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Go at your own pace

5 Sessions / 6 hours of work per session

Price

Free

Certificate

Included w/ premium membership ($20/month)

Skill Level

Beginner

Video Transcripts

English, Spanish; Castilian, Chinese, Portuguese

Topics

Product Management, Program Management, User Experience, Software Engineering, Music Technology Industry

Not available for purchase in India

Careers in Media Technology

Course Description

Explore how leading audio, music, and video technology companies bring products from idea to market, and discover your career options in the industry! In five 30- to 60-minute sessions, you’ll gain insight into daily life at companies such as Adobe, Universal Audio, iZotope, and more. Learn from professionals who design, engineer, manage, and market leading creative technologies. Examine best practices and responsibilities of various industry roles. Hiring managers will share secrets in navigating the hiring process. And, get your questions answered by our mentor network of creative tech experts and entrepreneurs, who will be online to offer advice in AMA’s and one-on-one office hours.

Continue learning about the creative technology industry in our companion course, Inside the Music and Video Technology Industry.

Session Details

Session 1: Overview
This session takes you behind-the-scenes into how the media technology industry really works. We’ll provide a high-level overview of the media technology industry - focusing on the music technology space! We introduce a variety of roles in industry and explore the types of companies available for your future careers.
9 lessons

  1. Introduction
  2. Course Overview
  3. How will you plug-in?
  4. Jay's Story: Gaining job experience and networking
  5. Market Size
  6. Roles in Technology Companies
  7. Discussion Forum Networking and Assignments
  8. Overview of the Media Technology Industry
  9. Summary

Session 2: Product Management
We'll look at how media technology companies develop products that consumers love.
14 lessons

  1. Overview
  2. Who's the Boss
  3. User Stories
  4. Product Teams
  5. Session Overview
  6. Hart Schafer
  7. Hart Shafer's Career Path
  8. What is a Product Manager? What is a Product Owner?
  9. The Beginning of a Project
  10. Customer Discovery and 3 types of essential thinking
  11. Product Gurus, Mini CEOs and Supporting your Team as a PM
  12. Shipping the product, Tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
  13. Why a 2 year old has great Product Manager instincts
  14. Product Manager Wrap-up

Session 3: Program Management
Program management is the secret to helping you deliver on time, on budget, in a scalable, repeatable manner!
20 lessons

  1. Overview
  2. Waterfall development and a short introduction to agile development
  3. The Scrum Process Artifacts Rituals and Roles
  4. Meetings: Sprint meetings, standups, planning and retrospectives
  5. Does scrum introduce too many meetings
  6. The Scrum Team
  7. Case Study: iZotope RX4
  8. iZotope RX 4 - Product Video
  9. The ideation of iZotope RX 4 and the benefits of an iterative development cycle
  10. How to be agile but predictable
  11. Product line planning release plans and sprint plans
  12. How agile can help teams release in the face of great uncertainty
  13. What is a scrum master
  14. What tools does a scrum master use in their day to day work
  15. Is being a musician required to be in the music tech industry
  16. Musician to program management: Peter Green's career path
  17. What do program managers look for when hiring
  18. Closing remarks: The creative and knowledge worker economy
  19. Closing remarks: Vacuum cleaner sales and a brief career retrospective
  20. Wrap-up

Session 4: User Experience
With computing everywhere we go - smart phones, tablets, browser and cloud, desktop, and hardware - product design is everywhere we look.
18 lessons

  1. Overview
  2. User story and Design
  3. How does a product designer fit into the organization
  4. What are the deliverables of a product design to their product teams
  5. Smule
  6. Smule | Sing! Karaoke App
  7. The Creation of Smule's Sing app 1
  8. How do you know when the product is right
  9. Designers their egos and ensuring that your work is on the mark
  10. How do you know when you are done with a design
  11. iZotope RX 4 Overview
  12. Why refresh a user interface, What's the Value
  13. What tools does a Product Designer use
  14. Communicating and presenting design options
  15. How do I break into the industry
  16. Should a designer have a portfolio
  17. Career Advice and a product designer's portfolio
  18. Wrap-up

Session 5: Software Engineering
Applications like Pro Tools and iZotope RX are used by professionals all around the world - and they need to be easy to use and almost crash-proof. How do software engineers manage millions of lines of code, written over 10 years, with dozens of engineers continuously modifying, updating, and creating new functionality across Windows, OS X, about 10 plug-in formats?
15 lessons

  1. Overview
  2. Intro to Craig Hanson
  3. Craig's Career Path
  4. Academic versus commercial projects
  5. Intro to Dave Tremblay
  6. Dave Tremblay's career path
  7. New software engineering orientation
  8. Entry level software engineers
  9. Features, user stories, tasks and sprints
  10. Collaboration in software engineering
  11. Daily development for SW engineers
  12. How do you demonstrate 1-3 years of job experience?
  13. Software engineering roles (including internships!)
  14. The value of networking
  15. Session wrapup

Learning Outcomes

Employer Understanding
Understanding of what hiring managers look for in new interns and full-time hires.

Media Tech Basic Skills
Understanding of the goals, responsibilities, and daily life of a software engineer, UI/UX designer, product manager, and program manager in media technology industry.

Media Tech Collaboration
Understanding of how teams collaborate to conceive, design, and commercialize new software and hardware products.

Instructors And Guests

  • Peter Green (guest): Started out as a freelance trumpet player in Phoenix, got a degree in music composition, started and ran a recording studio, then moved into QA and Program Management at Adobe.

  • Jay LeBoeuf (instructor): Technology executive and educator in the media technology industry, Executive Director of Real Industry, lectures at Stanford University, and previously worked at iZotope.

  • Jeannie Yang (guest): Focus on building useful products and enriching real human connections with a background in design and user experience.

  • Dave Tremblay (guest): Software developer with experience in creating award-winning music production software.

  • Brian Desmond (guest): Product Designer and Product Manager with a focus on audio technology.

What You Need to Take This Course

This course is intended for all learners considering full-time positions or internships in the media technology industry. No prior engineering background required. Topics include: Introduction to the music and media technology industry, Product Management, Program Management, User Experience, and Software Engineering.

Why Careers in Media Technology?

Careers in Media Technology educates learners on the roles and needs of the music, audio, and video technology industry, in preparation for upcoming internships and full-time jobs. Join us to meet the people, teams, departments, roles, and skills behind how leading companies operate.