Humans of Patreon: Jonah Wasserman

Meet Jonah Wasserman, a Software Engineer at Patreon who powers the platform's media infrastructure. With interests ranging from competitive Rocket League to Dungeons & Dragons adventures, Jonah brings both technical expertise and creative energy to his role developing reliable systems for creators. Let's explore Jonah's world, where engineering excellence meets creative empowerment.

Question: Explain what your job is if you were talking to a 5 year old.
Jonah: I'm a software engineer who works on Patreon's media system. I add functionality and improve the performance of videos, podcasts, and images on the website. New features such as Drops, Live Events, and others require a stable media system to ensure that everything is reliable, fast, and easy to use.

Question: Who is your favorite creator & why?
Jonah: Kassoon is a DND creator on Patreon who creates incredible resources for DND including maps, characters, tools, and even entire campaigns. Kassoon uses our public API to power their website and regularly posts on both their Patreon homepage and Patreon Shop with new content.

Question: If you started a Patreon, what would it be and why?
Jonah: I'd probably start a Rocket League podcast and just nerd out about the competitive scene. Either that or I'd make recipes for healthy/tasty food cooked in under 20 minutes.

Question: What's one thing about working at Patreon that surprised you the most?
Jonah: How easy and common it is for people to reach across the company to help someone or cooperate on a project. Everyone is friendly and in it to win it. We're all aligned on the same goal to build the infrastructure that powers a healthy and fair creator ecosystem, so it's very common for veterans and more senior members of the company to go out of their way to guide and give advice to newer employees.

Question: If your career was a reality TV show, what would be its tagline?
Jonah: A ship is safest in port, but that's not what ships are for.

Question: If you could have any creator as your mentor for a day, who would it be and what would you learn?
Jonah: Has to be 3Blue1Brown. Grant is a Stanford Math/Computer Science alum who has previously worked for Khan Academy and now makes YouTube videos full time. He explains complicated math concepts extremely well and is one of the best visual explainers I have ever seen. I'd love to absorb just an ounce of his teaching and video skills and help others as he has helped millions.

Question: If you could instantly master one skill to help creators, what would it be?
Jonah: I wish I knew how to guide Creators to make the most of their Patreon page. Every creator has their niche and therefore has a slightly different path to success. It can be difficult and challenging for a small creator to become big, especially if they're trailblazing in their area.

Question: Describe each day of the work week in the form of a playlist/song. Please explain the reason for each.
Jonah: Monday - Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N' Roses. Mondays are usually the day things change the most. New things come up, issues from over the weekend, and projects get started up.
Tuesday - Lofi beats. This is my "maker day" where I do a large amount of my engineering and focus work.
Wednesday - Come Together by The Beatles. I typically have the most meetings on Wednesdays and this is where I do the most of my face-to-face collaboration.
Thursday - I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by the Proclaimers. In the engineering world, Thursday is the last day to make big changes.
Friday - Right Back Where We Started From by Maxine Nightingale. It's a fun song about getting back to where we were. Friday is considered too risky because any problems caused may require the weekend to fix, which no one wants to cause. It’s a time to prepare yourself for next week's success and clean up anything you've been working on.

Question: What is the best career advice you have ever received?
Jonah: Things will go wrong, projects will fall short, and features will go unused. Sometimes you could have done things better, sometimes not. What matters is that you keep executing at a high quality and keep refining your trade. The wins add up over the years and before you know it, you look back at all your successes and realize.

Question: What are your words of wisdom to anyone trying to enter your field?
Jonah: It's all about motivation. If writing code isn't interesting, you aren't going to be curious and won't make much progress. You need to motivate yourself to build something cool - an app, a website, a game, a music software that adds a cowbell to any song. Whatever is cool to you, you need to build it! And software is the perfect place to do that. If you are interested in aerospace engineering, you can't just go off on your own and build a new spaceship. If you're interested in civil engineering you can't just build a subway station in a week. But with software engineering you can do anything you want from your bedroom in a weekend once you get good enough. That ability to quickly and cheaply prototype, launch, scale, and measure the things you build is why software engineering is special and accelerating faster than nearly any other field. Find what is interesting to you and start.

Jonah's approach to engineering combines technical precision with a deep understanding of creators' needs. His belief that motivation drives innovation, reflected in his mantra "a ship is safest in port, but that's not what ships are for," makes him an invaluable member of Patreon's engineering team. Stay tuned for more inspiring stories in our next "Humans of Patreon" feature!