I have had a bit of a strange career history. Looking back, I think it’s a story about the importance of having clear direction and being willing to change course when something better comes along.
Taking an Alternate Route
In community college, I studied computer science and photography before getting hooked on visual storytelling. I decided I wanted to be a cinematographer. When my film school applications didn’t work out, I took an alternate route: I moved to LA and tried to make it in the film industry anyway.
I arrived in LA with restaurant-job savings as my safety net. Like many film hopefuls, I applied to unpaid Craigslist gigs. My first real break was as a production assistant on a feature film. It paid $75 a week — barely enough for gas. During my first week on set, I connected with the lighting crew and asked to shadow them. The Best Boy Electric took me under his wing, and suddenly I found my niche.
Over the next year, I built experience working on small films, commercials, and Hallmark movies (which I loved: efficient, predictable, and well-run). I reapplied to film school and got in.
Finding My Focus
When I started film school, I had an advantage: set experience and, more importantly, clarity about what I wanted. I’d worked in the lighting and grip departments, and I wanted to be a cinematographer. Because I had a clear focus, I found more opportunities.
Everyone wanted to direct or write. Few people deliberately chose paths like sound, cinematography, or the dozen other essential roles. Having a specific focus helped me find consistent work in the area where I had interest, rather than bouncing between whatever roles others thought I should fill.
In film school, those without clear goals often got typecast into whatever roles others thought they fit best. If your passion is directing but you keep getting asked to do other roles (even valuable ones), how much directing experience will you actually get? If you don’t assert what you want, someone else will make those choices for you.
This principle carried over into software engineering, where I’ve now worked for 12+ years. In one-on-ones, I ask folks what they want to focus on: infrastructure, AI, front-end, a specific language, or the management track. It’s hard to answer, but I think it’s essential.
When Your Path Changes
Ironically, my ‘what I want’ has changed dramatically over time. While having a direction is important, sometimes the best opportunities come when you allow yourself to pivot. I’m not a cinematographer. What happened?
My senior year, I interned at Light Iron, a post-production startup specializing in color correction. I told them I wanted to become a colorist, who partners with a cinematographer to polish the film’s finished look. They started training me on the standard path—first becoming a Conform Artist (essentially a colorist’s assistant who assembles the pieces for color work).
As I started training, I hit a snag: I found it boring. It’s challenging work – like an intricate puzzle – but it just didn’t click for me. Meanwhile, I’d been helping their CTO with network racks, computer fixes, and firmware flashing. I found myself drawn to those tasks. Around this time, I’d been reading Hacker News and getting increasingly interested in tech.
I approached the CTO and said, “I want to work with you and do more of what you do.” He shared a story from his career about how he once asked himself what skills he wanted to develop over the next five years. He asked me what I wanted and it helped me think more deeply about my long-term goals. When I confirmed that I wanted to switch to a more technical track and work with him, he agreed and his mentorship helped set me on my current path.
Learning to Embrace Change
Know what you want — it gives you direction and focus — but stay open to changing your mind as you grow. Sometimes the path you start on leads somewhere unexpected but more fulfilling. It’s okay to change direction, especially when you find yourself genuinely excited about a new opportunity.
The key is intentionality: whether you’re sticking with your current path or shifting to something new, make it a conscious choice rather than letting circumstances or others decide for you. My journey from cinematography to software engineering wasn’t a failure of my original plan — I made a deliberate choice to pursue a growing curiosity about technology.
Nothing is wasted, even when the path changes completely. My film background still plays a role in my career in software engineering today, though I’m not directly applying it anymore. For example, success on a film set depends on anticipating needs and communicating with colleagues, which apply in software development as well. As a cinematographer, I had to plan details including lighting, crew, gear, scheduling, and logistics before production began. That same structured approach helps me execute projects in software development today.
In some ways, my career came full circle to those early computer science classes I took before film captured my attention. Sometimes our journeys loop back to earlier interests, but with a different perspective from the detours we’ve taken.
Your career doesn’t have to follow a straight line. The best paths may be unexpected.