Seattleites have a knee-jerk disdain for the influx of tech workers—but once in a while, an infiltrator proves to be a surprise gift to the city’s culture. For example, Bevin Kelley, aka Blevin Blectum, who moved here last December from Providence, Rhode Island, to work as a UX sound designer in the Amazon Device and Services Design Group. She creates what the company calls “delighter” sounds for Alexa. Kelley’s experience working for Hasbro and for Thomas Dolby’s Beatnik Inc. serves her well in this position.
You may think working for Jeff Bezos would be soul-sucking, but not for Kelley. “This type of job, where I’m actually in a studio working most of the day on sound in a software audio environment, is much more conducive than academia,” she says in an interview at her Capitol Hill apartment. “Which is interesting, because I think in theory, academia is more appealing to me—but I’ve gotten more done musically while juggling a corporate job. It’s more cut-and-dried mercenary; the boundaries are clearer.”
