Fun Friday: Meet Jon Schmidt

Today please help me welcome Jon Schmidt to the team in Berlin! Read his employee interview below!

Hej Jon! How’s things?

Guten Tag! Tough to complain. First summer in Berlin and already feel like I am having my best ever. About to move into a new apartment, lots friends coming to visit me over the next month, and lots of sunshine and new things ahead, tons to look forward to.

You are brand new to the SoundCloud HQ in Berlin! Welcome! Can you tell us what your role entails
and what you enjoy most about it so far?

Jan Berkel and myself make up the Android team at SoundCloud. We are responsible for developing and maintaining all things for our native Android application. It is only about half a year old and we have no shortage of plans for it, so it is very busy and exciting at the moment.

My favorite thing about the work are the times we dream up ideas for the app and see them come to life the way we envision them. I have spent a fair amount of my days developing other people’s visions and it is not something I miss. That and it is a constant learning experience.

You are from New York, how was re-locating for you? What do you like most about Berlin so far and how is your German coming along?

The move is ongoing. So far not so bad, but I only brought over enough to survive for the summer really, and am getting the rest of it slowly. I am currently trying to convince my visitors from New York to bring a few things for me so we will see how that goes. Hopefully on Tuesday my friend Sean arrives with my turntable and hopefully some vinyl. Thanks Sean!

How were you introduced to SoundCloud?

I have always been a huge electronic music fan, so couple that with the fact that I spend more than half my life on the internet, I discovered SoundCloud very early on. Conceptually it was a breath of fresh air for me and I was a huge fan from the start. Now that I have a chance to help make it grow and evolve, I couldn’t be happier.

What do you like most about being a part of the SoundCloud team?

There is a huge hunger for knowledge here. This certainly applies to technology, but I think it also applies to other things as well. Take for example the fact that we have a weekly masterclass where any employee can lead a seminar on any topic they think is worthwhile. Thats awesome, and something I bet isn’t common everywhere in my experience.

There is also a shared excitement for the possibilities of SoundCloud, not only from those working here, but from people I know outside the company. Audio is something that hasn’t matured to the point it should on the internet and to be a part of that process is something special.

Beyond that, the fact that smaller market, independent music has been such a big part of my life, and now my job is to help it to be more accessible, its the kind of job that isn’t too hard to get out of bed for (usually).

What are your favorite sounds you have found while scouring SoundCloud?

Always liked this guy, he has a great musical philosophy, and make some very interesting and beautiful stuff. Also his name is Mr Squirrel which is kind of awesome.

I am a big vinyl guy, so I have to include a record label. This is a label from Dresden. Tough to describe the music, somewhere in the middle of techno, house, acid, electro, but everyone of their releases has been extremely interesting to me. I think it is cool that it is limited to just artists in Dresden and love that a small city like that can make a more interesting impact than a lot of bigger cities.

Finally, do you have any fun facts that we should know about?

I have the highest score in the world in this game Must Eat Birds for the iPhone. It took like 2 hours and I had to make my girlfriend drive the whole road trip we were on because I was “on fire”. I haven’t checked for a while but would be surprised if I have been taken down, I don’t think it’s very popular now that Angry Birds has taken over the whole casual bird slingshotting mobile game scene.

Thanks Jon for the interview! Follow him on SoundCloud!