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

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Lane Wagner. He's a software engineer, prolific contributor to freeCodeCamp, and founder of the Boot.dev online learning platform. 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: - Lane's thoughts on college and computer science degrees - Back end development and why it resonnates with him - Why he's so enthusiastic about the Go Programming Language - What Lane's learned about how people learn Quincy mentions the number of engineers graduating every year from Indian and Chinese universities (including computer science majors, which is usually the most popular engineering degree). It's hard to find exact numbers but... - India: more than 1 million engineering graduates / year - China: more than 1 million engineering graduates / year - US: only about 200,000 engineering graduates / year Links we talk about during our conversation: - Lane's 4-hour course on how to get a job as a developer: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-get-a-developer-job/ - Lane's 5-hour HTTP Networking course: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/http-networking-protocol-course/ - Lane's SQL for Web Developers course: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/sql-for-web-devs/ - Lane's freely available books published through freeCodeCamp Press: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/wagslane/ - Khan Academy founder's talk on mastery learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MTRxRO5SRA - The Zone of Proxmial Development education concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jiquan Ngiam. He's a former Google Brain engineer who's building tools to make AI useful for everyone – not just developers. We talk about the power of AI and it's practical capabilities, and separate those from a lot of the hype surrounding the AI space. 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 wixstudio.com. Support also comes from the 11,113 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 AI agents work - Where AI is going and its limitations - How non-developers can leverage AI - And how developers can REALLY leverage AI Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Links we talk about during our conversation: - Jiquan's company, Lutra AI: https://lutra.ai/ - Jiquan's article on generative agentic interfaces for working with large spreadsheets: https://blog.lutra.ai/generative-interfaces-for-ai-agents - Jiquan's article on OODA loops for AI Agents: https://blog.lutra.ai/ooda-loops-for-ai-agents - A paper Jiquan mentions, Executable Code Actions Elicit Better LLM Agents: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.01030

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Elliot Arledge. He's a 20-year old computer science student who's created several popular freeCodeCamp courses on LLMs, the Mojo programming language, and GPU programming with CUDA. He joins us from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. We talk about: - Building AI systems from scratch - How Elliot has learned so much so quickly and his methods - How he approaches reading academic papers - His CS degree coursework VS his self-directed learning In the intro I play the 1988 Double Dragon II game soundtrack song "Into the Turf" 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: - Elliot's Mojo course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/new-mojo-programming-language-for-ai-developers/ - Elliot's Cuda GPU programming course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-cuda-programming/ - Elliot's Python course on building an LLM from scratch: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-a-large-language-model-from-scratch-using-python/ - Elliot's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@elliotarledge - Elliot's many projects on GitHub: https://github.com/Infatoshi

Take our year-end freeCodeCamp podcast listener survey real quick: https://forms.gle/2M9NW776723uSdDT7 On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Kevin Powell. He's a designer, a software engineer, and an expert in CSS. He's runs a CSS-focused YouTube channel with nearly a million subscribers. There's nothing sensational there – he literally just teaches people CSS. 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 CORRECTION: I (Quincy) say during the interview that the Uber found a way to access microphones on iOS without users' knowledge. There have been documented cases of malware doing this (like Pegasus) but Uber didn't do this. They did do a lot of other shady things, like continue collecting data even after you deleted their app – but mic spying was not one of them. Yes, early Uber was an ethical tire fire. But it's important to get facts right here. We talk about: - Why you should still learn CSS in 2025 - How teaching concepts improves your own understanding of them - How learning to skateboard helped Kevin escape Tutorial Hell - Massive improvements coming to CSS Links we talk about during our conversation: - Kevin's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/kevinpowell - Original Space Jam website Kevin mentions: https://www.spacejam.com/1996/ - The article that coined the term Responsive Design: https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/ - Kevin's freeCodeCamp article on how learning skateboarding helped him out of tutorial hell: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-learning-to-skateboard-helped-me-find-a-way-out-of-tutorial-hell/ - Kevin's freeCodeCamp course on building and deploying a portfolio page: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-build-a-portfolio-website-and-deploy-to-digital-ocean/ - Playable Minesweeper in CSS that Quincy mentions: https://codepen.io/bali_balo/pen/BLJONZ - Acknowledged mistakes that are permanently coded into CSS: https://wiki.csswg.org/ideas/mistakes - Talk on why is CSS so weird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHUtMbJw8iA

