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

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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, the book John mentions: https://startupnextdoor.com/

– Follow John on 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 the Myth of Talent in Programming
0:34:54 The Insidious Nature of MLMs
0:45:36 Learning and Transitioning to Web Development
0:56:22 Joining the Military and Learning Korean
1:08:43 Applying for Jobs and Starting a Career in 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 the 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 in Transitioning to Software Engineering
1:51:42 Treating the Learning Process as a Startup
2:14:20 The Value of Learning Computer Science
2:19:43 Career Growth and Advice
2:30:31 Success in the 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 Read More freeCodeCamp.org