Alyssa began her career as a music teacher, giving private lessons in guitar, saxophone and piano. An avid gamer, her music career soon blossomed into composing and producing video game music. To date, she has created music and sound effects for nearly 40 games, from student projects to AAA releases such as Just Cause 4. She has also created audio for well-known brands like Amazon, Comcast, Logitech, Maybelline and The Economist.
Recently, she was an adjunct lecturer at Bloomfield College in New Jersey, teaching would-be audio producers and game developers. Unlike regular music composition, game audio is much more dynamic. The music must be responsive to what the player is doing and be able to loop over and over without grating.
Like many professionals, Alyssa began to rethink her career during the pandemic. She wanted more financial stability and felt that she wasn’t earning enough teaching part-time. After graduating from Springboard, she landed a software engineering role at Progyny, a company that helps businesses administer fertility benefits to employees who wish to start a family.
I'm the conductor and music director for the only–as far as I know–community-based video game orchestra in the state of New Jersey, called the Montclair Gamer Symphony Orchestra. We are an amateur-level orchestra comprising members who enjoy playing video game music every week. We put on several performances throughout the year and our repertoire comes solely from arrangements of video game music.
I have a lot of favorites. I really like the soundtrack from a game called Kid Icarus: Uprising–that's my favorite. But I also love the soundtracks from Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger and Um Jammer Lammy.
When you’re composing for video games, you have to take into account that the player could spend all day in one area of the game, so the music doesn't really have a definite beginning, middle or end. The music is created to loop endlessly without becoming grating or annoying, whereas a regular song is three minutes long and it has a beginning, middle, and end. Also, in some cases modern game music responds to what the player is doing and can be a lot more dynamic than just the set song.
You also have to think in layering and different segments. You can layer different instruments in as you progress to a part of a game. You can have the music jump from one segment to the next, to the next or you can randomly set what segment it jumps to as well so it's a lot more dynamic.
Honestly, it was the pandemic. I love teaching but I felt like I needed to make a change in my life. Some of those reasons were financial. Teaching is a very rewarding profession and I wish teachers in this country got paid more for all the work we do–the lesson plans, grading, reaching out to students who need extra help. I wanted to make a better life for myself and I thought of just a career switch. I've always been interested in coding. When I worked in the gaming industry, I was always really interested in what the programmers were doing.
Honestly, it was the pandemic. I love teaching but I felt like I needed to make a change in my life. Some of those reasons were financial. Teaching is a very rewarding profession and I wish teachers in this country got paid more for all the work we do–the lesson plans, grading, reaching out to students who need extra help. I wanted to make a better life for myself and I thought of just a career switch. I've always been interested in coding. When I worked in the gaming industry, I was always really interested in what the programmers were doing.
I was researching other boot camps and some of them seemed too short. I’m not sure how much I can learn in just 12 weeks. Then I found Springboard. I saw there was mentorship support, a community of people to help you, and a lot of success stories that came out of Springboard. So I made my decision pretty quickly. Springboard just seemed like the best fit for me–being an adult with a job and everything, I had limited time to study.
Yeah, it's great. Honestly, there's a lot to learn. The Springboard course gave me such a great foundation of Python, JavaScript and using Flask and databases, but as a software developer there's so much more to learn. Working with other developers is a big one. I’m also learning how to handle tickets and day-to-day workflows and all the tools I have to use. I feel like there's so much more to learn, which really excites me. It was a little daunting to switch careers, but it's a very welcome challenge.
I'm fortunate that through my time in the gaming industry I built a good network. A friend of mine approached me and referred me for the position at Progyny. About a month after completing the Software Engineering Career Track at Springboard, I had a new job.
My mentor was awesome; he always went above and beyond to help me out, especially because coding was fairly new to me. He was always very supportive and quick to answer questions, despite a six-hour time difference. With his patience and his guidance, he was a really good fit to be my mentor.
Honestly, I used to. I wanted to work for a music-related company like Spotify or SoundCloud, but I'm really happy where I am now. I love that I get to work with Python and I’m glad to work for a company that helps people start families. I feel like I lucked out there and found a great position.
Wow, it's hard to sum it up. What I found valuable is not just the curriculum and the course content, but the support from the career coaches and mentors really helped instill confidence in me–confidence that I’m a legitimate software engineer, not just someone who’s goofing around with code. It gave me the confidence to go into an interview and speak about all these concepts in software engineering and work with other engineers, which is completely invaluable.
It's never too late. If you want to make a change, whatever the reason, you have to follow through, believe in yourself, and just do it. There’s no time like the present. If you ever want to make a change in your life, you have the power to do it.
I love Springboard. I've recommended it to a few friends and they've signed up. It's an amazing experience. I'm really happy with where I am and I'm proud of myself for everything that I've done, and I hope other Springboard graduates can also get that feeling of pride for achieving something and making a positive change in their lives.
