The freeCodeCamp Podcast

Beau Carnes has run the freeCodeCamp community YouTube channel for the past 5 years, taking it from 75,000 subscribers all the way up to 9 million.

Beau started out working as a Special Education teacher at a Michigan high school. He taught himself how to code before working as a software engineer. He has since taught dozens of programming tutorials and helped curate more than 1,000 courses for the freeCodeCamp community YouTube channel.

During our conversation, Beau shares the challenges he faced during his career transition as a father of 3 kids. He talks about how he finished a second degree in software development in just 6 months. And he even talks about his love of stilt-walking.

For the first time ever, I've published this interview as a YouTube video podcast as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNPF0oPcMDs

Be sure to follow The freeCodeCamp podcast in your favorite podcast app. And share this podcast with a friend. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

Beau's YouTube course style guide: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-create-a-great-technical-course/

How I got a second degree and earned 5 developer certifications in just one year, while working and raising two kids https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-i-got-a-second-degree-and-earned-5-developer-certifications-in-just-one-year-while-working-and-2b902ee291ab/

Beau's personal website: http://carnes.cc/

I'm Quincy Larson, teacher and founder of freeCodeCamp.org. And each week, I'm bringing you insight from developers, entrepreneurs, and ambitious people who are getting into tech.

Today I'm joined by Kylie Ying. She's a software engineer and a teacher at freeCodeCamp.

We talk about Kylie's 5 years at MIT, her time at CERN working on the Large Hadron Collider, competitive figure skating, and even poker-playing AIs.

I hope these weekly freeCodeCamp podcasts are firing you up about learning more about technology.

Tell your friends about the freeCodeCamp podcast. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

Links to things we discuss:

- Kylie review of her 5 years at MIT (20 minute watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtujJjKmfN0

- Kylie's video about CERN's Large Hadron Collider (17 minute watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmJ44z9hl8c

- Kylie's Machine Learning for Everbody course (2 hour course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/machine-learning-for-everybody/

- Kylie's Hot Dog or Not Dog Neural Networks course (2 hour course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/convolutional-neural-networks-course-for-beginners/

- Real Genius movie trailer – classic 80s movie about graduate school (2 minute watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuv7SIVNkx8

Dhawal Shah is creator of Class Central, a popular search engine for online courses.

Dhawal talk about the history of online courses and the Massive Open Online Course revolution of the early 2010s. We also talk about his childhood growing up in India, and how his life changed one day when he won a computer from a Cartoon Network sweepstakes.

Tell your friends about the freeCodeCamp podcast. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

Links we discussed:

Dhawal's article: Here are 850+ Ivy League Courses You Can Take Right Now for Free: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ivy-league-free-online-courses-a0d7ae675869/

Dhawal's article: I uncovered 1700 Coursera Courses that Are Still Completely Free: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/coursera-free-online-courses-6d84cdb30da/

Dhawal on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dhawalhshah

Dhawal's 3 recommended Massive Open Online Courses:

- Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects: https://www.classcentral.com/course/learning-how-to-learn-2161

- University of Alberta's Mountains 101 Course: https://www.classcentral.com/course/mountains-101-7455

- Stanford's Data Structures and Algorithms Course: https://www.classcentral.com/course/algorithms-18869

I interview Bruno Haid. He's a software engineer and tech founder from Austria.

We talk about growing up in the European countryside, his early passion for computers, and ultimately his move to San Francisco, where he's founded several tech companies.

Bruno's super excited about embedded systems and custom hardware. He's building home appliances that incorporate open source software and open datasets.

We talk about so many topics here. From Star Trek to the European Pirate Party.

I hope these weekly freeCodeCamp podcasts are firing you up about learning more about technology.

Tell your friends about the freeCodeCamp podcast. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

A couple interesting links from our discussion:

"Only Amiga" song from Comdex 1987: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWeO5IkCssk

Halt and Catch Fire TV Show trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWrioRji60A

Today I'm joined by Dr. Curran Kelleher. He's a data visualization expert and has taught a number of in-depth data visualization courses on freeCodeCamp's YouTube channel.

We talk about what it's like to get a Ph.D. under one of the pioneers of data visualization.

We also talk about how he uses his visualization skills in industry, his many years living in India, and his love of teaching.

I think you're going to walk away with a deeper understanding of data, the human brain, and how we process information. You'll also learn some practical career tips.

I hope these weekly freeCodeCamp podcasts are firing you up about learning more about technology.

Tell your friends about the freeCodeCamp podcast. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

Some relevant links from our discussion:

Curran's 20-hour Data Visualization with D3 course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/data-visualizatoin-with-d3/

"Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps" book Curran mentions: https://www.esri.com/en-us/esri-press/browse/semiology-of-graphics-diagrams-networks-maps

Curran's portfolio of work: https://github.com/curran/portfolio

Bret Victor's talk "Inventing on Principle"： https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGYGl_xxfXA

On this week's podcast, I meet with Arian Agrawal in New York City to talk about her journey into tech startups.

