How a sound engineer builds coding skills on CodeSignal Learn

Whether you’re trying to break into tech, prepare for the job search, or level up in your current role, it helps to know that you’re not alone in your journey to build your technical skills. That’s why we’re sharing stories from learners like you: to motivate and inspire others in their learning endeavors.

Today’s story comes from Jack Tulloch, a sound engineer who works at a post-production film studio in Los Angeles. He is taking a beginner Python course with CodeSignal Learn to learn programming fundamentals. His goal is to use these skills to build a new audio plugin tool.

What skills did you want to learn?

“In my day job, I create sound effects for short films. I realized there was a gap in the marketplace for audio plugins—software tools that manipulate audio files in desired ways. So I wanted to learn the skills to build a plugin that I could sell as a side project. While I was a bit familiar with code, I wasn’t skilled enough to build my ideas out.

My goal is to learn enough programming skills to develop the initial version of my plugin, or at least build half of it and then hire someone else to finish it—and I want to understand the technical details before handing off the project to someone else.

I’m starting with Introduction to Programming with Python. I chose Python because it’s more human-readable than other programming languages, and then I plan to learn C++ after that.”

How do you like to learn?

“I’m a big believer in doing the thing and figuring stuff out along the way. With everything I’ve learned, I’ve found it most effective to dive into the thing itself and watch courses and videos alongside that.”

What is learning with CodeSignal like?

“Like I said, I had a little experience with programming—I had used other learning platforms, but I got stuck with those tools. With some of them, you need to submit your answers to a forum and wait for a human to reply. This wait time was discouraging and made learning a lot harder to stick with.

With CodeSignal, I have a resource, Cosmo*, who I can ask questions to directly instead of using forums or googling. Being able to get simple explanations quickly has made learning much more enjoyable. Cosmo knows what I just learned and where I’ve been, so it’s very helpful for me.”

*Cosmo is a friendly AI-powered tutor and guide built into CodeSignal Learn.

What advice would you give to other learners?

“I’m not quite far enough to give advice, but I would say they should take their time and try to stay consistent. Use your resources too! I was surprised to learn that even people who have been programming for a long time search Google all the time and use AI tools to help them figure out simple things.”

How do you make time for learning?

“I try to carve out time every night after work. I commit to at least 20 minutes. I know how long it takes to build certain skills, and I expect learning programming will take a long time. I’m not in a rush. I like to learn a little bit every day.”

What’s next for you?

“I want to stay consistent with my learning, take as many courses as I can, and see how far I can go. Specifically after this Python lesson, I’d like to learn machine learning and get a grasp of how that works. Then, I’ll learn C++ after that. But if there’s something easier in between those two, I’ll do that first. The main thing is to stay consistent and then I’ll re-evaluate where I am.”