The freeCodeCamp Podcast
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Top 10 The freeCodeCamp Podcast Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The freeCodeCamp Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The freeCodeCamp Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The freeCodeCamp Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
#143 The reality of the developer job market with ex-Googler YK Sugi
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
09/27/24 • 91 min
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#148 Open Source is WILD. The craziest things The Changelog has seen in 15 years.
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
11/01/24 • 100 min
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
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#150 To code is to struggle! I interview Tech with Tim, who got a job at Microsoft at age 19
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
11/15/24 • 100 min
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
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Ep. 32 - How you can start a career in a different field without experience
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
05/28/18 • 43 min
Austin had a biology degree, a poor GPA, and a job in the medical field, but he wanted to transition into tech. He had no experience, but he figured out how to gain it quickly and landed offers from his dream companies. In this episode, he shares his advice and methods so that you can do the same.
Written and read by Austin Belcak: https://cultivatedculture.com
Original article: https://fcc.im/2LydTlZ
Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org
Intro music by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2APOG02
Transcript:
In this episode I’ll show you how to quickly gain experience in any field, as well as how you can leverage that new experience to land job offers in that field.
I personally used this strategy to transition from the medical field — where I was working in hospital operating rooms — to the tech industry, where I received offers from Google and other tech companies (along with a 200% raise).
Myths about things you DON’T need when switching fields
Before we dive in, I think it’s important to address a few “myths” about changing industries:
You don’t need an extensive network of contacts. In fact, you don’t need any contacts at all — you can make them all on your own.
You don’t need a degree in the field you want to switch to. Perception is reality, and results speak volumes when it comes to perception. They are worth more than any degree or previous job title. More on that later.
You don’t need money. Everything you need to know can be learned for free. In fact, I’m going to show you how this process can actually help you generate a second stream of income.
Next, I’m going to outline the exact steps I used to land a job in a totally different industry so you can make it happen for yourself.
Part 1: Painting a picture of the perfect candidate
The good news about entering a completely different field is that you are a blank canvas. You can choose your skills and mold yourself into the perfect candidate.
What does perfection look like?
In order to become the ideal candidate, we must first understand what “ideal” looks like in the eyes of the people who will be hiring you. There are two ways to accomplish this:
Job descriptions
Job descriptions are essentially resumes in reverse. They spell out the exact skills you need in order to be successful in that particular role. That sounds obvious, but we are going to be looking at this from an atypical lens.
Let’s take a look at this Growth Marketing Analyst role that I grabbed from Facebook’s site:
Responsibilities
Leverage data to understand our products in depth, identify areas of opportunity, and execute projects to drive growth and engagement of Facebook users. - Drive projects focusing on new user growth, mobile usage, and revenue — working closely with design, product, engineering, and data teams. - Work both on core Facebook products like news feed, notifications, and mobile, and offsite marketing channels like SEO, SEM, and email. - Use tools like Hadoop/Hive, Oracle, ETL, R, PHP, Python, Excel, MicroStrategy, and many other internal tools to work efficiently at scale.
Minimum Qualifications
BS or MS in Engineering, Computer Science, Math, Physics, Statistics. - 1+ years experience with SQL. - 2+ years of quantitative or statistical analysis experience. - 1+ years of experience managing a project. - 1+ years of experience in marketing, advertising or growth. - Ability to process and analyze data sets, and interpret them to make business decisions. - Communication skills and ability to manage a project or product.
Preferred Qualifications
Software development experience. - Internet Marketing experience. What do you see here? What does the ideal candidate look like? What do they need to get hired?
My guess is that you’re thinking, “Ok, they need a degree in computers or math. Then they need at least two years of experience coding and managing projects at a company.”
Well, here’s what I see:
Facebook is looking for someone who understands how to identify trends/patterns within big data that will have a direct impact on revenue. That person also has enough knowledge of programming to efficiently make those discoveries and present them in a simple, concise fashion.
