The Scrimba Podcast

🎙 About the episode

Meet Per Borgen 🇳🇴! Scrimba's co-founder and CEO returns to the show after more than two years. In this episode, Per and Alex delve into the emergence of a new breed of developer—the AI engineer.

What defines an AI engineer? What key skills set them apart? Is machine learning knowledge a prerequisite? Why did ChatGPT bring a paradigm shift in our interaction with AI? Dive into these topics, discover how to utilize and personalize existing AI models, and explore alternative options beyond OpenAI.

Since the Scrimba podcast always brings you practical advice, this episode is a guide to the AI engineer stack. Prepare to take notes as Per unravels the terminology and technology crucial for navigating the AI landscape as a developer.

This episode begins a five-part series on AI engineering, introducing Scrimba's AI Engineer Path.

🔗 Connect with Per

• 👨‍💼LinkedIn
• 🐦 Twitter

⏰ Timestamps

• Scrimba's launching its AI Engineer Path! 🎉 (03:11)
• Why an AI path is so critical at the moment (04:01)
• Why AI engineering is not just a fad (07:32)
• Community Break with Jan the Producer (10:41)
• Why ChatGPT brought a change in the way we perceive AI, and what's the difference between discriminative and generative AI (11:40)
• What's the difference between GPT and ChatGPT (15:50)
• What companies build AI tools for developers other than OpenAI? (21:50)
• Human + AI is still better than just AI (23:11)
• The context is the product (24:56)
• Tuning a foundation model - data are the secret sauce (28:53)
• What is an AI engineer (29:54)
• How is AI engineering different from prompt engineering? (31:20)
• How's an AI engineer different from a data scientist or a machine learning engineer (32:04)
• OpenAI vs open-source alternatives (34:11)
• Making sense of the AI engineering stack (36:26)
• HuggingFace has machine-learning models that can run in a browser! (39:15)
• What is RAG and how to perform it (39:59)
• What is LangChain (41:55)
• How's the AI path structured? (45:29)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

• The AI Engineer Path

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You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

Meet Matt Ehrlich and Eric Winkelspecht 🇬🇧! They are the hosts of the Self-Taught Devs podcast. And, you guessed it, they are self-taught devs and career changers to boot. Matt was a park ranger, and Eric worked at an IT solutions company but didn't code. Today, they are a front-end developer and a full-stack developer, respectively, who met through LinkedIn and then decided to host a podcast!

In this episode, you will learn about their coding journeys, the resources they used, and why they decided to be self-taught. They talk about motivation and keeping yourself going, how to create structure, and what to do if you feel guilty when you take a break. If you're curious about what makes a successful self-taught dev, this episode is for you!

🔗 Connect with Matt and Eric

• 👨‍💼 Matt's LinkedIn, Eric's LinkedIn
• 📻 Podcast
• ✏️ Matt's blog
• 📹 Matt's YouTube, Eric's YouTube
• 👨‍🚀 Matt's GitHub, Eric's GitHub

🔗 Timestamps

• How Matt Ehrlich took up coding after being a park ranger for years (01:09)
• A coding career gives you the opportunity for unlimited growth (02:44)
• The Self-Taught Devs podcast tries to fill a gap in information (03:39)
• Eric just landed his first full-time software development role! (06:19)
• How Eric decided to learn to code (08:06)
• How does it feel to change careers after more than a decade (08:43)
• Eric's learning resources (10:10)
• Community break with Jan the Producer (10:58)
• Why Matt took the self-taught route (13:39)
• Matt's learning resources (14:54)
• Quitting your job to learn to code: pros and cons (16:11)
• How long did Matt take to learn to code (17:45)
• Can you learn discipline, and how can you stay motivated (19:12)
• What can you do if you get stuck (27:26)
• Should you be taking breaks from your job search? (29:55)
• Listen to this if you get discouraged after getting a rejection letter (30:54)
• What is productivity anxiety (33:03)
• How did Matt and Eric meet and what makes them work as podcast co-hosts (36:15)

⭐️ Leave a Review

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You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

Meet Anna Ha 🇵🇱 🇰🇷! Anna was born in Poland, where she majored in English and minored in Chinese. She then moved to South Korea and set off to learn Korean and coding at the same time! Today, she works at a startup that creates tools for learning Korean. Perfect match!

