Talk in English - US at PHP Tek 2026
Short URL: https://joind.in/talk/cfcd7
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An orchestra succeeds when musicians listen, adapt, and communicate. A development team is no different.
As a professional violinist turned software developer, I have spent years working in two high-stakes, deeply collaborative environments. In fact, for a full year, I held two full-time jobs: one as a section violinist in the Kansas City Symphony, the other as a software developer building applications for a Top3 Consulting Firm. Now, as a full-time developer at Georgetown University, I still find time to play as a substitute with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. While they might sound like wildly different careers (and in some ways, they are!), the skills from one world to the other are transferable. In both the music and tech worlds, success isn?t just about individual skill, it?s about how people work together. Whether playing in an orchestra or working on a new feature development with a development team, I have learned that great teams share these common traits: trust, communication, adaptability, and a shared vision.
In this talk, we?ll explore:
Listening as Leadership: How the best musicians and developers actively listen and respond, whether in a live performance or a sprint planning meeting.
High-Trust Teams: Why an orchestra can perform concerts without a single word and what tech teams can learn from that level of trust.
Rehearsal vs. Iteration: The role of preparation, structured feedback, and the importance of stepping away when stuck.
Adapting Under Pressure: How performing in a live concert teaches the same resilience needed when shipping high-stakes software.
The beauty of interpretation: Just as no two performances of the same piece are identical, no two developers solve a problem in the exact same way.
Whether you're an engineer, designer, or team lead, you?ll walk away with a fresh perspective on teamwork, leadership, and collaboration from the lessons I have learned from the concert hall that are deeply relevant to software development.
Comments
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I absolutely loved that she played her violin for the talk!
Loved the talk, lots of great thoughts on how to work, build and be creative in a team environment. And being serenaded between slides was the cherry on top!
Great use of musicianship as a metaphor for working in dev. The violin solos were a huge bonus!
I’m gonna have to review this while putting the violin serenade out of my memory, because with that in place I’d rate this a zillion. I’m a violin nerd and often listen while coding.
Very interesting and insightful information and the comparisons between symphonic (sp?) concepts and software concepts were powerful and strongly convincing.
Dealing with egos is a complex and pervasive problem and it’s a bit…relieving, honestly…to know that it’s a human problem and not an industry problem.