The freeCodeCamp Podcast

today I'm joined by Brian Douglas. He's a software engineer who's worked at tech companies like GitHub and Netlify. And now he's an entrepreur runs his own startup – OpenSauced.pizza.

Brian grew up in a small town in Florida, and his family was the only black family in town. He worked hard in school and earned a full scholarship to Florida State University, where he studied business.

He started off working in sales, but gradually taught himself how to code. It took a while to get into the software, but he was ultimately able to move his family out to the San Francisco Bay Area.

If you dig this podcast, be sure to leave us a review. And tell your friends.

Follow Brian Douglas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bdougieYO

And check out his open source tool: https://opensauced.pizza

Today I'm joined by Sarah Shook is a software engineer who started out as a recruiter, then started learning system administration on the job at a school.

She didn't finish university. She learned to code on the job, from studying freeCodeCamp, and from attending a short bootcamp that she won free admission to. And she did all of this while raising 3 kids.

She is a career-long remote worker, and insists she will never work somewhere where she needs to be away from her kids. Today she runs software development agency and works with clients. 

Sarah and I talk about her coding journey, how she's worked to overcome depression and severe shyness, and her love of front end libraries like Tailwind CSS.

If you dig this podcast, be sure to leave us a review. And tell your friends. It really helps.

Without further ado, my interview with Sarah Shook.

Sarah Shook on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shookcodes

Welcome back to the freeCodeCamp Podcast.

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

It's been 4 years since we published a podcast episode. It's good to be back.

This is the first of three interviews I'm publishing this week – my interview with Danny Thompson. Danny's a bit a legend among career changers. 

He had a kid early in life. For 10 years he worked at a gas station in Tennessee, frying chicken for people to eat. He sometimes worked 80 hour weeks just to provide for his family.

And yet, Danny had ambition. He taught himself to code using freeCodeCamp. He built his network through local tech events. And eventually, he landed his first job as as software developer. 

Danny's since worked at tech companies like Google and Front Door, and he's now a software engineer at AutoZone, a major US retail chain.

Danny has helped so many people along the way. He's developed a free course on how to leverage LinkedIn as a developer. And he's helped start a ton of local developer meetups.

I couldn't dream of a better interview to kick off this new season of the freeCodeCamp podcast.

New season. That's right. I've got dozen interviews lined up, and I'm recording these all in-person, in public libraries across Dallas, San Francisco, and New York City.

I'm publishing 3 episodes this week, and then a new episode every Friday.

We're talking about DevOps, cybersecurity, AI – tons of topics that I know you're gonna find helpful as you continue to expand your skills.

If you dig this podcast, be sure to leave us a review. And tell your friends.

Danny on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DThompsonDev

In this special crossover episode, we celebrate 10 years of The Changelog. It's the home of the biggest podcast focused on open source, and a favorite of freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson.

This 4-hour episode is actually 2 interviews:

1. For the first 2.5 hours, Quincy interviews Changelog co-hosts Adam Stacoviak and Jerod Santo about how they got into software development and podcasting, and the history of their legendary podcast.

2. Then we end with Adam and Jerod turning the tables and interviewing Quincy about the past and future of freeCodeCamp.org.

If you haven't heard of The Changelog before, it is website that hosts a podcast about open source software. Each week they interview new developers from around the software galaxy and explore what makes those projects tick.

Adam Stacoviak founded The Changelog exactly 10 years ago. And Jerod Santo joined as co-host 7 years ago. Together - across 370 episodes - they've interviewed everyone from programmer legends, to the maintainers of open source projects you may have never even heard of.

Quincy has listened to hundreds of The Changelog episodes over the years, and credits The Changelog with giving him such a broad view of open source, and the philosophies of the developers who started these projects.

These interviews were conducted in-person in Adam's Houston-based studio.

If you haven't yet, you should subscribe to The Changelog podcast. They have a variety of shows. We recommend starting with their Master Feed, which lets you explore all of their shows: https://changelog.com/master

And check out the special website they built to celebrate their 10 year anniversary: changelog.com/ten

Follow Adam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adamstac Follow Jerod on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jerodsanto And Quincy is: https://twitter.com/ossia

This week, for the last podcast episode of 2019, Abbey chatted with freelancer and content creator Jessica Chan - known as CoderCoder on social media - about how she got into tech and started her educational website and YouTube channel.

Quincy interviews Jeff Meyerson, the creator and host of the Software Engineering Daily podcast.

Jeff grew up in Texas, played competitive poker, and ultimately worked as a software engineer at Amazon.

We talk about how he got into tech, how left Amazon to become an entrepreneur, and the many lessons he learned along the way.

Follow Jeff on Twitter: https://twitter.com/the_prion

And subscribe to software engineering daily: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com