In this episode, you'll discover if coding is a language. Anna also shares her learning strategy, how she discovered Scrimba, what amazing projects she worked on via Chingu, how she kept herself motivated, and how finding a community helped her stay on track. You'll also discover what's the key to both landing a job and looking forward to going to work every day!

🔗 Connect with Anna

• 👩‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website
• 👩‍🚀 GitHub
• 🐦 X
• 🤖 annannanna on the Scrimba Discord

🔗 Timestamps

• How Anna discovered coding when she had a blog as a teenager but ended up studying languages (01:14)
• Anna started learning to code after moving from Poland to South Korea! (03:00)
• Anna always wanted to live somewhere else at least for a year (05:16)
• How Anna learned to code (06:02)
• What to do if you think that coding just isn't for you (08:39)
• Community break (11:46)
• Focus on one step at a time (14:41)
• How Anna juggled different learning resources (15:28)
• How Chingu helped Anna get relevant coding experience (18:02)
• How Anna landed her first tech role (22:01)
• Anna's interview process and what was most important (24:19)
• Anna's current company: Learn Korean in Koren (25:19)
• Your background is important, and so is your attitude (26:58)
• Quick-fire questions! K-pop, Flutter, and Scrimba (30:41)
• How Anna found out she was getting an offer (31:45)
• The importance of community and support (34:53)
• Advice to younger Anna (35:33)

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

Ready for your first dev job? Today on the podcast, you'll learn how companies work and how teams stay efficient. How does a typical team operate? Who do you report to? How do you know if you're the right culture fit? Why should you know what you need from your team? And why do job postings sometimes... not make sense?

We have compiled the best, most actionable advice to help you understand a corporate environment. You'll hear from engineering manager and career coach Tiffany Jachhja, founder of Technical Integrity Dave Mayer, opera singer turned developer and developer coach Ana McDougal, and engineering manager Jason C McDonald.

📻 Listen to the full interviews

• Understanding Corporate Hierarchy (and Perfecting Your Resume), With Tiffany Jachja
• Advice from a Junior Developer Career Coach, with Anna McDougal
• What Are Company Values… and Why You Should Know Your Own, with Dave Mayer
• Lessons Learned Recruiting and Managing Junior Developers for 10 Years, with Jason C. McDonald

🔗 Connect with everybody

• Tiffany: 👩🏻‍💼 Linkedin, 📹 Twitch, 🐦 Twitter, 🌐  Website
• Anna: 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn, 🌐 Website, 👩‍🚀 GitHub, 🐦 Twitter, 📹 YouTube
• Dave: 🐦 Twitter, 🌐  Website, 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn
• Jason: 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn, 🌐 Website, 👩‍🚀 GitHub, 🐦 Twitter, 📖 Dead Simple Python - Idiomatic Python for the Impatient Programmer

⏰ Timestamps

• Understanding corporate structure (02:14)
• Differences between smaller and bigger teams, and project management vs. people management (04:54)
• What should a junior developer look for from their engineering manager? (07:57)
• Nine Belbin Team Roles (09:49)
• How to find a mentor online, and why you should know how to code in a team (11:08)
• A job interview is just looking for compatibility (13:31)
• Community break (16:20)
• What does it mean to be a culture fit? What is a culture add? (19:12)
• Company culture vs. company values (21:55)
• How to understand your own values (23:16)
• Why you shouldn't get discouraged if you don't meet all the requirements on a job ad (29:22)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

• Learning in public!
• How to Avoid Burnout, Improve Your Confidence and Keep Coding Fun, with Scrimba Student Sylvia

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

This is a rebroadcast of one of our most popular interviews. Meet Nadia Zhuk 🇧🇾! Nadia made a switch to coding from journalism at the age of 25. That decision has got her moving countries not once but twice! Nowadays, she lives in London, works at Intercom, and helps aspiring developers. She's also written a book, Crossing the Rubycon, filled with practical advice and insider tips on learning to code and building a programming career.

