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  • Meet Parul Singh 🇬🇧! Parul is a Tech Careers & Neurodiversity Consultant, ADHD advocate, board member at Manchester Tech Festival, Public Speaker, and a former recruitment marketing partner and tech recruiter. The last time she was on the show, she gave us advice on how to stand out and land a role in tech.

    Today, we're talking about neurodiversity! What does it mean, why do we need it, why do tech companies seem to attract neurodivergent talent, and how can we create a more inclusive workplace? In this episode, you'll find out why neurodivergent conditions aren't superpowers (but sometimes feel like they are), why some people get diagnosed late, and whether self-diagnosis is valid. Parul is passionate about these topics because of her own lived experience with ADHD and autism, which intersects with her being a woman of color. But even if you're not neurodivergent yourself, chances are you've worked with or managed somebody who is... so tune in!

    🔗 Connect with Parul

    👨‍💼 Linkedin📪 Parul's Dopamine Diaries Newsletter🌐 Linktree🐦 Twitter

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Annual Report: Diversity in Tech in the UKParul's Dopamine Diaries NewsletterParul's previous interview

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

  • Meet Özge Ahras 🇹🇷! Özge studied computer enigneering, but felt her coding skills weren't up to par. She yearned to transition into frontend development and explore cutting-edge technologies, but the company she had spent eight years in was relying on vanilla javascript. Eventually, she discovered Scrimba, back in the day before the Frontend Career Path even existed. Can you imagine?

    Özge fell in love with Scrimba's pedagogy and enrolled in the Path. But the journey wasn't without its challenges. It took her two and a half years to complete the course, balancing her studies with a demanding full-time job. And in February 2023, a devastating earthquake struck her hometown in southern Turkey. Yet Özge persevered, realizing that the true investment lay in nurturing her own growth and peace of mind.

    Today, Özge is a front-end developer living in sunny Malta! You'll hear how she picked where she wanted to move and how she went about hunting for jobs, as well as learn one trick that boosted her job application success rate. Özge also shares the details of her interview process (spoiler: there was a bit that was slightly unconventional).

    This is a story about giving yourself grace and time, staying motivated, and remaining curious!


    🔗 Connect with Özge

    👩‍💼 Linkedin🌐 Portfolio👩‍🚀 GitHub

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Learn React for free!Scrimba BootcampFrontend Career Path

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

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  • Meet Amy Posten 🇺🇸! Amy was a veterinary technician for fifteen years before she decided to switch careers. First, she discovered freeCodeCamp while on maternity leave. Later, she joined a premium bootcamp but didn't feel quite ready to apply for coding jobs afterward, so she turned to Scrimba to polish her skills. Nowadays, she's a front-end engineer and instructor.

    In this episode, you'll learn how to figure out what kind of job you want and what was a small change in her job-hunting approach that brought Amy immediate results. You'll discover what are the gaps in knowledge one might have after a bootcamp, and how you can make learning to code less lonely. Finally, Amy and Alex discuss generative AI tools and how you can use them in your job hunt.


    🔗 Connect with Amy

    👩‍💼 Linkedin

    ⏰ Timestamps

    How Amy became a Veterinary Technician (01:32)Maternity leave on freeCodeCamp, and a career change brought up by the pandemic (04:38)Why Amy likes JavaScript, HTML, and CSS (06:59)Why Amy decided to join a bootcamp (08:56)The importance of getting to connect with people (11:16)Social media break with Jan the Producer (12:43)How to make learning to code less lonely (14:12)Joining a bootcamp is like drinking from a fire hose (16:27)Amy discovered Scrimba through her bootcamp! (18:31)After the bootcamp, Amy also joined the Scrimba bootcamp (19:37)Why Amy decided to start from scratch on Scrimba (21:35)How Amy found her north star and became a teacher (24:48)Amy changed her approach to job applications and got immediate results! (28:26)Amy's reach-out strategy and how she got a job interview at the company she currently works at (31:52)How to figure out what kind of job you want (35:11)Amy's job interview (36:04)How to use AI tools in your job hunt (40:22)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Scrimba podcast: The State of React (and Should You Still Learn It in 2024), with Dev AgrawalScrimba podcast: An expert guide to technical interviews with Ian DouglasScrimba podcast: This Is How You Onboard: Actionable Tips for Developers On a New Job from Ian DouglasLearn React for free!Scrimba BootcampScrimba's Discord community

