
CodeNewbie
The CodeNewbie podcast was born from CodeNewbie, an organization which fosters a supportive, international community of people learning to code. Each season, host Saron Yitbarek delivers stories and interviews from people of diverse backgrounds and expertise about their coding journeys, as well as beginner friendly discussions about the tech you should know about.
Latest episodes

Feb 10, 2020 • 45min
S11:E3 - Why apprenticeships are important for equality, diversity, and inclusion (Ryan Carson)
In this episode, we talk about the necessity of coding apprenticeships in making the tech world a more diverse and inclusive place, with Ryan Carson, CEO and founder of Treehouse. He talks about the limitations of the pure bootcamp model and how apprenticeship programs can lead to real change in terms of equality, diversity, and inclusion. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Treehouse Apple IIe Zork Turbo Pascal Graphical User Interface (GUI) HTML Netscape Navigator AltaVista C++ ColdFusion The New Jim Crow Seeing White Treehouse Techdegree Agile software development Stand-up Full Stack JavaScript PHP How to Win Friends and Influence People PalmPilot Ryan CarsonRyan Carson is the CEO & Founder of Treehouse, an online school that's taught software engineering to over 850,000 people. He is a leader and champion of self-directed learning--inspiring others to take the helm of their own education. He is also an advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion within the tech industry, specializing in helping companies like Verizon, Nike, Adobe, Mailchimp, and more, invest in their local communities, building diverse teams, and creating generational wealth for families who have been locked out of tech. Treehouse is partnered with AnitaB.org and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America on a massive movement to build the ladder to high-paying jobs in tech with projectunlocktheamericandream.org.

Feb 3, 2020 • 48min
S11:E2 - Why all developers should understand the basics of testing (Angie Jones)
In this episode, we’re talking about testing code with Angie Jones, Senior Developer Advocate at Applitools, and former Senior Software Engineer in Test at Twitter. Angie talks about how she got into testing, some of the testing and problems she had to solve while working at Twitter, and why all developers should understand the basics of testing. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Applitools C++ Test automation Java Software widget Library Heuristic Pair programming Faker Application programming interface (API) Boolean expression Test Automation Frameworks Codebase Unit testing UI (User interface) Code review Test Automation University JavaScript Debugging React Ministry of Testing Conditional For loop Data structure Language-agnostic Angie JonesAngie Jones is a Senior Developer Advocate who specializes in test automation strategies and techniques. She shares her wealth of knowledge by speaking and teaching at software conferences all over the world, as well as and leading the online learning platform, Test Automation University. As a Master Inventor, Angie is known for her innovative and out-of-the-box thinking style which has resulted in more than 25 patented inventions in the US and China. In her spare time, Angie volunteers with Black Girls Code to teach coding workshops to young girls in an effort to attract more women and minorities to tech.

Jan 27, 2020 • 45min
S11:E1 - Why ethics and contributor behavior matters in open source (Coraline Ada Ehmke)
In this episode, we're talking about ethics in open source with Coraline Ada Ehmke, software developer, and creator of the Contributor Covenant, as well as the Hippocratic License. Coraline talks about her coding journey, open source, licenses, and how and why it’s important to create an ethical framework for those licenses. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Mainframe computer TRS-80 Byte (magazine) C (programming language) The Hippocratic License Free software movement The Open Source Definition Open Source Initiative Open Source License PHP GNU General Public License The MIT License Universal Declaration of Human Rights Contributor Covenant MUSH Massively multiplayer online role-playing game Coraline Ada EhmkeCoraline Ada Ehmke is an international speaker, writer, and developer with over 25 years of experience in software engineering. She was recognized for her work on diversity in open source with a Ruby Hero award in 2016. Coraline is the creator of the Contributor Covenant, the most popular open source code of conduct in the world with over 40,000 adoptions. She is a founding panelist on the Greater than Code podcast. Coraline is co-authoring a book on practicing empathy in software development, and writes and records music in her home studio.

Nov 11, 2019 • 41min
S10:E8 - What you should look for in online coding courses (Colt Steele)
With the explosion of coding bootcamps, video courses, and other resources for coding, it can be tough for somebody starting out to cut the wheat from the chaff. We chat with Colt Steele, Colt Steele, developer and bootcamp instructor at Udemy, about his winding road to becoming a coder, what makes a good course, and the best way to find and learn from them. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Git TypeScript Vue React Coursera Khan Academy Burning Man NYU: ITP Physical Computing LEGO MINDSTORMS Udemy Python (programming language) Node Angular jQuery JavaScript Udacity Java (programming language) Parallax Inc Colt SteeleColt Steele is one of the most successful web development instructors on Udemy, and also runs a consultancy where he helps companies turn non-technical employees into developers while leveling-up existing engineers.

