The freeCodeCamp Podcast

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jason Lengstorf. He learned to code out of necessity building websites for local emo bands.

He dropped out of college but eventually worked as an engineer at IBM and has gone on to roles at many other companies doing everything from software architecture to management. He runs CodeTV, a Bravo-style reality TV channel for developers.

We talk about: - Jason's winding path into development from building websites for bands - Teaching yourself programming by chasing your curiosity - How in-person events gives you tacit knowledge that makes you a better engineer - How having a broad range of skills ultimately helps you build better projects

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,384 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. You can join these chill human beings and help our charity's mission by going to donate.freecodecamp.org

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- CodeTV: https://codetv.dev/ - The CodeTV YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnty0z0pNRDgnuoirYXnC5A - Jason's website: https://jason.energy/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Ryan Furrer. He's a Front End Engineer working on tools that help companies monitor their buildings for energy usage, water leaks, and other environmental factors.

Ryan dropped out of college and worked as a musician and violin instructor. He spent 5 years teaching himself how to program before getting freelance gigs, and ultimately landing developer jobs.

We talk about: - Life as a broke musician - Teaching yourself to code while working full-time - How Ryan had to move back in with his parents after a divorce - His 5-year journey to his first developer job

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Also, I want to thank the 11,384 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Or you can listen to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow the freeCodeCamp Podcast there so you'll get new episodes each Friday.

Links we talk about during our conversation:

Ryan's podcast, Web Dev Dialogues: https://www.webdevdialogues.com/episodes

Ryan's website: https://www.ryanfurrer.com

A freeCodeCamp course on the Astro front end development framework taught by freeCodeCamp podcast guest James Q Quick: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-the-astro-web-framework/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Francesco Ciulla. He's a software engineer who has worked with the European Space Agency on code that powers the Copernicus satellite program. More recently he's published courses on learning Docker and the Rust programming language.

We talk about: - How Francesco worked as a volleyball coach until we was 32, before getting serious about coding - Francesco's work on coding satellites - How he's given dozens of talks about emerging tools at major tech conferences - How he creates tech tutorials even though he's a proud introvert who has to put himself out there

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,384 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. You can join these chill human beings and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- Francesco's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@francescociulla - Francesco's upcoming book on Rust: https://mybook.to/YJI6DI - Francesco's personal website and all his links: https://www.francescociulla.com

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jesse Hall. He's software engineer and a developer advocate at MongoDB. He taught himself to code while raising kids and working on the Best Buy Geek Squad fixing computers.

Jesse has created tons of tutorials over the years on YouTube and on freeCodeCamp. We talk about his coding journey, how the field has changed over the few years, and how hype has distorted peoples' perception of getting into code.

We talk about: - Growing up in a one stop light town - Teaching himself to code for free using freeCodeCamp - How he created YouTube tutorials to inspire his kids, then got quite good at it - How Jesse's early interest in Web3 lead him to needing to "dig himself out of the grave" of being "the NFT tutorial guy"

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,384 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Or you can listen to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow the freeCodeCamp Podcast there so you'll get new episodes each Friday.

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- Jesse's tutorials on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/codeSTACKr/

- Jesse's course on how to set up and configure the VS Code editor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJEbVCrEMSE

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Caleb Curry. He's a software engineer and prolific computer science educator. He recently started mentoring dozens of developers directly and helping them with their skills and careers. We'll talk about his experience getting laid off as a dev and how we prepared for his mid-career job search.

We talk about: - How Caleb got laid off and went about landing his next developer job - How most people sleep on networking and recruiters, but shouldn't - Why Caleb is so serious about teaching system design concepts - How Caleb pairs his deep focus with broad extracurricular learning through podcasts and white papers

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,343 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- Caleb's course on Database Design: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/database-design-full-course-43233664125b/

- Caleb's system design lecture playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e7yQ43bUtg&list=PL_c9BZzLwBRLSs6x50D5WIH76VCUxJs9E

- Caleb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/calebcurry/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Anjana Vakil. She left academia to learn to code and got her first developer job in her 30s.

Anjana was an English teacher who studied computational linguistics, and found building software to be more fun than actual research.

She's worked at ton of tech companies and has freelance clients. She shares some excellent tips on learning new skills and avoiding burnout.

We talk about:

• How Anjana taught herself to code in her 30s
• Being an American dev working in Europe
• Stress, burnout, and how she gets by
• How skills from your previous non-developer career can help differentiate you as a developer

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,243 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Links we talk about during our conversation:

• "How to be the ideal newb" article: https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/
• "Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle" book that Anjana mentions: https://www.amazon.com/Burnout-Secret-Unlocking-Stress-Cycle/dp/198481706X
• Anjana's website: https://anjana.dev/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Vaughn Gene. He's a self-taught software engineer who works with lots of freelance clients. Vaughn lived in Japan for 10 years, and speaks Japanese, speaks Spanish, plays guitar, plays piano, and is skilled at MMA. He's obsessed with learning new skills.

We talk about: - How Vaughn struggled with high school and joined the Navy - How he learned Japanese so he could work as a personal trainer in Japan - How he learned coding using freeCodeCamp as a way to make more time and more money - His pragmatic approach for teaching himself new skills for free

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,043 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- Vaughn's YouTube channel and his approach to pursuing multiple skills in tandem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTnsjmsgJS8

- Vaughn on Instagram where he posts guitar: https://www.instagram.com/vaughngene/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Julia Undeutsch who is a self-taught software engineer and accessibility specialist. She works at a big European company making software more accessible for people with disabilities. She taught herself to code in her 30s using freeCodeCamp.

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,043 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

We talk about:

- Julia's coding journey from poker dealer to self-taught software engineer - How she creates tutorials in Japanese - Her passion for making software easier to use for everyone - Working remotely at a big European software consultancy

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- Julia's website: https://www.juliaundeutsch.com/

- Movie trailer for the 1999 Clive Owen movie "Croupier" that Quincy mentions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDWzeq5QGiA

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Peggy Wang. She used freeCodeCamp to learn coding. She then worked in Big Tech as a robotics engineer. And now she's cofounder and CTO of Ego AI, a Y-Combinator-backed startup that builds human-like agents for video games.

We talk about: - How she grew up a first generation American and public school kid in Milwaukee - How her love of robotics helped her get into Stanford - How freeCodeCamp served as a key resource to build her developer chops - The near future of humanoid robots, self-driving cars, and human-like AI agents in games

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,224 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- Peggy's GameDev company, Ego AI: https://www.egoai.com/

- Quincy's interview with hardware engineer Bruno Haid that he mentions toward the end of this episode: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/podcast-hardware-engineering-bruno-haid/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Rishab Kumar, cloud engineer and developer advocate at Twillio.

Rishab grew up in India and moved to Canada for school. But he couldn't afford to finish. He resorted to delivering pizzas and working at a gas station. But he worked hard to teach himself how to code and how to build cloud infrastructure, and eventually got a job Google.

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,043 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

We talk about: - How to teach yourself cloud engineering - Getting repeatedly rejected from FAANG jobs but persisting - Filling up the Infinity Gauntlet with cloud certifications - How DevOps and Cloud Engineering are changing

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- Rishab's Terraform course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-use-terraform-to-deploy-a-site-on-google-cloud-platform/

- Rishab's LangChain LLM deployment course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-langchain-for-llm-development/

- Learn to Cloud guide by Rishab and his friend at Microsoft, Gwyn: https://learntocloud.guide/

- Rishab's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@rishabincloud/videos