#139 Spotify Developer Emma Bostian Talks Coding, Hiring Devs, and European Work Culture
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
Quincy Larson
5.0 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 30 August 2024
⏱️ 104 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Emma Bostian. She's a software engineer turned manager at Spotify and Prolific coding teacher.
We talk about:
- How at her first developer job at IBM, Emma's boss told her: "You need to get your stuff together or you won't make it in this industry." And the transformation that followed.
- Emma's thoughts on Computer Science degrees. "Going to college gives you credibility and a network. You can get opportunities that way."
- How Emma hires software engineers. (Hint: she tries to disregard degrees completely.)
- How Emma intentionally procrastinates some big tasks to give her mind time to figure out the puzzle pieces
Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1979 punk song.
Also, I want to thank the 10,776 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:
- Emma on Twitter: https://x.com/emmabostian
- The Ladybug Podcast about women in tech that Emma helped host for several years: https://www.ladybug.dev/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I remember the person who was set out to mentor me basically told me, you need to get your |
| 0:04.9 | stuff together or you're not going to do well in this industry. And I remember at the time you |
| 0:09.4 | like, how dare they say this to me? That's so awful. And now looking back on it, I'm like, |
| 0:13.9 | they were totally right. And I needed that kick in the butt because I didn't know how to learn. |
| 0:18.6 | That was my biggest hindrance. Welcome back to the Free Code Camp podcast. I'm Quincy Larson, teacher and founder of |
| 0:51.2 | Freecodecamp.org. Each week we're bringing you insight |
| 0:54.8 | from developers, founders, |
| 0:57.0 | and ambitious people getting into tech. |
| 0:59.0 | This week, we're joined by Emma Bostin. |
| 1:02.4 | She's a software engineer turned manager |
| 1:04.7 | at Spotify and a prolific coding teacher. |
| 1:09.4 | Emma, welcome to the Free Code Camp podcast. |
| 1:12.3 | Thanks are out of me, Quincy. |
| 1:13.4 | It's nice to actually talk in real life. |
| 1:15.9 | Yeah, you and I have been corresponding, like, acing furnishings leads or email, Twitter |
| 1:19.2 | messages, things like that for like years. |
| 1:21.5 | And, of course, I know. |
| 1:23.1 | I've listened to so many podcasts that you've been on, of course, like the Ladybug |
| 1:27.3 | podcast that you created with several other women in tech. |
| 1:31.9 | And of course, the many times you've been out like jazz party and different, you know, |
| 1:37.9 | technical podcasts that I enjoy listening to. |
| 1:40.1 | So it's amazing to like, it's kind of surreal almost to talk to you real time. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Quincy Larson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Quincy Larson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.