The main issue a lot of people have is that they think the only way to get “experience” is to work at company or have fancy degrees. This is one of the biggest myths when it comes to job searching.
In order to understand it, let’s take a step back and think about why companies hire.
They want someone who will come in and have a large, positive impact on their bottom line.
Someone could have a PhD in Co...
Ep. 70: How one young developer, masters student, and YouTuber does it all
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
07/01/19 • 61 min
In this week's episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, Abbey chats with Greek developer and designer Eleftheria Batsou about her passion for creating content and how she balances work, school, travel, and personal time.
Eleftheria moved around a lot when she was young, but settled in Thessaloniki in northern Greece as a teenager. When she had to decide which track to take in school, she picked technology, science, and math. It turned out to be a good decision!
After bouncing around a bit and completing some internships, Eleftheria found a place that suited her. She learned to code by supplementing her education with free online resources (like freeCodeCamp!), leveled up her skills by completing numerous challenges like #100DaysofCode, and realized she had a passion for design as well as front-end development.
Today, she works as a developer, she's getting her Master's degree in design, she attends numerous conferences throughout Europe - and speaks at many of them - and she has a growing YouTube channel. She also has a blog where she shares all kinds of tips, tutorials, and bits of knowledge for beginning developers.
When she's not busy juggling her many tasks, she likes to workout to clear her head and hang out with her friends.
Find Eleftheria on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BatsouElef
Visit her website here: eleftheriabatsou.com
Why developers needn't fear CSS – with the King of CSS himself Kevin Powell
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
12/20/24 • 124 min
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
#122 From Construction Worker to Teaching MILLIONS of Developers with John Smilga
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
05/03/24 • 105 min
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
#117 Learning How to Learn with 100Devs Founder Leon Noel
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
03/28/24 • 116 min
On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp Founder Quincy Larson interviews Leon Noel, founder of 100Devs and head of engineering at Resilient Coders. Growing up, Leon had it drilled into him that he had to become a doctor, lawyer, or dentist. But his ambitions grew and he went on to have an exciting career in tech. After a successful exit from a startup, Leon wanted to help folks who were struggling during the pandemic. He started 100Devs, a charity which has helped 10,000s of people learn to code. We talk about:
- dropping out of Yale
- getting into the selective Tech Stars startup accelerator
- Getting involved with Resilient Coders, a charity that helps court-involved youth learn coding
- Starting 100Devs and building a Discord server with 60,000 people learning to code together
Quincy recorded this podcast live and hasn't edited it at all. We want to capture the feel of a real live conversation, with all the human quirks that entails. Can you guess what song he's playing on my bass during the intro? It's his arrangement of the intro to a 1990s 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, we want to thank the 8,427 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:
The video that changed Leon's life on Spaced Repetition, by Ali Abdaal: https://youtu.be/Z-zNHHpXoMM
The official Anki app, which is free on web / desktop and doesn’t lock you into a subscription. Leon's advice: "Only create cards on one device, but review on any to save you from weird syncing issues." https://apps.ankiweb.net
Dr. Barbara Oakley’s Learn How to Learn course, which Leon calls "a masterpiece": https://coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
The 100Devs website (new cohort starting in early May): https://100devs.org/about
Trailer for X-men '97: https://youtu.be/pv3Ss8o9gGQ
Thelonious Monk [pianist Quincy mentions] "Straight No Chaser" documentary trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx0E9-ThvKc
Leon on YouTube: http://leonnoel.com/youtube
Leon on Discord: http://leonnoel.com/discord
Leon's Twitch for his live streams: http://leonnoel.com/twitch
Leon's website: https://leonnoel.com/
#135 Where Data Science meets Sports Analytics with Golfer Turned Engineer Ken Jee
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
08/02/24 • 126 min
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/
Ep. 6 - Which Programming Language Should You Learn First?
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
11/17/17 • 17 min
Quincy reads his popular article on how to choose your first programming language when you learn to code.
