On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Tae'lur Alexis. She's a developer and security analyst. Instead of going to college, Tae'lur spent years working various fast food and retail jobs.

Tae'lur taught herself Python and JavaScript using freeCodeCamp and worked as a software engineer for 5 years before specializing in security engineering. Now instead of building applications, she breaks them.

We talk about:
- Making ends meet working McDonalds in Florida
- How she taught herself programming using freeCodeCamp and the #100DaysOfCode challenge
- Leveraging local meetups to make developer friends
- Moving to Thailand and working remotely

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 charity's mission by going to donate.freecodecamp.org

Links we talk about during our conversation:
- Tae'lur's website and blog articles: https://taeluralexis.com
- Tae'lur's YouTube channel about working remotely in Bangkok: https://www.youtube.com/@TaelurAlexis
- Tae'lur on Twitter: https://x.com/TaelurAlexis

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Alyson La. She taught herself how to code while working as an accountant at GitHub and was able to transition to a data scientist there, then ultimately a software engineer.

After one of her kids got diagnosed with autism, she left her career for 3 years to be a full-time mom. She then re-entered the workforce and now teaches other moms how to do the same through a charity called Tech-Moms. She recently won a teacher of the year award and was a top 5 finalist in a data visualization competition.

We talk about:
- How Alyson taught herself programming while working as an accountant
- How she transitioned to data analyst and ultimately data engineer
- Tips for preparing for a break from work to take care of your family or address burnout
- How to re-enter with the workforce with gusto

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 charity's mission by going to donate.freecodecamp.org

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- Alyson's new analytics consultancy: https://alysonla.com/
- The charity Alyson teaches at: https://www.tech-moms.org/
- Tech-Mom's Data class: https://github.com/Tech-Moms/data-analytics-course
- The petition site Alyson mentioned: https://playground-petition-portal-9cfaeecf.vercel.app/
- Alyson's Drake fan page: https://alysonla.github.io/drizzydrakefanpage/
- Alyson's matching game: https://alysonla.github.io/hubber-memory-game/
- Alyson substack: https://alysonsaiplayground.substack.com/
- The data visualization app Alyson that was a finalist in the recent competition: https://pixar-scroll-tale.lovable.app/

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jason Lengstorf. He learned to code out of necessity building websites for local emo bands.

He dropped out of college but eventually worked as an engineer at IBM and has gone on to roles at many other companies doing everything from software architecture to management. He runs CodeTV, a Bravo-style reality TV channel for developers.

We talk about:
- Jason's winding path into development from building websites for bands
- Teaching yourself programming by chasing your curiosity
- How in-person events gives you tacit knowledge that makes you a better engineer
- How having a broad range of skills ultimately helps you build better projects

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 charity's mission by going to donate.freecodecamp.org

Links we talk about during our conversation:

- CodeTV: https://codetv.dev/
- The CodeTV YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnty0z0pNRDgnuoirYXnC5A
- Jason's website: https://jason.energy/