#135 Where Data Science meets Sports Analytics with Golfer Turned Engineer Ken Jee

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/

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.

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/

Previous Episode

#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

Next Episode

#136 Developer and inventor with 27 software patents – Angie Jones on Test Engineering

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

You can watch the interview on YouTube:

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