He discusses Python, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, and C++ in terms of:
the job market for the language - the long term prospects for the language - how easy the language is to learn - what projects you can build while you’re learning (and share with friends so you can stay motivated)
Read by Quincy Larson (https://twitter.com/ossia)
Article link: https://fcc.im/2yCMatt
Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org
Music: "Sounds of Wonder" by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2yQOq0q
Transcript:
Most people’s journey toward learning to program starts with a single late-night Google search.
Usually it’s something like “Learn ______”
But how do they decide which language to search for?
“They always joke about Java on Silicon Valley. I guess I should learn that.”
Or:
“Haskell. So hot right now. Haskell.”
Or:
“That Go gopher is just so gosh-darn cute.”
And then there’s the rest of us. We’ll probably search for something like:
“Which programming language should I learn first?”
Few questions are so commonly asked that they get the full infographic treatment. But this is one of them:
Deciding on your first programming language can be a fun process — kind of like one of those “Which Quentin Tarantino character are you?” personality quizzes.
But before you run off to learn Ruby because you enjoyed playing with Play-Doh as a kid, let me remind you: the stakes are pretty high here.
It will take you hundreds of hours of practice to become even remotely competent with your first programming language.
So you should consider the following factors:
the job market for the language
the long term prospects for the language
how easy the language is to learn
what projects you can build while you’re learning (and share with friends so you can stay motivated)
Every year brings new programming languages, and with them, new academic papers. And new web comics.
Seriously. Check out this gem from last month:
When it comes to choosing a first programming language, there’s no shortage of options. To narrow it down a bit, here are the most common Google searches related to learning programming, over the past 12 years:
Java has had its ups and downs.
Python has gradually risen to become the most popular choice.
But tucked away below these is the Little Engine That Could, slowly choo-choo’ing up in popularity over the past few years. And that engine is JavaScript.
Before I talk about these programming languages, let me clarify:
I’m not arguing that any one language is objectively better than any other
I agree that developers should eventually learn more than one language
I’m arguing that first they should learn one language well. And — as you can probably guess from the upside down text in my headline — that language should be JavaScript.
Let’s kick things off by exploring how programming is currently taught in school.
Computer Science 101
Universities have traditionally taught programming under the umbrella of computer science, which itself is often seen as an extension of mathematics, or tie-in to an electrical engineering degree.
Of course, as you may have heard by now:
“Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.” — Eric S. Raymond
As of 2016, many universities still treat programming like it’s computer science, and computer science like it’s math.
As a result, many introductory programming courses focus on low-level-of-abstraction languages like C, or mathematically-focused languages like MATLAB.
And department chairs generally stay the course, pointing to annual programming language leaderboards like the TIOBE Index, or this one from the IEEE:
Most of these leaderboards look virtually identical to how they were 10 years ago.
But change does happen. Even in academia.
In 2014, Python overtook Java as a the most popular language of instruction at top US Computer Science programs.
And yet another change is bound to... eventually... happen.
Because if you look at the languages actually used by the workforce, it paints a very different picture:
JavaScript is by far the most popular language used by the 49,397 developers who responded to Stack Overflow’s 2016 Survey.
More than half of all developers use JavaScript. It’s vital to front-end web development and increasingly relevant for back-end development. And it’s rapidly expanding into areas like game development...
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FAQ
How many episodes does The freeCodeCamp Podcast have?
The freeCodeCamp Podcast currently has 154 episodes available.
What topics does The freeCodeCamp Podcast cover?
The podcast is about Podcasts, Technology and Education.
What is the most popular episode on The freeCodeCamp Podcast?
The episode title '#143 The reality of the developer job market with ex-Googler YK Sugi' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on The freeCodeCamp Podcast?
The average episode length on The freeCodeCamp Podcast is 75 minutes.
How often are episodes of The freeCodeCamp Podcast released?
Episodes of The freeCodeCamp Podcast are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of The freeCodeCamp Podcast?
The first episode of The freeCodeCamp Podcast was released on Nov 16, 2017.
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