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

  • Meet Chris Webster 🇬🇧! Chris is a full-stack developer based in Reading. In a past life, he taught Mandarin to both children and adults and obtained a master's degree in education. If you're guessing that this episode is about pedagogy, maintaining your mindset, and learning hacks, you're on the right track.


    When Chris decided to switch careers, he enrolled in a premium London boot camp. Was it worth the money? Or the time? In this episode, Chris lays out the differences between a boot camp and learning to code by yourself online. He ended up on Scrimba afterward—sometimes even while at work at his first coding job—which helped him land his dream job. But that wasn't the only thing! It's the perseverance, strategies for successful adult learning, and knowing what to look for in the myriad of teaching methods available to us that paved Chris's path to success. In this podcast, you'll learn all about them!


    🔗 Connect with Chris

    👨‍💼 Linkedin

    ⏰ Timestamps

    How Chris discovered computers (but became a teacher and only later took up coding) (01:09)Was changing careers an easy decision? (03:57)What do bootcamps promise, and do they deliver? (06:32)How did Chris structure his learning? (06:46)Was Chris happy with what he got out of the bootcamp? (08:36)Did the marketing of the bootcamp match the actual offering? (10:41)Midroll with Jan the Producer: Tweet about us! (12:31)The appeal of a bootcamp: the path + the community (13:27)How Chris discovered Scrimba (14:34)The problem with many teachers nowadays (17:40)Chris's Number One Learning Hack (19:20)Don't keep hammering the problem (23:18)The system for problem-solving (25:52)The stigma of (not) working hard enough (27:18)Pomodoro technique vs being in the zone: there's a right time for both (29:30)How Chris found his first job (31:34)What's it like working for a consultancy (32:38)How Chris landed his dream job as his second job (34:33)Chris's LinkedIn strategy (36:37)Just be enthusiastic! (37:49)Chris's message to a recruiter on LinkedIn (38:35)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Learn React for Free! Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanBook: How to Solve It by George Polya

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

  • Meet Dev Agrawal 🇮🇳🇺🇸! With a name like that, how could he not become a developer? He's a software developer, developer advocate, and content creator. Moreover, he's a React expert deeply ingrained in the React community. That's why we invited him onto the show to shed light on the current state of affairs!


    You've probably noticed certain discontent surrounding React recently. A basic React app has become significantly more complex. It has been quite some time since there has been a significant update to React, with the recent ones relying heavily on meta-frameworks. And what about the React core team? What's happening there?


    All of this might sound disheartening. However, we're delving into whether these concerns hold true in this episode. Let's find out together!

    🔗 Connect with Dev

    👨‍💼 Linkedin🌐 Website🐦 Twitter

    ⏰ Timestamps

    How Dev became a dev (01:34)Teamwork is a skill you can learn! (07:06)Should you go to college or learn to code by yourself? (09:10)Studying coding can be a "choose your own adventure" game (11:04)Community break with Jan the Producer (12:42)How Dev landed his first role in tech (14:28)Disappointment with React: what's that about? (15:42)What are meta-frameworks, and why are they gaining traction? (18:55)React was originally all about the front end... And now? (20:55)GraphQL and React Server components (22:23)Pete Hunt, Rethinking Best Practices, and separation of concerns (23:09)History is repeating itself (24:24)The most common problem with server components (25:34)The battle of the frameworks (26:10)Is Next.JS in an advantageous position? (28:08)Most people nowadays are using Vue! (34:13)Should you have FOMO about server components? (36:37)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Niche Down to Blow Up: Scrimba Student Leo Reveals How to Land an Awesome First Dev Job
  • Meet Parul Singh 🇬🇧! Parul is a Tech Careers & Neurodiversity Consultant, ADHD advocate, board member at Manchester Tech Festival, Public Speaker, and a former recruitment marketing partner and tech recruiter. If you're familiar with the topic of neurodiversity in tech, you've probably come across her name. In this episode, we're speaking with Parul because her advice on how to stand out and land a role in tech is anything but ordinary.


