How to become a self-taught developer while supporting a family [Podcast #164]

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jesse Hall. He's software engineer and a developer advocate at MongoDB. He taught himself to code while raising kids and working on the Best Buy Geek Squad fixing computers.

Jesse has created tons of tutorials over the years on YouTube and on freeCodeCamp. We talk about his coding journey, how the field has changed over the few years, and how hype has distorted peoples' perception of getting into code.

We talk about:
Growing up in a one stop light town
Teaching himself to code for free using freeCodeCamp
How he created YouTube tutorials to inspire his kids, then got quite good at it
How Jesse's early interest in Web3 lead him to needing to "dig himself out of the grave" of being "the NFT tutorial guy"

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 wixstudio.com/.

Support also comes from the 11,384 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Links we talk about during our conversation:

Jesse's tutorials on freeCodeCamp: www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/codeSTACKr/

Jesse's course on how to set up and configure the VS Code editor:    • Visual Studio Code 2022 | Web Dev Set...  

Chapters

0:00:00 Teaser
0:00:26 Intro with Song 'Elevator Action'
0:02:26 Introduction and Background
0:05:25 Embracing AI in Development
0:08:28 Journey from Hardware to Software
0:11:23 Transitioning to Software Development
0:14:31 Family Life and Career Changes
0:17:25 The Role of YouTube in Learning
0:20:24 Inspiration and Developer Advocacy
0:23:25 Life in Texas and Encouragement for Others
0:28:45 Optimizing Development Environments with VS Code
0:31:12 The Impact of AI on Learning and Development
0:33:02 Mentoring the Next Generation of Coders
0:35:01 Navigating AI Tools in Production Environments
0:38:47 Boosting Productivity with AI Tools
0:42:48 Learning to Code in the Age of AI
0:46:52 Project-Driven Learning and Development
0:49:19 Embracing New Tools and Technologies
0:56:31 Recognizing and Overcoming Ruts in Learning
1:00:05 The Joy of Continuous Learning
1:03:06 Navigating Time Management and Side Gigs
1:04:38 The Value of Certifications in Career Growth
1:10:03 The Rise and Fall of Web3 and NFTs
1:20:56 Advice for Aspiring Software Engineers