#162 How to become a developer in your 30s with Anjana Vakil
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
Quincy Larson
5.0 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2025
⏱️ 172 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Anjana Vakil. She left academia to learn to code and got her first developer job in her 30s.
Anjana was an English teacher who studied computational linguistics, and found building software to be more fun than actual research.
She's worked at ton of tech companies and has freelance clients. She shares some excellent tips on learning new skills and avoiding burnout.
We talk about:
- How Anjana taught herself to code in her 30s
- Being an American dev working in Europe
- Stress, burnout, and how she gets by
- How skills from your previous non-developer career can help differentiate you as a developer
Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.
Support also comes from the 11,243 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate
Links we talk about during our conversation:
- "How to be the ideal newb" article: https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/
- "Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle" book that Anjana mentions: https://www.amazon.com/Burnout-Secret-Unlocking-Stress-Cycle/dp/198481706X
- Anjana's website: https://anjana.dev/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And I say, as a career changer myself, to all the career changers out there, I say like, you know, |
| 0:05.7 | don't forget that the fact that you have experience in something else is added value. |
| 0:10.7 | It's not a drawback because there are some people working on your team who've only ever done software |
| 0:15.7 | and they've only ever thought about problems from that one perspective. |
| 0:18.6 | So, you know, if you can bring your background |
| 0:20.8 | in whatever professional experience you have, or maybe you used to be a carpenter. Welcome back |
| 0:27.4 | to the Free Code Camp podcast, your source for raw, unedited interviews with developers. This |
| 0:33.8 | week, we're talking with Anjanavakil. She left academia so she could teach herself to code, and she got her first developer job |
| 0:40.9 | at age 31. |
| 0:42.9 | She's worked at a ton of tech companies and with lots of freelance clients, and she's |
| 0:47.8 | going to share some excellent tips for learning new skills and avoiding burnout. |
| 0:52.3 | Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. |
| 0:56.9 | Wix Studio provides developers with tools to rapidly build websites with everything out of |
| 1:00.8 | the box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. |
| 1:04.4 | Learn more at Wixstudio.com. |
| 1:07.4 | Support also comes from the 11,243 kind folks who support FreeCote Camp through a monthly donation. |
| 1:16.2 | Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to freecotecamp.org slash donate. |
| 1:22.2 | For this week's musical intro with yours truly on the drums, guitar, bass, and keys keys we're going back to 1984 mad magazine spy |
| 1:32.3 | versus spy The |
| 1:47.0 | The The |
| 2:03.6 | The Hey, Anjano, welcome to the show. |
| 2:34.2 | Hi, thanks so much for having me. |
... |
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