    This episode contains refreshingly unique and honest insights and perspectives on hiring in tech, along with some new job platforms you can use to inspire or recharge your developer job search. Everybody's on LinkedIn, and that can be a blessing and a curse! In this episode, you'll learn about the best alternatives. Standing out as a junior developer can be challenging, but we'll discuss some ideas on how you can do it. What should your CV look like? Do you need a cover letter? To wrap things up, we'll learn from Parul why some recruiters don't advertise the salary range and what you can do when you see a job ad like that!

    Plus: Why should tech recruiters know how to code, and is JavaScript more similar to a ham or a hamster?

    🔗 Connect with Parul

    👨‍💼 Linkedin🌐 Linktree🐦 Twitter

    ⏰ Timestamps

    How Parul became a tech recruiter (01:19)Java vs. JavaScript (03:18)How Parul learned to code (03:34)Why it's important to find a coding instructor and method you vibe with (05:35)Why tech recruiters should know how to code (06:36)Community break with Jan the Producer (08:42)How can a developer be recognized by a recruiter (10:08)Job platforms other than LinkedIn (11:12)Make sure your profile is up to scratch (12:08)Who swipes right? (12:49)How to stand out as an entry-level candidate: your CV (15:01)Send your CV using normal methods, but THEN follow up directly (17:40)Do recruiters really only spend a few seconds on each resume? (18:38)Is sending a cover letter necessary? (20:21)Should you apply on the weekends? (22:10)What should you do if you're applying for a job that doesn't list the salary? (23:07)Why we need to be good negotiators (26:23)We need empathy (32:59)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    https://hackajob.com/https://cord.co/https://www.haystackapp.io/https://otta.com/https://wellfound.com/https://hired.com/

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

  • Meet Shawn Wang (Swyx) 🇺🇸! Swyx is a developer, writer, and startup advisor. If you listen to our show regularly, you know him as the biggest advocate for learning in public! Today, he's the founder of smol.ai and a podcast host and teacher at Latent Space. Last summer, Swyx wrote a blog post titled The Rise of the AI Engineer, which quickly went viral.

    In this episode, Swyx will revisit that blog post to see if anything changed. You will learn why AI engineers are a thing, the differences between AI and ML engineers, and why the demand for this specialization is larger than the supply. Swyx also reveals what defines an industry (and why it's not only about tools) and gives many good examples of successful products made using existing foundation models. Swyx and Alex also talk about the inner workings of AI and whether it's a good idea to run AI models on your own hardware.

    🔗 Connect with Swyx

    👨‍💼 Linkedin🌐 Website🌐 smol.ai🏫Latent Space

    ⏰ Timestamps

    Swyx wrote a blog post about The Rise of the AI Engineer, and it went viral (02:32)The three-stage progression of an AI engineer (04:33)Can an AI agent become a CTO? (05:36)We can become AI engineers now. What changed? (07:50)We didn't invent AI foundation models; we discovered them (11:27)Are we evolving new intelligence? (14:20)AI researchers vs AI engineers (15:36)Why is AI engineering a specialization? (17:04)What's an inference API (20:50)What are weights (21:09)There's a lot of interest in small AI foundation models (24:27)Should you use the cloud or run your AI models locally? (25:37)Is there a demand for AI engineers? (27:26)What AI products do companies want to build? (29:40)Updated career advice for new developers (34:51)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    The Coding Career Handbook by Swyx (30% discount applied when you use this link)
  • Meet Adam Broda 🇺🇸! Adam is a tech lead and career coach who helps career changers break into tech. He did the same - after a decade of working in aerospace engineering at Boeing, Adam now works at Amazon! Through his coaching business, Broda Coaching, Adam aids career transitioners in constructing personalized job search strategies.


