{"id":239223,"date":"2026-07-09T10:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T10:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/239223\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T10:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T10:58:08","slug":"software-engineer-career-advice-balancing-coding-and-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/239223\/","title":{"rendered":"Software engineer career advice: Balancing coding and creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is How I Got Here<\/a>, a series where we chart the career journeys of technologists, entrepreneurs, tech workers, builders and people in the innovation economy. Want to tell your story? Get in touch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From nine to five, Andy Rothwell helps the city maintain geospatial data, but his time off is spent tapping into his creative side.<\/p>\n

Rothwell, a longtime software engineer in the City of Philadelphia\u2019s<\/a> Office of Innovation and Technology<\/a>, pursued tech for more stability after a career in academia more than 13 years ago. Today, that reliability has given him the space to tap into his creative side<\/a> and make music videos using nostalgic toys and electronics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRecognizing [something is] not going to work, and putting it down and maybe not picking it back up for a long time \u2014 I do that all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of his past videos include Monster Thrashin\u2019 <\/a>in 2015, featuring Muppet-like monsters doing skateboard tricks, and he\u2019s even been hired by musical artists<\/a> to make music videos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He remains inspired by the challenge of learning new skills like 3D printing and laser cutting, plus figuring out how to turn his creative visions into reality, Rothwell told Technical.ly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The feeling of problem-solving and creating something new is the common thread between his day job and his passion projects, according to Rothwell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes breaking through a bug is exactly like finishing a project or finishing a piece of a project,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In this edition of How I Got Here<\/a>, Rothwell explains how he pursued a tech career, why he started making video projects and the importance of having a creative outlet.<\/p>\n

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why did you pivot from academia into tech?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I have a master\u2019s degree in paleooceanography from the University of California. I studied why an ice age happened 400,000 years ago using a piece of coral. I ended up not really liking that career because it was a lot of writing papers and applying for things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to write papers and grants, constantly wondering what the next year\u2019s situation would be. I realized I can just have a job with stability instead of having to apply for more money next year to keep the job.<\/p>\n

I really like writing code, and a day of doing work is much more enjoyable to me when it\u2019s working on a website than it is writing a paper.<\/p>\n

So, I got a master\u2019s degree in geospatial information science from the University of Maryland. I got hired by the CityGeo group, on a team of people who got to write the front end of Atlas<\/a>, a map that houses data from departments across the city.<\/p>\n

Every day, a couple of us look at the feedback that came in overnight from the app. People report problems like a weird exception with a property line or a condo that isn\u2019t showing the right documents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve watched over the years how the team has gotten to know each other, and it\u2019s helped us work faster. If you see a data issue on Atlas, click the feedback button<\/a>, tell us and by the next day, someone might be updating a record for you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why did you start making videos and do you have any examples of notable projects?\u00a0<\/p>\n

About 15 years ago, a friend had a $30 gift card to RadioShack and they asked me if I wanted it. I bought a little radio-controlled truck, and I thought my camera would fit perfectly in the bed of the truck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I got some friends to go to the zoo and run through the zoo behind the truck. I knew a little bit about how to use Windows Movie Maker, so I cut all the footage together to the song Freeway by Philly\u2019s own Kurt Vile.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After making that video, I kept thinking, what are other funny situations a toy car could be in? So I made another music video of me asking random adults in public to play with the toy truck \u2014\u00a0and that just kept going.<\/p>\n

I think I also invented this kind of puppet, and I call it a loopy lips puppet. I put a photograph of Tom Petty\u2019s face on cardboard cutouts, and I photoshopped away his mouth. I took a rubber band and put it where his mouth had been, and the rubber band was tied off on each side with a thread.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From behind and from the side, I could puppeteer it, so I could make Tom Petty sing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I ended up making a lot of videos with this invention. I don\u2019t know if somebody else has invented it, but I\u2019ve never seen it before.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How have you continued to learn new skills over the years?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eight years ago or so, I started taking classes at NextFab<\/a>. I probably took 15 classes total in 3D design, 3D printing, electronics, woodworking and laser cutting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Early in the pandemic, I started buying small, cheap versions of the machines that I was using at NextFab, like a little 3D printer, a little CNC machine and a router. I bought Arduino boards and a soldering iron so that I could try to make little electronic things.<\/p>\n

With the help of YouTube, or even the instructions from a kit, learning each skill was trial and error until I figured it out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do you decide what videos to make?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sometimes I just love a song and want to make a video for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other times, especially as I got more into using tools, I wanted to make something that I\u2019ve never seen anyone else make. I think to myself, I\u2019ve gotten this far, what else could I do?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll think of things that just make me laugh, like a toy car on a treadmill or a toy car on a pool table.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do you have any advice for people wanting to pursue more creative projects?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s okay to waste a chunk of time trying something. Recognizing that\u2019s not going to work, and putting it down and maybe not picking it back up for a long time \u2014 I do that all the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Every project is going to have that. If that makes you angry and you lose interest entirely, that\u2019s the wrong reaction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is How I Got Here, a series where we chart the career journeys of technologists, entrepreneurs, tech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4877,271,4774,69,71,70,503],"class_list":["post-239223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-arts","tag-career-development","tag-municipal-government","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}