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews James Q Quick. He's a developer, speaker, and teacher. James grew up in Memphis. He was an athlete who played violin, and knew nothing about computer science but chose it as his college major. Since then, he's not only worked as a dev at Microsoft, FedEx and many tech startups. And he's given more than 100 talks at conferences about technical topics. 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 coding a Harry Potter Trivia app launched James' developer career - Getting laid off then getting back onto the bike - How to go about getting a first developer job - How to make a name for yourself through conference talks and creating tutorials Links we talk about during our conversation: James's website: https://www.jamesqquick.com/ Jevon's Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Scott Tolinski. He's a developer who 14 years ago - after injuring himself breakdancing – decided to create a programming tutorial YouTube channel called LevelUpTuts. He is also co-host of Syntax, the most popular web dev podcast on the planet. 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 wixstudio.com. Support also comes from the 11,113 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to donate.freecodecamp.org We talk about: - Scott's perspective on the state of web dev - His journey from video editing into full blown software development for agencies - What he's learned from recording 2,000 tutorials and 800 web dev podcasts - Productivity tips and how he's kept up this pace for 12 years without burning out Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 11,036 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - The Syntax podcast: https://syntax.fm/ - Scott's archive of more than 1,000 programming tutorials he taught on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@syntaxfm/videos - The Honeypot documentary about Scott (8 minute watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9eh2iJsjxE

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Eamonn Cottrell. He's a software engineer who also runs a local chain of coffee shops in Knoxville. Eamonn taught himself to code using freeCodeCamp. And he's since published 37 freeCodeCamp tutorials on productivity and automation using spreadsheets. 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 11,113 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and get involved in our mission by going to https://donate.freecodecamp.org We talk about: - Eamonn's love of coffee and how he bought VHS tapes to learn latte art - How he finds time to expand his skills in between running coffee shops and ultra-marathoning - How he used spreadsheets to automate the logistics of running coffee shops - How he balances being a musician and writer with the practical realities of providing for a family of 6 Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,993 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 CORRECTION: Vincent van Gogh was supported by his younger brother – not his brother in-law. van Gogh never married so he never had a brother in law. I'm not sure why I thought that. Also, he seems to have sold more than one painting in his life (as many of us were taught in school), but nowhere near enough paintings to support himself as an artist. Links we talk about during our conversation: Eamonn's freeCodeCamp articles: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/sieis/ Eamonn's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@eamonncottrell Excel-based esports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2QC6VQXo8U Ultra Marathons: https://www.youtube.com/@runtired Got Sheet: https://www.gotsheet.xyz/ Progress and Perfection: https://www.progressandperfection.com/ Eamonn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eamonncottrell/ Eamonn on Twitter: https://x.com/EamonnCottrell

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Tim Ruscica, the software engineer and prolific programming teacher behind the Tech with Tim YouTube channel. He's also developed courses on freeCodeCamp's YouTube channel. We talk about: - How Tim managed to get a $70k salary by hacking his way into a Microsoft internship when he was just 19 - How he learned computer architecture as a kid by playing Minecraft - Lessons he learned from a failed tech startup - Why he recommends Python as a first programming language. "It's the least overwhelming thing to get your hands dirty." Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 11,133 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - The classroom montage from Real Genius that Quincy mentions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1X4o-MV6o - One of Tim's mock coding interview videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q_oYDQ2whs - Tim's course: https://techwithtim.net/dev

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Yifan Mai, a Senior Software Engineer on Google's TensorFlow team who left the private sector to go do AI research at Stanford. He's the lead maintainer of the open source HELM project, where he benchmarks the performance of Large Language Models. We talk about: - Open Source VS Open Weights in LLMs - The Ragged Frontier of LLM use cases - AI impact on jobs and our predictions - What to learn so you can stay above the waterline Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? I put the entire cover song at the end of the podcast if you want to listen to it, and you can watch me play all the instruments on the YouTube version of this episode. Also, I want to thank the 10,993 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Yifan's personal webpage: yifanmai.com - HELM Leaderboards: https://crfm.stanford.edu/helm/ - HELM GitHub Repository: https://github.com/stanford-crfm/helm - Stanford HAI Blog: https://crfm.stanford.edu/helm/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Adam Stachoviac and Jerod Santo co-hosts of The Changelog – the longest-running software podcast in world. They interview devs about Open Source projects, and they also have a weekly news episode that I always listen to. 5 years ago, Quincy interviewed them for their 10th anniversary episode, and now he's back catching up on what they've been doing for the past 5 years. We talk about: - How open source is changing - Open data and open LLM models - Self-reliance and self-hosted infrastructure - The business of running a developer community Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,993 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Honeypot episode Adam mentions: https://changelog.com/podcast/557 - Steve Yegge episodes Quincy mentions: https://changelog.com/podcast/549 - Open Source Civilization episode Jerod mentions: https://changelog.com/podcast/428

