#171 Ditching a Microsoft Job to Enter Startup Purgatory with Lonewolf Engineer Sam Crombie

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Sam Crombie. He's a software engineer and prolific open source contributor to freeCodeCamp. He abandon his job at Microsoft, got into Y Combinator, and is currently in startup pivot hell trying to decide how to use the half million he raised.

We talk about:

• How useful are AI coding tools, really?
• Tips for getting new users to care about your projects
• What's its really like running a Y-Combinator-funded tech startup
• Tips for getting into an Ivy League computer science degree program

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

Support for also 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.

Links we talk about during our conversation:

• Sam's course on how to audit university courses: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-audit-a-class-university-course/
• College Compendium, a univeristy course auditing tool Sam built with fellow freeCodeCamp podcast alum Seth Goldin: https://collegecompendium.org/