Graduated in 2018 with a major in Film Scoring. Principal instrument: guitar.
Position: Mobile Software Developer with DEPT, a Dutch tech consulting company with thousands of employees worldwide. Phil develops software for Android phones on behalf of clinents, sometimes he’s sent to work temporarily for another company, and even in the office he can bounce among different teams in his remote position.
Overview: Shortly before graduating, Phil met his now-wife, who was in her third year at Berklee, so he wanted to stay in Boston and also felt like a career in composing for orchestras wasn’t a realistic possibility. He brainstormed music ideas while working in restaurants. Thought about a career in software briefly but didn’t have the chops. When the pandemic hit, Phil decided to really attempt a career in coding. He paid $30/month for LinkedIn Learning, which has fantastic resources, and he chose to focus on developing phone apps as that felt like a field with a larger demand for more workers. He also took advantage of Coursera and YouTube and downloaded code repositories from GitHub. After close to a year, Phil applied to various jobs but nothing hit, so he went back to studying.
A few months of self-study later, Phil decided that rather than anonymous applications, he instead tried contacting managers directly on LinkedIn. Three of the five people he wrote to offered him an interview. He was hoping for an internship but was instead offered his current position!
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You can see Phil’s LinkedIn profile here.
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Choice Quotes: “At Berklee I was really passionate about using sample libraries to make big sequences. I get that same buzz at work — when working, we work on a ‘Q-Base for Code’ . There’s where you’re working and working, then you press “play” to see what it does. I like the schedule, the benefits, the lifestyle I can have–my job isn’t a bottomless pit, and it gives clear returns from the effort put into it.”
“There’s lots of time management, troubleshooting, and hard work is in both music and software. Also, being a Berklee grad makes a difference with coworkers and bosses–it’s cool!”
“People in your life want to support you, but aren’t sure whether to encourage you to stick with your musical dream. Step back, list concrete thigns you want to be true about your life without those external pressures. Once you have that list, a career path becomes more clear. For me, it was having time for people in my life and to be creative–I wanted to be constantly learning and growing. When I completed my list I was shocked to realize film scoring had almost none of the things on my list, for ten years at least (I might go my whole life grinding and not hit the jackpot.) Once that was clear, I knew there was a huge sunk cost, but I realized that I needed something that would fit with what I wanted in life.”
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