I’ve reached the crossroad – advice needed

>I’ve been running my recording studio for the last 15+ years since graduating from college. I’ve produced numerous major label hip-hop artists from the Wu-Tang Clan, to Rick Ross, to Nas. I’ve finally reached a crossroad. The industry isn’t as stable as it once was, and I’m looking to transition my career. Throughout my professional music career, and since I was a kid learning piano, I always built my own PCs, set up Linux servers for fun, coded websites and tinkered away. Do you have some time to chat about any opportunities you may have?

^ Send that to every music related tech company you come across. They'll pretty much all be interested at some level.

Edit to add: Take a go at some leetcode problems. If you can do the easy ones & make a reasonable effort at medium then you're good enough to get hired. If not practice until you can.

I've always found certifications to be a waste of time and money. There is a probably a sweet spot when they matter but it's fleeting and the companies selling you courses/certifications have zero interest in letting you the truth about how much it's "worth".

If you have the skills to get an entry-level web development job then I'd suggest going to for that to get your foot in the door, work for 1-2 years, then look for something better paying. You'll also have a better idea of if you even like doing it professionally and/or what you want to "specialize" in. I'd also suggest staying away from larger companies (FAANG and the like), you will learn more at smaller company as you'll probably need to wear many "hats" which also gives you a good chance to see what you like (Is it DevOps? Frontend? Backend? PM? UI/UX? etc).

I would suggest parlaying your music industry experience into some kind of passion website that would allow you to utilize your former network for monetization.

Maybe create a resource that highlights the physical studio that albums were recorded at. Feature obscure rap history or just review studio equipment. Reach out (same name on Twitter) if you wanna chat more.

Congrats and best to you for reaching out. Two thoughts.

I work with and have a good friend who followed similar trajectory- serious touring musician, show producer, etc for many years, now we work together in tech. He's a project manager. He's fantastic. Half of PMing is logistics and half is personalities. If you have produced, you have done both. The terminology in tech you will have to acquire- the artifacts/objects/roles, the process (agile/scrum/etc), and the tools (jira, github, etc). Whether you do that through self-teaching, classes, certifications depends on how you learn- but I suspect what will best is to find a way to shadow a team. You will learn more in a month from sitting in, asking questions, then following up with research than from any other activity. So if you have any friends in tech on whom you can impose yourself to let you listen in- highly, highly recommend doing that.

Second point. There is a somewhat controversial movement in tech loosely known as "web3". If you have seen talk of "NFTs" or "crypto" these are adjacent. Some people hate it and attribute climate change, fraud and other evils to it. Others do not. If you are someone who would not, there is a burgeoning subfield impacting music. It is NOT stable, but there are lots of interesting and rewarding conversations for people whose experience spans the machinery both of music production and technology implementation.

Best wishes again, seriously. Love your energy in reaching out and am sure things will go well for you.

There is a conference in Nashville next week (Music Biz 2022) discussing opportunities/challenges at the intersection of music/tech/data. You may discover some interesting music-adjacent industries and companies by attending or perusing the schedule. https://musicbiz.org/events/music-biz-annual-conference/musi...

Consider checking out the ‘no code’ movement and learning a platform like Bubble.io. If you’ve tinkered with code before you’ll have a leg up and there are tons of free resources to help you learn. Quite a few opportunities from there to turn it into six figure freelance or full time gigs, or continue the journey and become a full stack dev.

Any one of those is a reasonable "stable" option. really a personal choice. Work on a personal project then look for an entry level job. Pay is irrelevant on your first job since it's a stepping stone. bust your ass for a year or two then look for a better paying job.

I planned to take a leap 7 years ago and ended up working a 3 day week for the IT firm I worked for and two days on my own tech. 5 years later I left the firm.

I didn't plan this approach but it turned out to be a good model. I was very naive about how hard it would be to make my own money.

Your experience seems more oriented to deciding what you want to do rather than being told what to do. Consider whether you want to get into coding what other people tell you to code, it can suck all the joy out of it.

You can try any free online bootcamp. Freecodecamp seems to be good for web development(JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc). Then, you can try building some side projects(maybe music related). Good luck!

There are quite a few entertainment-related tech and tech-adjacent companies in LA, from startups to Disney, that would probably be interested.

You don't mention a degree, but without it will be difficult to get a job at most coveted positions. For example don't even bother applying at Netflix or SpaceX, you won't even get a no-thank-you in response.

Also, with everything we learn that doing something for a living kinda takes the fun out of it. So setting expectations properly will be helpful as well.

I'm a similar age and working full time in a commercial role (in technology) but now 1 year into a 3 year part time Masters in software development as I'd like to improve my technical skills. I decided it would be good to continue doing what I'm doing, but dedicate my spare time work on the thing that could bring about change. It may not be for you, and it's probably a slower path to change, but it keeps the options open. Wishing you good luck addajones!

How's your maths? Learning DSP, sysnthesis and so on might be a natural progression into a more technical area of music and sound production. LMK if you want a study plan.

I'm kind of in a similar situation, but instead of working I did a PhD in a field a bit far from computer science and eventually realized academia is not a place I want to stay in. Right now I'm thinking how to do the transition. I'm thinking of maybe doing data science, that way at least I can transfer some of the knowledge form my work in academia instead of starting from scratch but it is a difficult decision.

There’s still people making a lot of money in your industry. With your resume you should have an in somehow. I’d try that.

Coming from the data world, it will always be my bias, but I think there is a good case to be made for it being a good on-ramp from deep domain knowledge (which you have) with a gently sloping technical learning curve from “business analyst“ to“machine learning engineer“

Maybe reach out to something like Splice [1]. It's still tech, but it's also related to the music industry, so you could leverage your experience.

[1]https://worklife.splice.com

I recommend breaking up a large body of text into paragraphs for easier consumption.

But also, certifications aren't bad but having a small project that you can apply what you learn to will give you a lot of confidence.

Have some kids and become a stay at home dad. It's the most rewarding thing I've done yet.

engineering is a career just like music. imagine you would want to make the reverse transition. would that make sense? it is not a get rich quick scheme or a solution to all problems.