In this episode, Nadia shares her story and many things she's learned along the way! You'll get to know what's it like to learn to code without a technical background, how to manage your mindset and mental health during the process, and what's Nadia's take on choosing your first programming language. Nadia and Alex also discuss common stereotypes about programming,  gatekeeping within the industry, and what are the critical but often overlooked factors in choosing what to learn. 

🔗 Connect with Nadia

• 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Dev.to
• 🐦 Twitter
• 📹 YouTube

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

Meet Johnny Proano 🇺🇸! Johnny had a long and happy career in sales, spanning almost two decades. But, something was missing, so he decided to explore coding. He thought he had to have a degree, but when it turned out he couldn't afford it, he enrolled into a bootcamp and signed up for Scrimba.

This is a fun and exciting story about career change and looking for your purpose. It is also a story of networking at your daughter's school events, as well as learning Angular and TypeScript (and creating a project using them) in only three days! You'll hear how Johnny approached learning and what kept him going, how to introduce software engineering to toddlers, and how can you turn your failed job interviews in learning experiences once and for all.

🔗 Connect with Johnny

• 👨‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website

⏰ Timestamps

• How Johnny discovered coding because he needed a website (01:35)
• Why Johnny wanted to switch from a successful and long-lasting career in sales (04:38)
• How did Johnny learn to code, and why did he have to drop out of school (08:07)
• Community break with Jan the Producer (13:36)
• Johnny's bootcamp experience... and how he found Scrimba (16:02)
• How Johnny started applying for jobs, and how he dealt with imposter syndrome (18:27)
• Johnny's approach to job applications and LinkedIn (20:33)
• Quick-fire questions: DJing, learning resources, and Vue (24:09)
• How Johnny turned failed interviews into learning opportunities (26:23)
• Johnny got a job via networking at his daughter's school event! (26:56)
• How Johnny had only three days to learn a new technology and get ready for an interview (29:30)
• "I need to do something that's going to make an impact" (31:52)
• Interview tip: ask questions (36:11)
• Johnny got a job offer within 24 hours! (36:37)
• Do you need a degree to be a developer? (38:59)
• Coding for toddlers (39:39)

🧰 Resources mentioned

• Johnny's bootcamp
• Scrimba's Frontend Career Path

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

Meet Shona Chan 🇸🇬🇬🇧! Shona was an anesthesiologist. Now, she's a developer. It all started when she wanted to write an app to solve a problem she had at work as a doctor. One thing led to another, and eventually, she took the plunge into coding, realizing that a career switch might not be such a bad idea.

This is a story of intrinsic motivation, amazing portfolio projects, and landing a job without even having to go through a tech interview. You'll discover how to identify your purpose, find out how to muster enough motivation to tackle difficult decisions, and learn why Shona saw her career change as a lateral move instead of a fresh start. Shona reveals what ten years in medicine taught her and how that relates to her new career If you listen to the end, you will get some fantastic ideas to integrate into your study plan or job-hunting strategy. Plus, you'll find out the ideal music for a cesarean section.

🔗 Connect with Shona

• 👩‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website
• 👩‍🚀 Github
• 🐦 Twitter