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dorian Develops. He's a software engineer and prolific YouTube creator. Dorian grew up in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami. He's the child of a single mother that arrived as a refugee from Cuba. After a rough childhood and dropping out of high school in 9th grade, Dorian eventually made a living as a valet car parker in Las Vegas. It was here that he realized he needed to make changes for the sake of his family's future. Dorian taught himself to code using freeCodeCamp and other free learning resources, and has since gotten several 6-figure jobs as a web developer. We talk about: - How Dorian survived his 20s by waiting tables and parking cars in Las Vegas - How he taught himself to code using free learning resources and built his network through months of attending local developer meetups - How he's worked as a remote developer so he and his kids can travel the world - And how he's 1 year into his recovery from a lifetime of drug and alcohol addiction Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,993 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Vagabonding book by Rolf Potts: https://rolfpotts.com/books/vagabonding/ - A documentary on "Advantaged Play" in Blackjack that Quincy mentions. [Note: I don't gamble and I don't condone gambling. Still, this is still an excellent video that developers interested in information security should consider watching]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO6aPOkCt84 - A recent HTML tutorial by Dorian: https://youtu.be/sWYdumJckMw?si=nB8j5d9WQR5u5_Mb - Dorian's video about his journey to sobriety: https://youtu.be/pGoeG5aY3S0?si=aanGEowSfWd-runm - Dorian's video about his love of Brazillian Jujitsu but how it's left him with permanent injuries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAHPG66H000

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Tadas Petra. He's a software engineer and a Senior Developer Advocate at Agora.io. After learning embedded development in university, he switched to building mobile apps. He's gone on to build dozens of mobile apps and create tutorials to help other devs learn Flutter and other mobile dev tools. We talk about: - Immigrating to Chicago from Lithuania - The Computer Engineering he studied in school, and how it's different from building consumer mobile apps - His transition from Senior Dev to YouTube creator to Developer Advocacy - The overlap between mobile dev and web dev, and what he's learned from each Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,943 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 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: Tadas's History of freeCodeCamp video (20 minute watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5n1-hD-x5g Tadas's video about how to control the lights in your house with Flutter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eib_62D-kSA Tadas's course platform for learning cross platform app development with Flutter: https://www.hungrimind.com/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Kamran Ahmed. He's a software engineer and founder of Roadmap.sh, which has skill tree roadmaps for lots of developer fields, such as DevOps. As a teacher, he's also a Google Developer Expert and a GitHub Star. We talk about: - Kamran's tips for finding the right open source projects to contribute to - The story behind Roadmap.sh, his popular developer website - Other specialized open source Kamran has built over the years - How Kamran became a Google Developer Expert and GitHub Star Can you guess what song I'm playing during the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,922 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Kamran's website, Roadmap.sh: https://roadmap.sh/ - Kamran's "Design Patterns for Humans" GitHub book: https://github.com/kamranahmedse/design-patterns-for-humans - freeCodeCamp's "How to Contribute to Open Source guide" Quincy mentions: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-contribute-to-open-source-projects-beginners-guide/ - Kamran on Twitter: https://x.com/kamrify

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dennis Ivy, a software engineer and prolific freelancer. He dropped out of college at 18 and taught himself how to build websites. He started his first agency, built and sold products, and eventually started teaching his skills on YouTube. We talk about: - Growing up in an immigrant family of 13 kids - Dropping out of school and working construction before learning to code - Figuring out how to get web development clients through trial and error - Selling his codebase to his employer $61,000 and using it to fund his journey into teaching Python Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,443 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - The Bussard Ramjet theoretical spacecraft Quincy mentions as an analogy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet - Dennis Ivy's React + Appwrite course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-sticky-notes-app-with-react-and-appwrite/ - Dennis Ivy's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/dennisivy - Dennis Ivy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dennisivy11

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews YK Sugi. He's a software engineer and prolific YouTube Computer Science tutorial creator. He's worked at Google and Microsoft. He runs the CS Dojo channel where he shares his insights on software development, AI, and developer career progressions. We talk about: - Emerging AI tools and how developers are adopting them - The role of interest rates in developer hiring - Japan's developer work culture VS the US - How not to burn out Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,993 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: - YK's freeCodeCamp article on the resume he used to get a job at Google: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/heres-the-resume-i-used-to-get-a-job-at-google-as-a-software-engineer-26516526f29a/ - YK's freeCodeCamp article about leaving his job at Google to focus on entrepreneurship: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/why-i-left-my-100-000-job-at-google-60b5cf4ebefe/ - YK's popular CS Dojo YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CSDojo - YK on Twitter: https://x.com/ykdojo

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Meg Risdal. She's a data scientist and Product Manager at Kaggle, Google's Data Science competition platform. Megan works closely with the global data science community, and on Google's Gemma open models project. We talk about: - Google's Kaggle, which hosts 300k open data sets and runs data science competitions each week that anyone can participate in. - How people talk in academia VS how people talk in tech - Stack Overflow VS Kaggle – how Megan contrasts what it was like to work on these two "communities of practice" - Linguistics and its importance in LLMs and AI research Can you recognize the song I'm playing during the intro? It's a punk song from 1994. 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. Also, I want to thank the 10,779 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: Meg's blog: https://www.meg.dev/ The Sliced Data Science Gameshow that Meg co-hosted with Nick Wan: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6PX3YIZuHhyQmXKnyZmVDzdgAYbzwgDw Meg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeganRisdal Kaggle's open learning resources: https://www.kaggle.com/learn The Gemma team at Google that Meg also works on: https://ai.google.dev/gemma