Nov 4, 2019 • 43min
S10:E7 - Why you should learn to speak machine (John Maeda)
We chat with John Maeda, Chief Experience Officer at Publicis Sapient, about his journey into combining art and technology, going from working in academia to silicon valley, and his new book, “How to Speak Machine: Laws of Design For a Computational Age.”
Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Design in Tech Report WordPress STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) Square RISD: Rhode Island School of Design Kleiner Perkins Automattic Kickstarter Publicis Sapient John MaedaJohn Maeda is an American technologist, designer, engineer, artist, investor, author, and teacher. He is Chief Experience Officer at Publicis Sapient, the technology consulting and delivery arm of communications and marketing conglomerate Publicis. He has held positions with Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com; the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins; served as president of the Rhode Island School of Design; and began his early career at the MIT Media Lab at the intersection of computer science and visual art. Named as one of the “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century” by Esquire, Maeda draws on his diverse background as an MIT-trained engineer, award-winning designer, and MBA-community translator to bring people and ideas together at scale. He is the author of several celebrated books, including The Laws of Simplicity and Redesigning Leadership. He has appeared as a speaker all over the world, from Davos to Beijing to São Paulo to New York, and his talks for TED have received millions of views.

Oct 28, 2019 • 35min
S10:E6 - How can we make the future of programming more inclusive? (Tim O'Reilly)
We chat with Tim O'Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media, about what we’re doing wrong and what we’re doing right with teaching programming today, and how we need to make coding more inclusive for more than just career developers.
Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Osborne 1 dBase Harvard Business School Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) United States Digital Service Code for America JavaScript Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Graphical user interface Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! R (programming language) Jupyter Notebook C (programming language) Fortran AWK ed (text editor) ex (text editor) Make (magazine) O'Reilly Media GitHub Open Source Amazon Alexa Siri The Last Mile (prison rehabilitation program) NumPy Shell script Minecraft Python (programming language) Common Gateway Interface (CGI) HTML Unix Assembly language PEARL (programming language) sed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog, Academic Edition Tim O'ReillyTim O’Reilly is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of O’Reilly Media, the company that has been providing the picks and shovels of learning to the Silicon Valley gold rush for the past thirty-five years. If you’ve heard the term “open source software”, “web 2.0”, “the Maker movement”, “government as a platform”, or “the WTF economy”, he’s had a hand in framing each of those big ideas.

Oct 21, 2019 • 45min
S10:E5 - How to be a good manager and a good employee (Lara Hogan)
You can be an amazing developer, but a terrible manager. We chat with Lara Hogan, former VP of Engineering at Kickstarter, co-founder of Wherewithall, a company that coaches and levels up managers, and author of the new bestselling book, Resilient Management, about her background going from web developer to manager, why becoming a manager isn’t necessarily a promotion, and some of the most important skills people need to not only be good managers, but in any supporting role.
Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) BASIC Dyn Kickstarter Etsy HTML Resilient Management Responsive web design Wherewithall Lara HoganLara is the former VP of Engineering at Kickstarter, co-founder of Wherewithall, a company that coaches and levels up managers, and author of the new bestselling book, Resilient Management.

Oct 14, 2019 • 37min
S10:E4 - Building a personal brand early in your development career (Amy Chen)
We chat with Amy Chen, systems software engineer at VMware and creator of the Amy Codes YouTube channel, about her career two years into being a professional developer, getting into coding for distributed systems, and the benefits of creating a personal brand. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Slack Go Virtual Machine Jessie Frazelle Rancher Labs Java (programming language) Amy Codes Docker Swarm Mesos Container Orchestration Ada Developers Academy Omegle Kubernetes Amy ChenYoutuber & Distributed Systems-er.

Oct 7, 2019 • 39min
S10:E3 - How do you prepare for bootcamp and break into tech? (Ruben Harris)
We chat with Ruben Harris, CEO of Career Karma, and a man with bit of an unconventional background. He’s worked as an event organizer for athletes and celebrities, an investment banker, and professional cellist. We chat with him about how he broke into the startup world, his advice for people trying to do the same, and his app, Career Karma, a resource for people trying to find a coding community and preparing themselves for bootcamps.
Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Mary Meeker's Internet Trends Benedict Evans Newsletter Powderkeg Podcast The Learn to Code With Me Podcast Naval Podcast Breaking Into Startups Breaking Into Startups Y Combinator Career Karma StrictlyVC Social Capital Snippets The freeCodeCamp Podcast Software Engineering Daily Jocko Podcast #21DayCkChallenge App Academy Ruben HarrisRuben is the CEO of Career Karma and Co-Host of the Breaking Into Startups Podcast. His mission is to help blue collar workers get white collar jobs in less than 12 months, starting with people that want to become software engineers through coding bootcamps. He shares the stories on the Breaking Into Startups Podcast and before this he worked in Admissions at AltSchool, building out two-sided marketplaces for vocational training (nurses) at Honor, and workforce development with government during his time at Hustle. Prior to his work in tech, he was an investment banker for 3 years and he has been playing the cello for more than 25 years.

Sep 30, 2019 • 36min
S10:E2 - What are the pros and cons of getting paid for open source (Katie Delfin)
For all of the benefits of open source, such as pushing innovation and creating huge collaborative ways to build powerful products, there are also very legitimate concerns in terms of sustainability, exploitation of new developers, and the privilege of who actually has the time and resources to contribute to open source. We chat with Katie Delfin, one of the four software engineers who worked on GitHub's new "GitHub Sponsors" tool, which hopes to solve some of these issues. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) cURL Patreon Rails Pluralsight/Code School Dreamweaver Git ColdFusion Object-oriented programming Java GitHub Sponsors GitHub Open source Katie DelfinKatie Delfin is a senior software engineer at GitHub, and one of the four engineers who worked on the company's new funding tool, GitHub Sponsors.
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