For my Community Connection, I interviewed James Caraang. Aside from making his own music, he is a software engineer for the music company Catalog.
I chose to interview James Caraang because I have always been interested in learning about programming / coding, and I have always loved playing music as well.
Questions:
Can you explain your roles and responsibilities with your current position?
My role is Software Engineer at a web3 music company called Catalog and my responsibilities right now are to help build new features and maintain to the website for the company I’m working for as well as keeping up to date with learning blockchain technology and the music space.
What obstacles have you faced to get where you are today?
The normal obstacles faced were learning the right skill set for the job and interviewing through different companies to find the right fit – more particular obstacles came from finding the right people that I could work with and where I could naturally be myself. (Some normal corporate jobs require you to bend your personality to fit the mold.)
What advice would you pass on to someone who is interested in what you are doing?
Be curious and always keep learning! This job requires you to constantly be learning and staying up to date with new technology stacks. Also build websites and projects that you think would help your own problems – if you like playing games try making your own! You don’t necessarily need to have a degree but you do need to prove that you can build something useful for others.
Why are you passionate about your job or role?
I love my job because it combines 2 of my passions: music + tech. We are solving a big problem for musicians where they have no value being captured for their art (something I’ve experienced personally). Programming is also like a lot like solving a puzzle – finding the right pieces to fit together, so it can be both fun, challenging and rewarding at the same time.
What are some parts of your job that you dislike?
Some parts I don’t enjoy about my job is sometimes you’ll need to fix bugs that happen off-work hours or work late to deliver a project. But since it’s mostly project based work, we don’t always have to be in sprint mode and can have a lighter work week depending on the project cycles.
What are some skills I should start building now in order to be more successful at a job like yours one day?
Conclusion
This interview helped me a lot because it helped me realize that you don’t have to choose just one of your interests or hobbies for your career path, and that there is more flexibility in it than I originally thought. He also gave a lot of good advice that I will keep in mind when I am looking for a job in the future. James gave me a good starting point on learning more about programming and left some great resources for me to look more into.