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Eddie Jaoude who is a software engineer and open source creator. He's worked more than 15 years as a developer everywhere from Germany banking sector to London's tech startup scene. He's now a dev rel for hire and runs several open source projects. We talk about: - Eddie's journey into open source - How he built his reputation through hackathons - How he leveraged his network to find his first freelance clients - His audio-video setup for filming tutorials Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's the theme from a 1982 police show. Also, I want to thank the 10,773 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: Eddie's YouTube channel with more than 700 tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5mnBodB73bR88fLXHSfzYA Eddie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eddiejaoude Eddie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddiejaoude/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jack Herrington. As a kid he had to work to overcome Dyslexia and didn't have good enough grades to get into college. Despite this, he's worked as a software engineer for more than 40 years at companies like Nike, Adobe, and Walmart. He also runs the popular Blue Collar Coder YouTube channel. We talk about: - How Jack struggled with Dyslexia, had terrible grades that couldn't get him into college, but got really into GameDev in the early 1980s - Early developer job opportunities that took his family from his home town in Pennsylvania to Melbourne Australia - How he started blogging as he learned, and ultimately published 6 programming books Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1979 new-wave song. Also, I want to thank the 10,443 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: Blue Collar Coder YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jherr Jack on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jherr 1984 ad from Apple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I Edward Tufte, the academic Jack mentions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte Ben Affleck's funny drunk DVD commentary on Armageddon movie (this contains profanity so don't listen to with young kids around): https://www.tiktok.com/@alltherightmovies/video/7238180210527505690?lang=en

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Emma Bostian. She's a software engineer turned manager at Spotify and Prolific coding teacher. We talk about: - How at her first developer job at IBM, Emma's boss told her: "You need to get your stuff together or you won't make it in this industry." And the transformation that followed. - Emma's thoughts on Computer Science degrees. "Going to college gives you credibility and a network. You can get opportunities that way." - How Emma hires software engineers. (Hint: she tries to disregard degrees completely.) - How Emma intentionally procrastinates some big tasks to give her mind time to figure out the puzzle pieces Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1979 punk song. Also, I want to thank the 10,776 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Emma on Twitter: https://x.com/emmabostian - The Ladybug Podcast about women in tech that Emma helped host for several years: https://www.ladybug.dev/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Hiroko Nishimura. She's a special ed teacher turned system administrator turned technical instructor. Hiroko grew up in Japan and moved to the US as a kid. In her early 20s, she was diagnosed with a vascular tumor in her brain. After life-saving surgery, she had to work to regain the ability to walk and talk. She still lives with disabilities to this day. Despite this, she's gone on to author technical books, become an AWS hero, and create the popular AWS Newbies community. More than 500,000 people have taken her LinkedIn Learning course. We talk about: - How Hiroko moved to the US as a kid and learned English and American culture - Hiroko's vascular tumor diagnosis, and how she recovered from brain surgery and brain damage - Her big move to NYC and her years working as a system administrator and ultimately cloud engineer there - How she made the jump to teaching system administration full-time as a course creator Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1990 song by a Scottish rock band. Also, I want to thank the 10,443 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Hiroko's article about her brain surgery: https://hiroko.io/my-words/ - Hiroko's book AWS for non-engineers: https://www.manning.com/books/aws-for-non-engineers - Hiroko's AWS course: https://introtoaws.com - And her AWS linktree: https://aws.hiroko.io - My history of the 100DaysOfCode challenge: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-crazy-history-of-the-100daysofcode-challenge-and-why-you-should-try-it-for-2018-6c89a76e298d/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Rahul Pandey. He's a software engineer who left his $800K / year FAANG job to build his own startup. We talk about: - The post-layoff developer job landscape - Developer interviews and how to differentiate yourself - Why salary negotiation still makes sense - His belief that 10x engineers exist – and even 100x and 1000x engineers Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1969 mowtown classic. Also, I want to thank the 10,443 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Rahul's Android app tutorial on freeCodeCamp (4 hour watch): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-how-to-build-and-publish-an-android-app-from-scratch/ - Rahul's video about post-college job offers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rceUVaiXQgU - Taro, Rahul's company: https://www.jointaro.com/ - The story of a software engineer who moves back to India to run his father's chemical business after his death: https://anandsanwal.me/2018/06/19/dad-company-sale/ - Conference talk about the correlation between interest rates and developer hiring, by Pragmatic Engineer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpPPHDxR9aM - Rahul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpandey1234/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Angie Jones. She's a developer and holder of 27 software patents. She's worked at companies like IBM and Twitter, doing both test engineering and developer advocacy. We talk about: - How a bad performance review from her boss early in her career taught her to be less timid and more vocal about her ideas. - How she invented lots of software testing processes and holds 27 software patents. - Her work at IBM, Twitter, and other big tech companies. - How feature development and test development are completely different disciplines, which each require dedicated practice and their own mindsets - Her interest in the game Second Life and the possibility of virtual worlds - How she uses AI for debugging and test engineering Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's a 1992 Acid Jazz song. Also, I want to thank the 9,779 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Test Automation University learning paths: https://testautomationu.applitools.com/learningpaths.html - Angie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/techgirl1908

