in our trades, bad advice doesn't just annoy — it maims. The cost of a mistake is burned equipment, and sometimes a life. So safety always comes first here, not buried in fine print.

How I see this project

The best open platform and roadmap builder for every profession, across the whole CIS and Russian-speaking world. Free — not for a limited promotion, but forever: official standards are public, and our job is to arrange them into a clear path and add practice. The code is open under the free AGPL-3.0 license on GitHub, the content under CC BY-SA, so that if something happens to me, the project can be copied and carried on without me. Further out, I see a platform driven by the community: experienced craftsmen and engineers lead their own professions’ roadmaps under their own names, experts review edits, and the project lives and grows not through one person’s effort, but through a community of people who love their craft.

I see this as bigger than industry. The platform is built to hold any in-demand trade where skill and practice are what matter — a builder, a farmer, a mechanic. But honesty matters here: I can only do well what I've actually worked in myself. Only you — a practitioner who's lived it — can build the roadmap for your own trade. So this letter is also an invitation.

If this resource comes together, all of us will live in a slightly better world — one where the path into a trade is clear to everyone, no matter where they were born or how much money they have.

For now, I do everything myself: the code, the writing, checking the materials, replying to everyone. Which is why I need you — the person reading this. Found something inaccurate? Suggest an edit right on the article: it takes a couple of minutes, and all you need is an account with an email and a password. If you're a craftsman or engineer with real experience — write to me: we'll build a section or a whole roadmap for your trade, with your name on it. Just want the project to keep going — tell a colleague about it.

Humanity made its biggest leap forward when it invented writing: experience stopped dying with the craftsman. One person wrote it down, and the next continued from where the first one stopped. Everything around us was built by that relay.

IndustrialProfi is an attempt to continue it in the trades where skill and practice decide everything: an open, buildable platform where the structured, concentrated experience of master craftsmen is gathered in one place — and where you can write down your own path and pass it on to those who come after. Thanks for being here. Let's build it together.