    In this episode, Adam unveils the four pillars of his framework: identifying your passions, skills, desired environment, and needed compensation. Alex and Adam also delve into the current state of the job market: have we moved beyond significant tech layoffs, are return-to-office policies contributing to attrition, and what implications do these factors have for software development jobs? Adam will also tech you about different phases of networking—short-term networking, advocacy networking, and engagement networking—detailing how to navigate each of them and which one is most effective.

    🔗 Connect with Adam

    👨‍💼 Linkedin🌐 Website

    ⏰ Timestamps

    How Adam transitioned into IT (and became a career coach) after a long career in the aerospace industry (01:30)Adam's engineering background vs. his new roles (05:19)The tech industry changes frequently (08:32)How Broda Coaching came about (10:32)Fail fast! (14:22)The state of the tech job market (and should we be worried about layoffs (15:32)Why is there fewer junior roles? (18:12)Returning to the office forces attrition (19:41)Does social media give you a good overview of what's happening in the job market? (20:59)Before the pandemic, junior roles had a lower experience requirement (23:19)Adam's job-hunting strategy (23:51)Start with your why (25:14)Passions, skills, environment, and compensation (27:13)Is niching down limiting your opportunities? (28:02)Adam's three-phase networking approach (32:17)Demonstrate potential! (36:07)Go where you're passionate (39:50)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Broda Coaching

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

  • 🎙 About the episode


    Meet Cassie Lewis 🇺🇸! Cassie has a fine arts degree, which turned out to be too fancy for the real world. After working in different fields, from photography to retail, she got interested in coding - and it turned out to be just the right fit with how her mind works! Cassie is fueled by curiosity, creativity, and challenges. And learning to code alongside a day job was certainly a challenge.

    Two years into her learning path, Cassie realized she had hit a wall. In an attempt to get unstuck, she joined the Scrimba bootcamp. She also challenged herself to read more non-fiction and embarked on a path toward effective living. In this episode, Cassie explains effective living and how it can make you a more effective coder, too! You'll hear how Cassie defeated burnout, how she approached learning, and how she - only nine months after joining the bootcamp - landed her first dev job. This is a story about setting goals, establishing systems, frictionless networking (even if you don't live in a tech hub), and keeping your plans realistic. But also: this is also a story of creativity and exploration!

    🔗 Connect with Cassie

    🧑‍💼 Linkedin🌐 Website

    ⏰ Timestamps

    How Cassie went from a fine arts degree to retail to coding (01:24)How Cassie chose her careers and roles and basically created her last retail position (03:35)Cassie originally discovered coding through WordPress (05:11)Is coding similar to making art? (05:47)Learning to code was a gradual shift (06:53)Why you should maintain some balance while learning to code (08:39)How Cassie managed her self-confidence (10:03)Community break with Jan the Producer (10:59)Resources Cassie used to help with her mindset during her coding journey (13:39)What is effective living (15:39)What did Cassie do to put herself back on track when she slipped? (19:32)Cassie's systems (21:13)Identify the key pillars in your life (23:07)How Cassie landed her first developer job (26:50)You never know who can help you (28:07)How's Cassie's new job going after three months? (34:15)Getting paid to learn on the job (35:54)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Scrimba BootcampHow Johnny Learned Angular and Typescript in Three DaysCooking Up a Career Change: Overcoming Burnout and Finding Your Why, with Scrimba Student JimmyEssentialismAtomic Habits

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.