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Ken Jee. Ken's a Data Scientist. He's also a Sports Analytics practitioner who works with US Team Golf and USA Basketball. Ken hosts the excellent Ken's Nearest Neighbors podcast and the Exponential Athelete podcast. We talk about: - How an injury pushed Ken out of pro sports and into data science - How Ken explains his statistical insights to coaches and players to help them improve their performance - Why Ken doesn't think building projects is all that useful anymore. "Data Scientists should instead build products." - How Ken starts and ends each day with meditation, and writes down all the ideas that pop into his head after each session. - Ken's observation that: "Who is the best suited to excel in a world where AI tools are prominent? Probably the people who are building them. People in the data science domain, people who are coding – they're the most prepared to use these tools for other things." Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 2006 dance song, and it was originally played on a synth. Also, I want to thank the 10,109 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: Ken's Nearest Neighbors Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpEJMMRoTIHJ8vG8q_EwqCg The Exponential Athelete Podcast, also hosted by Ken: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAkSd12rP282takuFJKsAsYlHdpdEDhuE The Founders podcast, which both Ken and Quincy listen to. James Dyson episode: https://www.founderspodcast.com/episodes/88384801/senra-james-dyson-against-the-odds-an-autobiography Anna Wintour episode: https://www.founderspodcast.com/episodes/58741411/senra-326-anna-wintour San Antonio caves that Quincy visited: https://naturalbridgecaverns.com/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews John Washam, a software engineer at Amazon. John's also creator of one of the most popular open source projects of all time, Coding Interview University. This is John's first-ever podcast interview, and the first time he's told his story. Interviewing him was an absolute honor. We talk about: - How John delivered pizzas to save enough money to buy his first computer in the 90s. "I was tired of being a broke kid." - John's first career in the US military, where he worked as a translator in South Korea - How John crammed Computer Science for 8 months and taught himself enough theory and coding skills to get a job in big tech, then published Coding Interview University on GitHub - What it's like to work as a senior developer at a big tech company, and what you can expect the journey to be like Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1986 rock song. Also, I want to thank the 9,779 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Coding Interview University: https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university - The Starup Next Door, John's blog: https://startupnextdoor.com/ - Follow John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnawasham/ - The Talent Code, the book John recommends: https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/055380684X

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Daniel Bourke. He's a Machine Learning Engineer and creator of many popular tutorials on YouTube. He's also a frequent freeCodeCamp contributor. We talk about: - How as a kid he hacked into his school's network and gave himself good grades, just like the kid from Wargames. (Don't try this at home.) - What he learned from helping fix 5,000 people's computers - How Machine Learning actually works. What the AI models are actually doing for you in the background. - His advice for anyone getting into Machine Learning in 2024, in terms of what to prioritize learning Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 2020 song by an Australian musician. Also, I want to thank the 9,779 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: Daniel's 26-hour PyTorch course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-pytorch-for-deep-learning-in-day/ Nutrify, Daniel's "pokedex for food". Uses computer vision to map photos of food to nutrition data: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jpLqtAWKfo Daniel's Charles Bukowski-inspired novel "Charlie Walks": https://www.charliewalks.com/ The research website Daniel mentions: https://arxiv.org/ Daniel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrdbourke

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jessica Chan AKA Coder Coder. She's a software engineer has worked in the field for more than a decade. Interestingly, she studied photography in school and never took a programming class. We talk about: - How she and her sister ran a dial-in Bulletin Board System (BBS) back in the pre-web days - How her first year as a dev she "was just living in abject fear of losing my job." - How she stayed at her first developer agency job for 7 years, and went from imposter syndrome afflicted newbie to getting promoted - Her philosophy on creating programming tutorials: "You don't have to be on the cutting edge. I don't operate on the cutting edge." Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1993 rock song. Also, I want to thank the 9,779 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: Jessica's 7-hour "How to Build a Website" freeCodeCamp course: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-a-simple-website-with-html-css-javascript/ Jessica's coding journey animated video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA14r2ujQ7s Kevin Powell, the "King of CSS", who has also shared courses on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/kevin-powell/ Jessica on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecodercoder

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Scott Hanselman. Scott's a developer at Microsoft, a prolific teacher, and has hosted the Hanselminutes podcast for nearly two decades. We talk about: - How he leads a fully-remote team from his home of Portland, Oregon - His 11-year journey to getting his degree - What he learned from teaching programming at community college - What he's learned about software development from recording 980 podcast interviews across 20 years Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1994 punk song. Also, I want to thank the 9,779 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Scott's Hanselminutes Podcast: https://www.hanselman.com/podcasts - A personal tour of Lotus Notes founder Ray Ozzie's computer artifacts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4awQH6WhP4 - Scott on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shanselman

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Alison Yoon. She's a Software Engineer who started off in fashion design and taught herself to code using freeCodeCamp. We talk about: - What it's like to work in fashion. "You're surrounded by exhausted, unhappy people." - How she used freeCodeCamp and the 100DaysOfCode challenge to learn to code and start her software development career - How she learned English and how to work on engineering teams in the UK. - How she's leading the Korean translation effort for the freeCodeCamp community, with 10,000s of people now reading Korean articles each month Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1985 song. Also, I want to thank the 9,779 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - freeCodeCamp's Korean edition, including Quincy's "Learn to code and get a developer job" book translated into Korean: https://www.freecodecamp.org/korean/news/learn-to-code-book/ - Alison on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aliyooncreative - Devil Wears Prada trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZOZwUQKu3E

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Adrian Twarog. He's a Software Engineer who started his career by working as the office IT guy at a school and other offices for 10 years. He's since published YouTube courses that millions of people have watched. We talk about: - How Adrian built his development skills by volunteering to taking on web design projects at work - How he started making design tutorials on YouTube and published 300 in a single year - How he was early to the AI engineering craze and published GPT tutorials with millions of views – Adrian's many freeCodeCamp courses, and his gorgeous book on design fundamentals - Being a dev in Perth, Australia – on the other side of the Earth from Silicon Valley – yet still staying at the forefront of the state of the art Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1995 industrial rock anthem. Also, I want to thank the 9,771 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Adrian's popular video "Real life RPG to track your life": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMn9sxCWN0M - Adrian's UX course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ui-ux-design-tutorial-from-zero-to-hero-with-wireframe-prototype-figma/ - Merge, Adrian's Discord community for devs: https://www.mergewebdev.com/ - Adrian's design book, Enhance UI: https://enhanceui.com/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Colby Fayock. He's a Software Engineer and prolific teacher who has created 68 tutorials for freeCodeCamp, and more than 100 videos on his YouTube – all freely available. We talk about: - Colby's early days doing design work for local bands - How Colby went to art school, then pivoted that into a software development - His early career at ThinkGeek where he not only did web dev but also worked as a male model for their products. - Colby's day-to-day work as a developer experience engineer, building demo applications and SDKs - How Colby uses AI tools in his day-to-day work, and what he thinks its current limits are. Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1995 punk song. Also, I want to thank the 9,771 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: Colby's freeCodeCamp course on building a clone of Google Photos using AI tools and Next.js: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-a-google-photos-clone-with-nextjs-and-cloudinary/ Colby's Trailer and web design work: https://photowall-colbyfayock.vercel.app/wall/design Colby's ThinkGeek Modeling. He's legit a male model: https://photowall-colbyfayock.vercel.app/wall/thinkgeek Colby's music from his band years: https://soundcloud.com/colby-fayock/sets/day-late-hero The XKCD comic I mention about how the scope of developer work can be non-intuitive: https://xkcd.com/1425/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dr. Chuck. He's a software engineer and Computer Science professor at University of Michigan, which has one of the top-ranked CS programs in the world. Dr. Charles "Chuck" Severance is also creator of many popular free learning resources like his Python for Everyone and C for Everyone, which millions of students have taken over the past decade. We talk about: - What seperates a Master Programmer from an average developer, and how to become one - Dr. Chuck's mission to make programming knowledge freely available - The fundamental shortcomings of how Computer Science is currently taught at universities – even elite universities like the one he's a professor at - Dr. Chuck's theories on recent tech layoffs and what he thinks the near future holds - Dr. Chuck's love of racing $2,500 "lemon" cars that he revives from the junk yard, and flying planes Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1973 song. 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. Also, I want to thank the 9,331 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Dr. Chuck's latest freeCodeCamp course on C programming: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/complete-c-programming-course-from-dr-chuck/ - Dr. Chuck's Python for Everyone freeCodeCamp Course: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/python-for-everybody/ - Kylie Ying's popular Machine Learning for Everyone course inspired by Dr. Chuck: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/machine-learning-for-everybody/ - Dr. Chuck's website with his free interactive coursework: https://online.dr-chuck.com/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Suz Hinton. She's a software engineer, security researcher, and one of the first ever people to live-stream her coding on Twitch. We talk about: - How Suz started her career building browser ads in Adobe Flash, working around bandwidth early 2000s limitations. - How she moved to the US from Melbourne to work at Zappos, and then Microsoft and Stripe. - Her love of hardware and embedded development - How she went back to school to study infosec, and launched a second career as a security researcher - How she nearly burned out after 20 years in tech, and what she's doing to recover. Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's a 2015 song from an Australian musician. 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. Also, I want to thank the 9,331 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: - Suz's article on live coding on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/lessons-from-my-first-year-of-live-coding-on-twitch-41a32e2f41c1/ - NoClip video game development documentaries: https://www.youtube.com/@NoclipDocs - The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop. Suz says it's "Dense and long, but the best narrative about how computing came to be." https://press.stripe.com/the-dream-machine - Space Rogue: How the Hackers Known as L0pht Changed the World by Cris Thomas. "A book about the original cult of the dead cow hacking group." https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/space-rogue-cris-thomas/1142912008