⏰ Timestamps

• Shona never thought she would code for a living, although she did play Neopets (02:13)
• How Shona started coding because she wanted to solve a real-world work problem she had as a doctor (02:58)
• Shona's career in medicine (05:48)
• Community Break with Jan the Producer (09:55)
• Why Shona eventually wanted to switch careers, and did it feel weird after dedicating so many years to medicine? (11:47)
• What skills Shona learned as a doctor helped her become a developer? (14:01)
• Doctors on TV vs. programmers on TV (14:55)
• Learning to code on YouTube, and when does it become not enough? (15:46)
• How Shona enrolled into a bootcamp (18:26)
• Why did Shona feel like she needed to give coding a go? (21:35)
• Quick-fire questions: Lo-fi Disney and the perfect music for a C-section (23:02)
• Shona's new role in a health tech startup (26:03)
• When did Shona feel ready to apply for jobs? (Also, her portfolio projects are amazing. )(27:26)
• Shona's cold email that brought her a job (31:05)
• Shona got hired without a tech interview (32:55)
• Why unique projects are never a waste of time (33:55)
• Start networking earlier than you think! (35:28)
• How Scrimba podcast helped Shona with her career change (36:12)
• How to deal with sunk cost fallacy (38:53)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

• Kevin Powell
• Kevin Powell on the Scrimba podcast
• Stephanie Chiu on the Scrimba podcast
• SoundState

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

Meet Zuza Grońska 🇵🇱🇳🇱! Zuza is a recently hired new developer with a previous career in social media marketing in the music industry. She's also a Polish transplant who moved to the Netherlands during the pandemic. She craved a career change, and when it turned out that all of her work friends were from the software development team, she put two and two together and decided to learn to code. She landed her first dev job after only four months of intense studying! 

Zuza has ADHD, which can be a hindrance and a superpower. In this episode, she talks about the importance of spreading awareness of ADHD and neurodiversity in general. You'll also learn how she approached her portfolio projects, why you should think like a marketer, and how you can stand out in a world where every new developer has a unit converter in their portfolio. Zuza shares how she approached learning to code, what kept her going when she felt unmotivated, why she wanted to leave Poland, and why a career in social media marketing can be draining even though it sounds glamorous. 

🔗 Connect with Zuza

• 👩‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website
• 👩‍🚀 Github

🔗 Timestamps

• How Zuza started coding in the early 2000s, but never pursued coding (02:26)
• How misogyny plaid a part in Zuza's career choices (04:21)
• Zuza worked in social media marketing, until she realized it was time for a change (05:46)
• How Zuza approached learning to code (spoiler alert: hyperfocus!) (07:30)
• Community Break with Jan the Producer (08:54)
• Following schedules, and good and bad sides of ADHD (11:35)
• How Zuza kept herself motivated (14:25)
• How Zuza approached her porfolio and went beyond the stretch goals with her porftolio projects (18:45)
• How to think about your projects like a marketer (19:56)
• How Zuza applied for a job, even though the job ad was in Dutch and she didn't speak it (24:39)
• Why Zuza wanted to leave Poland (and eventually moved to the Netherlands) (29:24)
• Zuza's new job (31:22)
• Zuza's interview process (32:34)
• Quick-fire questions! (33:26)
• Zuza's tech interview (36:39)
• Zuza became a CSS expert! (37:45)
• Working with ADHD (40:17)
• Zuza only got diagnosed with ADHD two years ago (44:10)
• Why spreading ADHD awareness is important (45:12)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

• Frontend Developer Career Path
• Scrimba Bootcamp
• Kevin Powell
• MDN Web Docs
• Sass
• Kink.nl radio

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

Meet Luke Hovee 🇺🇸! After a career in the US Army, Luke didn't know what to do next. He was considering a career in construction, until he stumbled upon a bootcamp teaching army veterans how to code. Today, he's a full-time web developer with a passion for helping other aspiring web developers getting into tech. Currently, he's creating a software apprenticeship program so that he can help people at scale.

In this episode, you'll find out whether army is a good training for having to deal with product managers, why grit and determination are important, and what's the most important thing you should have to break into tech in today's job market. Luke and Alex also talk about LinkedIn, why getting your second job in tech is way easier than landing the first one, and the current state of the market for junior developers.

