Today Quincy Larson interviews Andrea Griffiths, who taught herself programming using freeCodeCamp while working in construction. She moved to the US from Colombia when she was 17, and within 6 months she joined the US Army. She ran a chain of gyms before landing a support role at a tech company, then ascending to Product Manager and ultimately Developer Advocate at GitHub. Support for this podcast is provided by a grant from AlgoMonster. AlgoMonster is a platform that teaches data structure and algorithm patterns in a structured sequence, so you can approach technical interview questions more systematically. Their curriculum covers patterns like sliding window, two-pointers, graph search, and dynamic programming, helping you learn each pattern once and apply it to solve many problems. Start a structured interview prep routine at https://algo.monster/freecodecamp Support also comes from the 10,338 kind folks who donate to our charity each month. Join them and support our mission at https://donate.freecodecamp.org Get a freeCodeCamp t-shirt for $20 with free shipping anywhere in the US: https://shop.freecodecamp.org We talk about: - Tips for busy parents who want to learn new skills. - How AI tools are no substitute for your own critical thinking - and problem solving skills. - How even though it's getting easier every day to learn programming for free, people are so distracted, and for many it feels harder and harder to sit down and do it. Links from our discussion: - Article about AI and product management (which includes some blunt takes from Quincy): https://thenewstack.io/for-devs-a-fix-for-ai-complexity-is-hiding-in-plain-sight/ - Andrea's weekly newsletter: https://mainbranch.beehiiv.com/ - Learn How to Learn course by Dr. Barbara Oakley: https://www.classcentral.com/course/learning-how-to-learn-2161 Community news section: 1. freeCodeCamp just published this beginner-friendly back-end development course. You'll learn how to build your own web servers and APIs using Node.js, Express, and MongoDB. freeCodeCamp's website and mobile apps are built using these tools, which make up the popular MERN stack. You'll also get some exposure to database architecture, security principles, testing best practices, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/intro-to-backend-web-development-nodejs-express-mongodb/ 2. freeCodeCamp also published a c

Today Quincy Larson interviews Alison Co and Cindy Cui, two university students who won the NW Hacks hackathon with their tool that helps people who are losing their vision learn to read Braille. He met them when GitHub invited them to their big San Francisco conference, GitHub Universe to present their project. Alison Co is a software engineer who's graduating Fall 2026. She's among the prestigious Major League Hacking Top 50 hackers. She's interned at Hubspot and will soon start interning at Rippling.  Cindy Cui is a software engineer who's graduating Spring 2026. She's interning as a backend developer at Shopify. She also teaches violin and holds the prestigious Level 10 Violin certification from the Royal Conservatory of Music. We talk about: - Tips for securing good internships - How they use AI as university students and as devs, and its limits - How they built their winning hackathon project to help people losing their vision learn to read braille Support for this podcast is provided by a grant from AlgoMonster. AlgoMonster is a platform that teaches data structure and algorithm patterns in a structured sequence, so you can approach technical interview questions more systematically. Their curriculum covers patterns like sliding window, two-pointers, graph search, and dynamic programming, helping you learn each pattern once and apply it to solve many problems. Start a structured interview prep routine at https://algo.monster/freecodecamp Support also comes from the 10,338 kind folks who donate to our charity each month. Join them and support our mission at https://donate.freecodecamp.org Get a freeCodeCamp tshirt for $20 with free shipping anywhere in the US: https://shop.freecodecamp.org Links from our discussion: - A 45-second demo of Braillelearn I recorded in the shuttle with Alison and Cindy at GitHub Universe: https://youtube.com/shorts/a7B-JvPgTQs - The Braillearn website: https://braillearn.vercel.app/ - Braillearn on GitHub: https://github.com/co-alison/nwhacks-2025 - Alison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-co-3634721b7/ - Cindy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindy-cui/ Community news section: 1. freeCodeCamp just published a Discrete Mathematics for beginners course. It'll teach you tons of math concepts that are key to modern Machine Learning. You'll learn some Number Theory and Combinatorics, then use