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jerod Santo, host of The Changelog, a podcast about open source software development that has been going strong for 15 years. Jerod is plugged in to the world of Open Source, going to all the big conferences and interviewing all the big open source creators. We have a fun, wide-reaching conversation about some of the current issues facing open source, such as AI models and Relicensing – essentially, a big company closed-sourcing a previously open source project after they buy out its creator. (Fun fact: this can't happen to freeCodeCamp because charities cannot be bought or sold.) I ask Jerod about: - his life as a remote dev in Omaha, Nebraska, raising his 6 his kids - the Changelog News podcast with its weekly 10 minutes of updates on the world of open source - his process, and how he researches and surfaces interesting news for his show - and how The Changelog commissioned 3 full albums worth of music over the years, which you can stream for free. Can you guess what bass line I'm playing during the intro? It's from a 1984 pop classic. 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. Also, I want to thank the 9,331 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 Links we talk about during our conversation: Jerod's weekly Changelog News podcast that you should totally subscribe to (it's free): https://changelog.com/news Jerod and Adam interview the head of the Open Source Initiative on AI models and open source, which he and I discussed during this podcast: https://changelog.com/podcast/578 Changelog Beats: https://changelog.com/beats And of course, my interview with Jerod and Adam about their developer journeys, and the history of The Changelog on its 10th anniversary: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/open-source-moves-fast-10-years-of-the-changelog/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews ThePrimeagean. He's a software engineer who streams himself programming. He recently left his job at Netflix to stream full-time. We talk about: - Prime's journey from his teacher telling him he'll never accomplish anything in life to working as an engineer at one of the most prestigious tech companies. - Prime's love of "Nintendo Hard" video games, and how his love of challenge propelled him to "get good" at coding - What it's like to live stream coding in front of more than 1,000 people for a dozen hours each week - Leaving San Francisco to move his family of 6 to a horse ranch in South Dakota - Prime's thoughts on AI and how he thinks it will actually create more developer jobs than it destroys I had a blast talking with this guy. Though I don't agree with everything he says, I am right there with him on AI and how it's useful but over-hyped. We'll see what future versions hold and whether a "Moore's Law of AI" is really at work here, or whether it will plateau. I also agree with Prime that devs need to slow down and improve their foundational skills. There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going. Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1996 rock song. 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. Also, I want to thank the 9,331 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 Links we talk about during the interview: - Prime's Twitch, from which his YouTube videos are derived: https://www.twitch.tv/theprimeagen - Prime's Harpoon library on GitHub, which he talks about maintaining: https://github.com/ThePrimeagen/harpoon - A speedrun of Battletoads by The Mexican Runner, to show you how "Nintendo Hard" this game really is. 36 minutes is an excellent time for a non-pro speedrunner like Prime to achieve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTPGpA0ha9Y

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Gary Simon, a developer and designer who started DesignCourse.com and has published several courses on freeCodeCamp.org over the years. We talk about: - Growing up in rural Ohio, marrying young, and staying out there despite his success as a developer and entrepreneur. - Early client work, and how he designed thousands of logos for clients before becoming an all-out web developer. - Using his skills to help his wife start her own lactation consultant business online - Gary's guitar shredding chops. I recorded this podcast live and I haven't edited it at all. I want to capture the feel of a real live conversation, with all the human quirks that entails. Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1995s Nintendo game. 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. Also, I want to thank the 9,331 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 Links we talk about during the interview: - Gary's Learn UI Fundamentals course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-ui-design-fundamentals-with-this-free-one-hour-course/ - Gary's freeCodeCamp live stream series: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/design-course/ - Gary's tool for memorizing the Guitar fretboard and it's 49 notes: https://fretastic.com/ - Gary's Retrowave Guitar music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDc2OvReYh0