  • 🎙 About the episode


    Meet Bob Ziroll 🇺🇸! Bob is Scrimba's Head of Education and one of the Internet's favorite React teachers. His latest course is on AI, but don't worry, there's React... I mean, ReAct in AI as well!

    In the previous three episodes, we defined an AI engineer and demystified their tools. We explored foundation models and discussed how to personalize them through retrieval augmented generation and fine-tuning. We also delved into various use cases for incorporating AI models into your projects and explored why ChatGPT has brought a fundamental shift in how we perceive AI.


    Today, Bob will guide us through the realm of AI agents, representing the future of automation. An AI agent is capable of perceiving its environment. What does that mean, and how can one create an AI agent? Also, will they eventually take over the world?

    Bob will also give us actionable advice on how to stay ahead of the curve in the fast-changing world of AI models, and discuss his vision for the future of AI.

    Bob's AI agents and automation course is part of Scrimba's brand-new AI path. Let's dive in!


    This is the final episode of our series on AI engineering, introducing Scrimba's AI Engineer Path. This path is your gateway to unlocking the full potential of AI for your projects.

    🔗 Connect with Bob

    👨🏼‍💼 Linkedin🐦 Twitter

    ⏰ Timestamps

    Nowadays, Bob teaches both React and AI (01:34)AI is moving even faster than the front end (02:16)What's new in the world of AI and coding (02:46)ChatGPT vs. the GPT foundation model (04:15)What is an AI agent (05:45)The Terminator! (09:33)We didn't invent AI; we discovered it (10:29)Midroll! (11:56)Prominent examples of AI agents today (12:35)Will AI agents replace people (15:25)Why you shouldn't fear nor ignore AI (18:12)Any predictions about AI are temporary and short-lived (21:36)How can you build your own AI agent? (24:34)React... and REact (31:26)Advice on how to stay up-to-date without getting totally overwhelmed (35:58)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    The AI Engineer PathAgentGPT

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.



  • 🎙 About the episode


    Meet Guil Hernandez 🇺🇸! He is a developer and educator with over 15 years of experience in tech. He's also a Scrimba teacher who is a part of the team bringing you the AI Engineer Path, and in this episode, he's helping us understand retrieval-augmented generation.

    In the previous episode, Tom Chant helped us understand the world of AI models. Today, Guil will further teach us how these models work under the hood. AI models don't understand the world like we do. When we interact with them, they turn our inputs into mathematical representations known as embeddings. By creating our own embeddings, we can teach AI to do what we want it to.

    Today, we're getting an introduction about making a model aware of your own data source so that that data can be considered for the AI output. For example, using the techniques you'll learn from Guil in this episode, you could connect a model to your customer support conversations so that the model knows what is necessary to answer unique questions about your (or your client's) business.

    This is the third episode of our series on AI engineering, introducing Scrimba's AI Engineer Path. This path is your gateway to unlocking the full potential of AI for your projects.

    🔗 Connect with Guil

    🐦 Twitter🌐 Website👩‍🚀 Github

    ⏰ Timestamps

    Guil focuses on RAG and embeddings (01:42)RAG makes a foundation model aware of your data (03:14)Spotify has been using RAG since 2014 (05:56)How embedding works: embedding model + vector database + generative model (09:00)You're enhancing content retrieved from a database with a generative model (10:26)A foundation model can't just understand text (10:34)What's a vector database? (12:35)Can we make an AI chatbot for the Scrimba podcast? (15:05)You can chunk the files directly at OpenAI now! (16:49)OpenAI's Assistants API (17:33)AI is evolving quickly (19:07)Assistants API does RAG (19:55)What is fine-tuning? (20:39)Differences between RAG and fine-tuning (21:14)Community break with Jan the Producer (23:58)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    The AI Engineer PathLearn Embeddings and Vector DatabasesScrimba Podcast with Saron Yitbarek

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

  • Meet Tom Chant 🇬🇧! Tom is a Scrimba instructor who is a part of our in-house team that brought you a brand new career path available on Scrimba.com - the AI engineer Path.