Dr. David J. Malan teaches computer science at Harvard. Over the past decade, millions of people have taken his CS50 course both in person and online. He joins us to talk about: 1. Why he still recommends learning the C programming language in 2026 2. How he intentionally nerfs hist student's coding editors and LLMs to help them learn fundamentals faster 3. His vision for self-paced learning, and how it improves on traditional university education 4. Where the software engineering field is heading in light of recent AI tool improvements Links from our discussion: - Teaching Computer Science with Theatricality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMiNIjePZlo - Teaching CS50 with AI: https://youtu.be/ggshaJcOc6Y Dr. Malan's paper on Academic Honesty in CS50: https://cs.harvard.edu/malan/publications/Teaching_Academic_Honesty_in_CS50.pdf - Dr. Malan's paper, Toward an Ungraded CS50: https://cs.harvard.edu/malan/publications/Toward_an_Ungraded_CS50.pdf - My 2019 interview with Dr. Malan and Colton Ogden, one of his CS50 instructors: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/podcast-harvard-cs50s-david-malan-and-colton-ogden-on-computer-science/ Community news section: 1. Learn how cryptography works, and how developers use it to secure both data and communication. freeCodeCamp just published a course that will teach you Python functions for symmetric and asymmetric encryption. You'll learn about SHA-256, AES, RSA, and public / private keys as well. You'll even code your own command-line cryptography tool. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cryptography-for-beginners-full-python-course-sha-256-aes-rsa-passwords/ 2. freeCodeCamp also published a course on building your own 3D games that run in a browser using Three.js and Blender. You'll learn how to model characters, design levels, detect collisions, and make the camera follow your playable character. You'll even deploy your game to the cloud so your friends can play it. (6 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/creative-web-development-with-threejs-and-blender/ 3. Learn Event-Driven Architecture. freeCodeCamp published this advanced JavaScript handbook that will teach you about Event Loops, Task Queues, Call Stacks, Backpressure, Websockets, Pub/Sub, and more. Take your full stack development skills to the next level and be sure to share this with your developer friends. (full length handb

Abbey Perini taught herself programming at age 27 while working as an admin at an engineering recruitment agency. She has worked extensively with large legacy codebases and taught best practices to developers internationally. We talk about: - How to hit the ground running with a large legacy codebase - How to get employers to remember you and actually respond to you - How she adapted to her ADHD diagnosis and stays focused and ships code - How knitting and cosplay give her perspective as a dev Links we discuss: - Abbey's blog: https://abbeyperini.com/ - Robby Russell (OhMyZSH maintainer) interview: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/podcast-oh-my-zsh-creator-and-ceo-robby-russell/ - Leon (100Devs founder) interview: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/playing-the-developer-job- search-game-to-win-in-2025-with-danny-thompson-and-leon-noel-podcast-188/ - AskJan to help you figure out if you need accomodation at work and your options: https://askjan.org/ - Little Old Lady Memory: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/02/that-time-when-computer-memory-was.html Links from the community news section: 1. freeCodeCamp just published a new course taught by legendary Harvard computer science professor Dr. David J. Malan. This comprehensive cybersecurity for beginners course will teach you how to secure accounts, databases, and entire software systems. Dr. Malan also shares tons of practical tips for securing your privacy in an increasingly adversarial world. (8 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-cybersecurity-from-harvard-university/ 2. freeCodeCamp also published a guide to passing the Certified Kubernetes Administrator Exam. Beau Carnes teaches this course, which will walk you through key DevOps concepts. You'll start by setting up your K8s practice environment. Then you'll bootstrap a multi-node cluster and your control plane. You'll learn about Helm, High Availability Autoscaling, CoreDNS, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/prepare-for-the-kubernetes-administrator-certification-and-pass/ 3. Learn how to build high-performance mobile apps using Google's open-source Flutter framework. freeCodeCamp uses Flutter for our Android and iPhone apps, and it's way easier than maintaining two separate app codebases. This Flutter handbook will teach you how to efficiently lay out your apps with minimum widget rebuilds. You'

Patrick Hartley is a self-taught developer with nearly a decade of software engineering experience. When he was 21 he had to dropped out of college to provide for his family. He taught himself programming while working at a thrift store. After building his own apps and freelancing, he became the founding engineer at startup that got acquired, and has since worked as a dev at other tech companies. A few months ago he turned down an opportunity at Amazon so he could continue to work remotely from his home in Oklahoma City. He shares tips for: - Teaching yourself programming while raising kids - How to build foundational skills with JavaScript and Python - Getting a remote job when you have to compete with the global developer talent pool - Surviving as an introvert in a networking-heavy and meeting-filled profession Patrick Hartley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-hartley-jr/ Links from the Community News intro:  1. freeCodeCamp just published a massive course that will teach you almost every major data structure and algorithm that may come up in a developer job interview. You'll learn about Time Complexity, Space Complexity, and Big O Notation. Then you'll learn concepts like Trees, Graphs, Dynamic Programming, Backtracking, and more. (49 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/master-technical-interviews-by-learning-data-structures-and-algorithms/ 2. freeCodeCamp also published a handbook that will teach you React for beginners. React is a powerful front end development library that tons of companies use to make their websites more interactive. If you already know some basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, this handbook is for you. You'll learn about JSX, components, event handlers, hooks, and more. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/react-handbook-for-beginners-learn-jsx-hooks-rendering/ 3. This SwiftUI for Beginners course will give you the tools you need to build your first iPhone app. You can code along at home and build your own movie browsing app with powerful search features and the ability to stream movie trailers. You'll learn about navigation, API networking requests, SwiftData, and more. (4 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-swiftui-and-create-an-ios-app-from-scratch/ 4. freeCodeCamp published an advanced Python tutorial on Machine Learning Lineage. This is important to establish the safe