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews prolific programming teacher John Smilga. John grew up in the Soviet Union. He worked construction for 5 years before becoming a developer. Today he has taught millions of fellow devs through his many courses on freeCodeCamp. John spent his childhood in Latvia before the Soviet Union fell. He sought work in the UK as an expat hospitality worker on the tiny island of Guernsey. But he had his sights set on moving to the US. There he worked construction and taught himself to code. He also attended online university courses to get a degree. He met his wife, a nurse from Ukraine. Together they started a family and live together in Florida. During this conversation, John talks about his journey into teaching the programming and computer science concepts he's learned. He talks about his free courses on freeCodeCamp and his paid courses that help him pay the bills. John's voice is instantly recognizable by developers. He shares that this is because he has condition where is vocal cords are partially paralyzed, for which he has to receive frequent injections. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Can you guess what bass line I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1982 song produced by Quincy Jones. 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. Also, I want to thank the 9,003 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 Links we talk about during the interview: Guernsey island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey John's personal website: https://johnsmilga.com/ John Smilga on Twitter: https://twitter.com/john_smilga

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Ben Awad, a game developer who creates developer tutorials on YouTube and TikTok. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Can you guess what bass line I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1979 song. 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. Also, I want to thank the 8,983 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 Links we talk about during the interview: Ben's game, Void Pet on Android and iOS (Built in React Native): https://voidpet.com/ XKCD coming on "Real Programmers" that Quincy mentions: https://xkcd.com/378/ React Native course by Ben Awad: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-an-app-that-works-on-ios-android-and-the-web-with-react-native-web/ I can't find my Mac Control hotkeys video tutorial that I mentioned anywhere, so I wrote a quick article explaining how to use these: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/mac-control-keyboard-shortcuts-hotkeys-that-work-everywhere-in-macos/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Andrew Brown, a CTO-turned co-founder of ExamPro.co. Andrew created this cloud certification exam prep website with another Andrew – also from Canada, who also loves Star Trek. We talk about Andrew's early career fixing computers in the 90s, and his early freelance web development work. These ultimately lead to jobs and promotions that leveled him up to CTO. Andrew also shares his advice to devs who want to learn DevOps and Cloud Engineering, and which certs to prioritize. Andrew suffers from Muscle Tension Dysphonia, a disease that causes voice loss. He shares how he's using AI tools to get around this. Andrew also talks about his love of Tetris Attack (also known as Panel de Pon or Pokémon Puzzle League). He built a frame-perfect port for competitive online play. And of course, Andrew's favorite Star Trek episodes of all time. Can you guess what bass line I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's the theme from a 90s cartoon. 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. Also, I want to thank the 8,933 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 Links we talk about during the interview: Just a few of Andrew's many freeCodeCamp cloud cert prep courses. (He has dozens more on freeCodeCamp's YouTube channel): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/andrew/ His website, ExamPro.co: https://www.exampro.co/ American Mall simulator browser game by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/american-mall-game/ The Greatest Generation podcast: https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/greatest-generation/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Kass Moreno, a Senior Front End Developer and CSS Artist. Kass started learning coding at age 28 and has since built a reputation as one of the most skilled artists who work with CSS. We talk about: Her childhood in Mexico and in Texas Making the hard decision to drop out of architecture school Her dreadful years working as a salesperson Learning from freeCodeCamp and doing the 100DaysOfCode challenge Getting freelance clients and expanding her skills Her rapid career growth as a developer Can you guess what bass line I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's a 1982 pop classic. 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. Also, I want to thank the 8,904 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 Links we talk about during the interview: Kass's portfolio of CSS art Bruno Simon's 3D interactive portfolio using Threejs. Drive an RC car around knock things down. 1-Dimensional PacMan game that I mentions. (Be careful – it's addictive)

On this week's episode of the podcast, I interview Jabril. He's an indie game developer who's building a turn-based fighting game called ultrabouters. Jabril has developed tons of other games as well. He runs the popular Jabrils gamedev focused-YouTube. He's also published a 5-hour introduction to programming course on freeCodeCamp. We talk about: - How Jabril got into gamedev as a kid when he got a copy of GameMaker - Jabril's career working at a comedy club and a radio station - The anime that Jabril's been working on for years - Jabril's advice to gamedevs who want to make a career out of building video games Can you guess what bass line I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's a 2009 song that became popular in the 2010's by being associated with a meme. Be sure to share this podcast with a friend. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech. Also, I want to thank the 8,909 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 Links we talk about during the interview: Jabril's full length Programming for Beginners course on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/programming-for-beginners-how-to-code-with-python-and-c-sharp/ That time Quincy angered the entire BTS army with a confused tweet: https://twitter.com/ossia/status/993171422863417344 "The best episodes of Shark Tank are the bad ideas." How Jabril created a Fake Shark Tank Episode Generator using AI tools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcGjYivktyc Subscribe to Jabril on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jabrils