The official podcast of the freeCodeCamp.org open source community. Each week, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews developers, founders, and ambitious...
#165 From hating coding to programming satellites at age 37 with Francesco Ciulla
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
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#164 How to become a self-taught developer while supporting a family
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
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#163 Learn fewer skills but go deeper - the Caleb Curry interview
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/
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#162 How to become a developer in your 30s with Anjana Vakil
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/
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#161 How to go full-on Renaissance Man mode in 2025 with Vaughn Gene
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/
The official podcast of the freeCodeCamp.org open source community. Each week, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews developers, founders, and ambitious people in tech.
Learn to math, programming, and computer science for free, and turbo-charge your developer career with our free open source curriculum: https://www.freecodecamp.org