Waveform

I also build scalable platforms for my day job. I was a bit trepidatious when I started with audio coding personally. There have been some challenging concepts to learn along the way (of course), but I personally have found it to be no less accessible than other complex code/infra work. In my experience it will take some endurance and persistence to make ground - but you already clearly have some background in the musical domain. That would carry you a long way!