How John Washam crammed for 8 months, got a job at Amazon, then taught 1,000s of other devs [#134]

On this week's section of nan podcast, freeCodeCamp laminitis Quincy Larson interviews John Washam, a package technologist astatine Amazon. John's besides creator of 1 of nan astir celebrated unfastened root projects of each time, Coding Interview University. This is John's first-ever podcast interview, and nan first clip he's told his story. Interviewing him was an absolute honor. We talk about: - How John delivered pizzas to prevention capable money to bargain his first machine successful nan 90s. "I was tired of being a collapsed kid." - John's first profession successful nan US military, wherever he worked arsenic a translator successful South Korea - How John crammed Computer Science for 8 months and taught himself capable mentation and coding skills to get a occupation successful large tech, past published Coding Interview University connected GitHub - What it's for illustration to activity arsenic a elder developer astatine a large tech company, and what you tin expect nan travel to beryllium like Can you conjecture what opus I'm playing connected my bass during nan intro? It's from a 1986 stone song. Also, I want to convey nan 9,779 benignant group who support our kindness each month, and who make this podcast possible. You tin subordinate them and support our ngo at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate Links we talk astir during our conversation: - Coding Interview University: https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university - The Starup Next Door, nan book John mentions: https://startupnextdoor.com/ - Follow John connected LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnawasham/ Contents 0:00:00 Introduction and Background 0:07:13 The Importance of Continuous Learning and Passion 0:30:57 Debunking nan Myth of Talent successful Programming 0:34:54 The Insidious Nature of MLMs 0:45:36 Learning and Transitioning to Web Development 0:56:22 Joining nan Military and Learning Korean 1:08:43 Applying for Jobs and Starting a Career successful Web Development 1:10:50 From DIY Websites to Entrepreneurship 1:14:42 Learning by Doing: Building Projects to Gain Skills 1:17:01 The Challenges of Marketing and Scaling a Business 1:21:33 Understanding nan Market and Solving Real Problems 1:24:31 The Importance of Effective Marketing and Distribution 1:27:31 Sacrifices, Dedication, and Motivation: Keys to Entrepreneurial Success 1:45:03 Challenges successful Transitioning to Software Engineering 1:51:42 Treating nan Learning Process arsenic a Startup 2:14:20 The Value of Learning Computer Science 2:19:43 Career Growth and Advice 2:30:31 Success successful nan Tech Industry 2:32:17 Narrowing Down Job Applications 2:58:41 Front-end Engineering vs. Software Engineering 3:02:45 Continuous Learning and Strong Fundamentals