#178 From freeCodeCamp to NASA with Data Engineer Joe Hill

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Joe Hill. He's a software engineer who works on a data platform for NASA.

Joe taught himself programming for 4 years while working as a janitor. As the single father of two Autistic boys, he first used his programming skills to build an iPad app to help them learn how to talk.

We talk about:
- Data Engineering and wrangling Department of Defense data into a central platform
- The role of soft skills in getting things done in big organizations
- The need for patience and practice in self-teaching
- How to stop jumping from one tool to another and to instead go deep
- Tips for parents raising kids with Autism

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 https://donate.freecodecamp.org

Links we talk about during our conversation:
- The trailer of the 1992 classic hacking heist movie Sneakers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhgUxQ322A
- Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-hill-4a138123/