#150 To code is to struggle! I interview Tech with Tim, who got a job at Microsoft at age 19
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
Quincy Larson
5.0 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 15 November 2024
⏱️ 100 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Tim Ruscica, the software engineer and prolific programming teacher behind the Tech with Tim YouTube channel. He's also developed courses on freeCodeCamp's YouTube channel.
We talk about:
- How Tim managed to get a $70k salary by hacking his way into a Microsoft internship when he was just 19
- How he learned computer architecture as a kid by playing Minecraft
- Lessons he learned from a failed tech startup
- Why he recommends Python as a first programming language. "It's the least overwhelming thing to get your hands dirty."
Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro?
Also, I want to thank the 11,133 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:
- The classroom montage from Real Genius that Quincy mentions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1X4o-MV6o
- One of Tim's mock coding interview videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q_oYDQ2whs
- Tim's course: https://techwithtim.net/dev
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The most important thing is actually, like, to learn how to struggle and to be okay with failing |
| 0:05.8 | and solving problems. Programming really is just running into a ton of different bugs and errors |
| 0:11.1 | and, like, things not working how they should and figuring out how to fix them. Very rarely are you |
| 0:16.1 | ever going to see a program who just sits down and writes perfect code and doesn't have mistakes. |
| 0:19.2 | So as a beginner especially, like, focus on the process, focus on the struggle. Like if you're sitting there and you've |
| 0:25.9 | been working on a bug for one hour and you can't figure it out, trust me, we all know that's |
| 0:29.8 | super, super frustrating. But that's the really important thing to overcome, to build up that |
| 0:35.3 | persistence and to be okay with that feeling. I'm I'm I'm |
| 0:55.0 | and |
| 0:56.0 | I'm |
| 0:57.0 | I'm |
| 0:58.0 | I'm |
| 0:59.0 | I'm |
| 1:00.0 | and |
| 1:01.0 | I'm |
| 1:02.0 | and |
| 1:03.0 | I'm |
| 1:04.0 | and |
| 1:06.0 | I'm |
| 1:07.0 | and |
| 1:09.0 | I'm Welcome back to the Free Coak Camp podcast. |
| 1:21.0 | I'm Quincy Larson, teacher and founder of Freakococamp.org. |
... |
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