Hi I'm DeVron, VP of Development.

Come with me on a on a journey all the way back to 2001, where a skinny kid with glasses had just started his first semester at Berklee College of Music. He wasn't sure what type of career in music he wanted to have but decided music business and management seems cool and would give him options. Then one day while doing work-study in the college career resource center he came across a job posting. It read something like "Do you like games? Do you like Music? Come test games at Harmonix" Now this kid was like, "I don't know what a Harmonix is, but I do like video games and I do like music, so yeah why not check this out?" So he did. He started off in QA working on the studio’s first console music game Frequency and he loved it. It combined two of his passions, music and video games in a way he didn't know existed. From that moment he was hooked on the concept of bringing the experience of playing music to people through video games. He worked his way up through production from Associate Producer to Executive Producer over the years.

This skinny kid was me (obvi lol) and now somehow 19 years after I started, I am now the VP of Development at Harmonix. As the VP of Development I'm generally responsible for all project development/production operations at the studio. I work directly with our producers on project planning, risk assessment & mitigation, and generally just do whatever I can to help our game development process to be successful and efficient. When I'm not working I'm either playing games or doing 'car stuff' with friends.

What is your favorite Harmonix game and why? 

It’s probably a tie between Frequency and Amplitude. I mean, these two games were where I got my start in games and where I realized this was something I wanted to be doing long term.  Frequency was an amazingly fun rhythm action game and I can say that I was the best Frequency player IN THE WORLD for a time, lol. Just a lot of sentimental value for me with those two games.

What Rock Band instrument do you play?

I would play all of them but in order of most fun for me it’s probably Guitar, Vocals, Bass, Drums.

What's your favorite Rock Band song of all time?

Of all time? Geez, hard to really say, there has been so many songs over the last 10+ years. I think I have to expose myself here and little and tell you that growing up I didn’t listen to rock music at all, not even a little bit. Just wasn’t what I was into, I was more of a Jazz, hip-hop and R&B fan. Rock Band really introduced me to some iconic rock songs for the first time ever. If I keep it to just the first Rock Band, I’d have to say some stand outs for me are “Tom Sawyer” by Rush and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who were extremely fun to play.

What’s your wfh set up like?

I am currently in the process of upgrading my WFH situation lol, so it’s an “OK” setup right now I’d say. I’d like to get a standing desk and some better studio monitor speakers but I haven’t decided on which yet. I’ve also got some more ambient lighting on the way so I can have a better overall vibe in my office now that I spend so many hours a day in it.

If you could trade places with anyone else at Harmonix for a week, who would it be?

Hmm that’s a good question… like, be them or just swap places with them? I think I’m going to change this question to who would you want to be for a day/week instead.  So in that case, Matt Derby. Derby is the Creative Lead on Fuser and before I moved into the VP role I worked as the Development Lead on Fuser so he and I worked very closely together. This dude is just so talented, he’s a writer, designer, musician, actor, artist, stuff I’m forgetting, but just a modern-day renaissance man.

What's your go-to Karaoke Jam? 

I think I sound better when singing in falsetto so anything like that is usually a go-to for me. Lots of D’Angelo or Musiq Soulchild songs I think work for me lol.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Probably time travel. I’m curious about the past and the future. Did things really happen how they said they did? Will humans ever travel to another solar system? If I could time travel I could probably find out.

What's your favorite or most used emoji on Slack?

There is a :devron: emoji that a coworker made which is me rolling my eyes. I guess I must do that sometimes…