Arian grew up in New York and studied at MIT. She worked in finance for a few years, then built her own Ecommerce Marketplace startup with a friend.

Along the way, Arian went through the South Park Commons startup accelerator, and she now leads their New York City branch as a partner.

We talk about technology, startups, and her journey from finance to building products.

I hope you're digging these weekly freeCodeCamp podcasts. Be sure to leave us a review. And download a few episodes so you can learn on the go.

Tell your friends about the freeCodeCamp podcast. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

Arian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AgrawalArian

Arian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arian-agrawal-46639439/

South Park Commons: https://www.southparkcommons.com/

Today I'm joined by Joel Spolsky. He's co-founder of Trello and Stack Overflow, and author of the iconic developer blog Joel on Software.

I hung out with Joel in his New York City home to discuss his 4-decade-long career as a developer and a CEO. He shared his insights on software engineering, product design, running companies, and how he uses AI as a tool.

This interview is the culmination of years of learning from Joel through his blog and using the tools he's helped make. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Be sure to follow The freeCodeCamp podcast in your favorite podcast app. And share this podcast with a friend. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

The Joel Test: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/

Making Better Software video course series from the early 2000's playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBfisaHMr-8&list=PLcIkt5s7w8D0ywp0CBmNFWRTFZic3pWNn

The ESP-32 microcontroller Joel mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32

Today I'm joined by Kevin Miller. He's a senior developer and host of the Coder Conversations YouTube channel.

Kevin studied accounting in Texas and worked overnight for 7 years at hotels, making only $11 an hour. But his knowledge of spreadsheets lead to him learning more about programming and automation.

After spending a year living with his parents and teaching himself to code full time, Kevin landed his first developer job. He immediately tripled his income.

Kevin has since worked as a dev at several Fortune 500 companies. But it's been a bumpy ride. He's been laid off 3 times due to mergers and employers just running out of money.

He started Coder Conversations as a way for him and fellow developers to talk about technology and share career advice. He now has 200 episodes.

I hope you're digging these weekly freeCodeCamp podcasts. Be sure to leave us a review. And download a few episodes so you can learn on the go.

Tell your friends about the freeCodeCamp podcast. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

Coder Conversations: https://www.youtube.com/@coderconvos254

Kevin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevm254

This is it – my full FREE 2023 book in audiobook format. How to Learn to Code and Get a Developer Job. Written, read, edited, mixed, and mastered by me, Quincy Larson.

The text version of the book (also free): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-to-code-book/

Table of Contents:

Preface: Who is this book for?

500 Word Executive Summary

Chapter 1: How to Build Your Skills

Chapter 2: How to Build Your Network

Chapter 3: How to Build Your Reputation

Chapter 4: How to Get Paid to Code – Freelance Clients and the Job Search

Chapter 5: How to Succeed in Your First Developer Job

Epilogue: You Can Do This

Song "From the Ground Up" by Quincy Larson from the Learn to Code RPG Original Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TDsGUFFXSY

Additional Reading:

Article: How to Contribute to Open Source: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-contribute-to-open-source-projects-beginners-guide/

Article: We fired our top talent. Best decision we ever made: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/we-fired-our-top-talent-best-decision-we-ever-made-4c0a99728fde/

Article: How to negotiate your developer job offer salary: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/salary-negotiation-how-not-to-set-a-bunch-of-money-on-fire-605aabbaf84b/

Article: How to ask for a raise as a developer: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/youre-underpaid-here-s-how-you-can-get-the-pay-raise-you-deserve-fafcf52956d6/

Article: Why recruiters are an underrated tool in your toolbox: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-tech-recruiter-red-pill-967dd492560c/

Today I'm joined by Lynn Zheng. She's a software engineer at freeCodeCamp and at Salesforce.

Lynn grew up in Shenzhen, China – the computer hardware capital of the world. Both of her parents were engineers. And from an early age, they encouraged Lynn to learn math and computer science. She got into the prestigious Computer Science program at University of Chicago, where she earned both Bachelors and Masters degree – all by the age of 21.

I met up with Lynn at the Redwood City Public Library in the heart of Silicon Valley. But they didn't have any study rooms available. so we climbed to a nearby rooftop and recorded there.

We talk about Lynn's many game development projects, which culminated in Learn to Code RPG, a Visual Novel game where you learn to code and get a developer job. And we talk about her experience working as an engineer at one of the largest tech companies in the world, even as she's stuck in work visa limbo.

Next week will be our 100th episode, and I've got something extra special in store for you.

Tell your friends about the freeCodeCamp podcast. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themsleves in tech.

Learn to Code RPG: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-to-code-rpg/

Lynn's Stable Diffusion course: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/stable-diffusion-crash-course/

Lynn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lynnzheng08

Lynn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruolin-zheng/