From Building Employee to Instructing Tens of millions of Builders with John Smilga [Podcast #122]

On this week’s episode of the podcast, I interview prolific programming instructor John Smilga. John grew up within the Soviet Union. He labored building for five years earlier than turning into a developer. Today he has taught tens of millions of fellow devs by way of his many programs on freeCodeCamp.

John spent his childhood in Latvia earlier than the Soviet Union fell. He sought work within the UK as an expat hospitality employee on the tiny island of Guernsey.

But he had his sights set on transferring to the US. There he labored as a building employee and taught himself to code. He additionally attended on-line college programs to get a level.

And he met his spouse, a nurse from Ukraine. Together they began a household and dwell collectively in Florida.

During this dialog, John talks about his journey into instructing the programming and laptop science ideas he is discovered. He talks about his free programs on freeCodeCamp and his paid programs that assist him pay the payments.

John’s voice is immediately recognizable by builders. He shares that it’s because he has situation the place is vocal cords are partially paralyzed, for which he has to obtain frequent injections.

I hope you take pleasure in our dialog.

Can you guess what bass line I’m taking part in on my bass in the course of the intro? It’s from a 1982 tune produced by Quincy Jones.

Be certain to observe The freeCodeCamp podcast in your favourite podcast app. And share this podcast with a pal. Let’s encourage extra people to be taught to code and construct careers for themselves in tech.

You can watch the interview on freeCodeCamp’s YouTube channel:

Or you may hearken to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. You can even hearken to the podcast beneath, proper in your browser:

Also, I need to thank the 9,003 form individuals who help our charity every month, and who make this podcast attainable. You can be a part of them and help our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Links we speak about in the course of the interview:

John’s private web site: https://johnsmilga.com/

John Smilga on Twitter: https://twitter.com/john_smilga

Guernsey island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey