Beginner developer question

Hello. My name is Denis and I’m learning programming.

My main goal is to pursue a career in software development. Right now, I’m trying to figure out what I want to do and especially what is going to be a good investment of my time.

To begin with I started learning web development, since new devs are very in demand there.
But as I went along learning MERN stack – my interest gradually faded.

So I began to question myself, what would I be interested in? Since software development is a very large field. I end up thinking about audio programming. I’ve been making electronic music for over 18 years now, and I’ve always had a passion for hardware and software synths and effects. So all these toughts brought me here…

Now, my main question is this: how rewarding learning cpp and juce is in terms of future career opportunities? I can’t find much job postings on audio development and when I find one it’s usually very demanding in terms of skill level. Whereas in web dev you can get an entry level job just by succesfully finishing 1-2 udemy courses.

The audio industry is pretty small, and most products are created by pretty small teams (2 - 5 people). When your team is small, each person needs a pretty wide range of skills. Depending where you live, it’s possible there are few to no audio jobs in your city (unless you live in a big city like London, Berlin, SF, etc).

On the other hand, I’ve been doing this for 15 years and have never had a hard time finding work. The trick is getting that first job and getting for foot in the door. There is a fair bit of math required, so it takes a lot longer to pick up than web design. There is a lot to know.

I’d suggest building an small effect or synth as you learn and posting it here. It’s very possible for it to turn into a job.

If you have a lot of experience making music, you may have a leg up on other devs. You may have ideas of what products or features are missing or how things could be done better. A lot of devs got into this because they love music, but they just don’t have time to anymore.

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Thanks a lot for your answer!