#137 Rahul Pandey quit his $800,000/year FAANG developer job to build a startup
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/
16 Aug 20241h 28min
#136 Developer and inventor with 27 software patents – Angie Jones Interview
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
9 Aug 20241h 30min
#135 Where Data Science meets Sports Analytics with Golfer Turned Engineer Ken Jee
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/
2 Aug 20242h 6min
#134 How to get a FAANG Dev Job in your 40s with Coding Interview University creator John Washam
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
26 Jul 20243h 1min
#133 How to get Machine Learning Skills without doing a PhD in Math [Podcast #133 with Daniel Bourke]
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
19 Jul 20242h 10min
#132 From doing data entry to becoming a developer with Jessica Chan AKA Coder Coder
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
12 Jul 20241h 39min
#131 What Scott Hanselman learned from 900 podcast interviews with devs
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
5 Jul 20241h 21min
#130 From Fashion to Software Engineer with Alison Yoon
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
28 Jun 20241h 26min
