Mastering Tech Skills: Myths and Realities

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