Eric Carlson is a self-taught software engineer at Cisco. In his early 20s, he worked his way up to manager at the busiest Dominos Pizza in Canada. He eventually went to college and studied liberal arts, then worked as a teacher for two decades before teaching himself programming using freeCodeCamp.  He got his first developer job at age 45 by using his programming skills to pivot into a more technical role within a big telecom company. And he's since gone further down the stack, doing back end work and now DevOps. Eric shares tips for: - Teaching yourself programming while raising young kids - Building up your mental stamina so you can program for many hours in one sitting - How to learn just-in-time so you don't waste time chasing "shiny object" tools - How to reinforce your learning by taking detailed notes on basically everything Links we discuss during the show: - Eric's 2022 freeCodeCamp forum post about his journey into software development: https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/i-got-a-dev-job-after-9-months-on-freecodecamp-or-was-it-2-years-and-9-months/516049 - The 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizza scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-teYcHSWkg Links from the Community News intro:  1. freeCodeCamp just published a course on how to build your own MCP server with Python. Model Context Protocol Servers are like APIs for AI agents. Lots of developers are now building them to help agents interact with their websites' data more accurately. This course will teach you how to leverage the open source FastMCP library to build a calculator project that agents can then directly interact with. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-mcp-essentials-and-how-to-create-secure-agent-interfaces-with-fastmcp 2. Learn how to pass Google's new Generative AI Leader Certification Exam. Andrew Brown is a CTO who has passed practically every DevOps exam under the sun, and he teaches this course. He'll give you a business-level understanding of Google Cloud's gen AI offerings. By the end of this course, with the help of Andrew's practice materials, you'll be ready to sit for the exam. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/pass-the-google-generative-ai-leader-certification-exam/ 3. Teach your apps how to learn. This comprehensive Machine Learning fundamentals course will walk you through building systems smart enough to create their own

Kaleb Garner is a software engineer working at a medical technology app company. He got a scholarship to play baseball at a state university, but a serious knee injury ended his career and he dropped out. After moving back in with his parents and...

Evan You is the creator of the popular Vue JavaScript library for front end development and the Vite JavaScript build tool that a lot of devs use as a boilerplate for their new projects. He's a self-taught developer based in Singapore. He shares tips...

He's a self-taught software engineer who got his first developer job at age 43. He spent decades working in manufacturing while raising his kids, before using freeCodeCamp to learn programming. He was able to translate his JavaScript skills into...

Tom Mondloch quit programming after he finished community college. After a few years of odd jobs, he decided to get back into programming and discovered freeCodeCamp. He was just learning his own way, and didn't think freeCodeCamp's linear...

On this week's freeCodeCamp podcast we're talking with software engineer Ihechikara Abba, who has a chess ELO rating of 2285, putting him among top competitive chess players. We just published his freeCodeCamp course on chess end games, and an...

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For this week's interview, I'm talking with Ankur Tyagi. He's a software engineer who's worked at multinational companies like Volvo, Barclays, and Accenture. He grew up in Pune, India and now lives in Gothenburg, Sweden. Ankur is a prolific...

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Emmett Naughton. He worked as hospital janitor for years while teaching himself programming using freeCodeCamp. He's founder of Coder Dads, a chat community where...

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dominick Monaco. He dropped out college to hike the Appalachian Trail, a 2,200 mile backpacking route across the US. After working in nature conservation for 3 years,...

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Edidiong Asikpo. Didi is a software engineer. She grew up in Lagos, the biggest city in Nigeria and the biggest tech hub in Africa. Didi got into medical school. But...

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dilip Krishnamoorthi. He's a software engineer working at Sony, building user interfaces for Playstation game consoles where he's been for 10 years. We talk about: -...

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Nick Taylor. He's a software engineer from Montreal and a prolific open source contributor. We talk about: - Why trying to build your own tooling will ultimately...

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Namanh Kapur. He's a senior software engineer at LinkedIn. He also creates YouTube videos to help devolopers with their careers. We talk about: - Tips for getting...