My son is close to getting his mechanical engineering degree. This field of study has been a perfect fit for him, so I’m just going to comment on what I saw in him as he grew up that foreshadowed this affinity. Maybe you’ll relate to some of it.
He has an extraordinary ability to visualize, by which I mean that he can “build” mechanisms in his head, observe how they work, and anticipate problems.
When he encountered mechanisms in his environment, he could quickly intuit the principles involved, kind of “channeling” the mind of the designer of the mechanism.
He loved to imagine other ways that a function might be accomplished.
I once took him to a museum of the history of technology in Paris. He saw a mechanical calculator designed by Blaise Pascal in the 1600s. For days afterwards, he basically sleepwalked through Paris; he was lost in thought, building a mechanical calculator in his head. This was an entirely useless exercise, of course, because no one would ever need a mechanical calculator. But this was pure recreation for him. He did it for fun. Sometime later that week, he told me that he had figured out everything but the division function, and that’s the last I heard of it.
Math was never a passion for him, but he is quite competent at it.