Welcome Aboard Jake Burdass

Junior web developer Jake joins the TBB crew, bringing with him a career full of incredible experiences. Get to know Jake better, as he talks through his varied past.

For the past 15 years, I’ve been heavily invested in the music industry. I became obsessed with music at an early age, spending my school years learning how to play guitar (badly), going to gigs and digesting as much music content as I could. I felt connected to the energy that bands like Metallica, Rage Against the Machine and Red Hot Chilli Peppers emitted; which meant when I discovered genres such as bassline, grime and dubstep, I naturally fell in love.

From there, I began collecting records and spending my lessons at school ‘infrared’-ing 50 second clips of DJ Q and DJ Pantha tunes to my phone. With a massive collection of music, I started learning how to DJ and terrorising my parents daily with the sound system I installed in my bedroom. I landed myself a weekly slot on a popular internet radio station, which averaged 350 listeners per week. From there, I began playing in clubs and festivals up and down the country, and abroad. Spending so much time in different venues, and listening to and performing on different sound systems meant I became fascinated with the culture surrounding them.

After attempting to study towards a ‘proper job’, I felt that law and history wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in and dropped out of college to pursue music technology. I began working as a freelance mixing and mastering engineer to run alongside my DJ work. As an engineer, I’ve had the privilege of working on some amazing projects; including working within Abbey Road Studios.

During a tour performing in Holland, I questioned why there weren’t any events similar to what I witnessed abroad, in my hometown of Huddersfield. This led to me taking the reins of the Huddersfield music scene and delving into events promotions – the brand, BASSment, was born. Following five years of events promotion; BASSment had outgrown all available venues in Huddersfield. This led me to taking on my own building which I renovated into a live music venue/recording studio hybrid space. I saw an opportunity to combine my audio engineering and events management careers. With that, I launched BASSment Studios.

A decade of events management and 150+ events later, I’ve decided to pursue something different. As a lover of all things technology, and a fascination with Tony Stark – I trained as a software developer in 2022. I’ve been using software every day within my music career, and I have a strong desire to delve deeper into how the software does the things it does.

I joined TBB as I believe the best way to develop my career was to work alongside the amazing software developers here, and learn on the job. So far, my experience has exceeded expectations, and I’m learning more than I ever imagined I could. I’ve been here for just over two weeks, and I already feel like a part of the family.  As this is my first job as a dev, I have moments where  I feel like a bit of a burden; but I’m sure after guidance from Sensei John Bell and my thirst for knowledge, I’ll be flying through web builds in no time.

Outside of music and tech, I’m a bit of a “sneaker head” with over 120 pairs of trainers. When I’m not trying to do two millions things at once; I relax by cooking, ‘live, laugh, loving’ with my wife, and enjoying the outdoors. Recently I’ve become a dog parent to my Rottweiler pup, Mylo, and taken up trying to teach myself photography.