🔗 Connect with Luke

• 👨‍💼 LinkedIn

⏰ Timestamps

• How Luke stumbled upon coding by accident (02:11)
• Why Luke chose a career in the Army in the first place, and why he eventually retired (04:00)
• Why learning to code was challenging (06:19)
• On drive and (intrinsic) motivation (09:02)
• Were there any transferable skills that Luke gained in the Army? (12:11)
• Community break with Jan the Producer (14:11)
• How Luke got his first role in Tech (17:13)
• Job candidates lack attitude (19:02)
• Luke's first role was basically a learning opportunity (20:56)
• Why gettint your second developer job is easier (22:27)
• Quick-fire questions (23:05): Is Web3 dead?!
• Why LinkedIn is Luke's main platform, and why he helps aspiring developers (25:33)
• Luke's apprenticeship program (28:41)
• Job market's tough right now (33:34)
• Can you cultivate the right attitude? (36:11)

🧰 Resources mentioned

• Danny Thompson on YouTube
• Scrimba Podcast: How to become a successful Junior Developer, with Danny Thompson
• Scrimba Podcast: Freecodecamp Founder Quincy Larson: Why Learning To Code as an Adult Might Be Easier Than You Think
• David Roberts on YouTube

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

🎙 About the episode

No matter where you are in your career journey - whether you're a new developer just looking to break into the industry or an industry veteran - having a strategic and up-to-date LinkedIn profile is a must. LinkedIn is something we often talk about on this podcast - many people, from experts to recently hired Scrimba students, have shared their tips and tricks for this social network over the course of 130 episodes.

In this episode, we have compiled their best, most actionable advice. If you're looking to refresh your LinkedIn profile this fall, or you're just about to create one for the first time, this is the episode for you!

Tune in for LinkedIn tips from the LinkedIn profile review guy Austin Henline, pastor-turned-developer Chris Mccoy, GitHub program manager Laura Thorson (who has only ever gotten jobs through LinkedIn), and iOS engineer at paypal and career mentor Stephanie chiu.

📻 Listen to the full interviews

• How to make your LinkedIn profile stand out according to a LinkedIn expert, with Austin Henline
• How Pastor-Turned-Developer Chris Crushed It on LinkedIn and Landed an Internship... and a Job
• It's about Who You Know: An Introvert's Guide to Networking (and Becoming Amazing at LinkedIn), with Stephanie Chiu from PayPal
• Laura Thorson From GitHub: This Is How You Master the Mindset of a Programmer

🔗 Connect with everybody

• Austin: 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn, 🐦 Twitter
• Laura:👩‍💼 Linkedin, 🌐  Website, 🐦 Twitter, 👨‍🚀 GitHub
• Stephanie: 📸 Instagram, 👩‍💼 Linkedin, 🌐 Website, 🐦 Twitter, 👩‍🚀 Github
• Chris: 👨🏼‍💼 Linkedin

⏰ Timestamps

• Who is Austin Henline (01:32)
• Why LinkedIn is a must for aspiring developers (03:00)
• What are the most important sections of your LinkedIn profile? (04:04)
• How to reverse-engineer what recruiters are searching for (05:26)
• Should you be careful not to spam your LinkedIn profile with keywords? (07:54)
• How to know if you're ready to put a skill on your LinkedIn (09:37)
• Skill assesments (11:37)
• Community break! Your tweets and reviews from Apple Podcasts (12:18)
• Chris McCoy signed up for LinkedIn halway through Scrimba (14:15)
• How to be genuinely present on the platform (15:59)
• How to find your tone of voice... and not spread yourself too thin (18:35)
• How Chris added Scrimba to his education on LinkedIn and THINGS WENT WILD (19:30)
• You shouldn't let LinkedIn replace your portfolio or GitHub profile, but it can be a significant part of your strategy (21:41)
• How to make the LinkedIn algorithm work for you, with Stephanie Chiu (22:50)
• Keep your goal in mind and remember nobody likes to scroll (24:46)
• Check what a recruiter sees on LinkedIn and optimize accordingly! (26:46)
• How Laura Thorson went to interview at Facebook and realized they had printed out her LinkedIn profile (28:18)
• LinkedIn bio in third person (29:52)
• Life-changing advice from a recruiter on LinkedIn (31:24)
• What to do if you don't want to make content on LinkedIn (35:07)

⭐️ Leave a Review

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.