    In this episode, we're diving into the world of AI foundation models: what are they, how do they work, and how can you use them to build front-end applications that you, until recently, couldn't even think of unless you were a big company with loads of resources.

    AI is fundamentally changing the features and user experience of front-end applications. In this episode, you'll learn how to use different foundation models out there (so, not just OpenAI) for your own projects.


    This is the second episode of our series on AI engineering, introducing Scrimba's AI Engineer Path. This path is your gateway to unlocking the full potential of AI for your projects.

    🔗 Connect with Tom

    👩‍💼 Linkedin🐦 Twitter

    ⏰ Timestamps

    One year is a long time in AI (02:14)What are some of the recent applications of AI that have converted the skeptics? (04:06)Revenue-boosting usage of the new AI models (07:50)Is AI a revolutionary shift for developers? (13:03)What are foundation models (15:41)How do foundation models work? (18:12)Multi-modality of foundation models (20:04)What are the differences between different versions of GPT- 3.5, 4, 4 Turbo... (22:20)What's OpenAI Whisper? (25:49)HuggingFace and are alternatives to OpenAI (28:50)What to do if OpenAI goes down? (32:20)Why ChatGPT is slow... and running an AI model on your own hardware slower (35:35)What is fine-tuning? (38:01)What is RAG? (39:12)Using RAG can save you money (41:03)Scrimba's AI Engineer Path and Tom's course (43:46)Social Media Break with Jan the Producer (46:39)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    The AI Engineer Path

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

  • 🎙 About the episode

    Meet Per Borgen 🇳🇴! Scrimba's co-founder and CEO returns to the show after more than two years. In this episode, Per and Alex delve into the emergence of a new breed of developer—the AI engineer.


    What defines an AI engineer? What key skills set them apart? Is machine learning knowledge a prerequisite? Why did ChatGPT bring a paradigm shift in our interaction with AI? Dive into these topics, discover how to utilize and personalize existing AI models, and explore alternative options beyond OpenAI.


    Since the Scrimba podcast always brings you practical advice, this episode is a guide to the AI engineer stack. Prepare to take notes as Per unravels the terminology and technology crucial for navigating the AI landscape as a developer.


    This episode begins a five-part series on AI engineering, introducing Scrimba's AI Engineer Path.

    🔗 Connect with Per

    👨‍💼LinkedIn🐦 Twitter

    ⏰ Timestamps

    Scrimba's launching its AI Engineer Path! 🎉 (03:11)Why an AI path is so critical at the moment (04:01)Why AI engineering is not just a fad (07:32)Community Break with Jan the Producer (10:41)Why ChatGPT brought a change in the way we perceive AI, and what's the difference between discriminative and generative AI (11:40)What's the difference between GPT and ChatGPT (15:50)What companies build AI tools for developers other than OpenAI? (21:50)Human + AI is still better than just AI (23:11)The context is the product (24:56)Tuning a foundation model - data are the secret sauce (28:53)What is an AI engineer (29:54)How is AI engineering different from prompt engineering? (31:20)How's an AI engineer different from a data scientist or a machine learning engineer (32:04)OpenAI vs open-source alternatives (34:11)Making sense of the AI engineering stack (36:26)HuggingFace has machine-learning models that can run in a browser! (39:15)What is RAG and how to perform it (39:59)What is LangChain (41:55)How's the AI path structured? (45:29)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    The AI Engineer Path

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.

  • 🎙 About the episode

    Meet Matt Ehrlich and Eric Winkelspecht 🇬🇧! They are the hosts of the Self-Taught Devs podcast. And, you guessed it, they are self-taught devs and career changers to boot. Matt was a park ranger, and Eric worked at an IT solutions company but didn't code. Today, they are a front-end developer and a full-stack developer, respectively, who met through LinkedIn and then decided to host a podcast!

    In this episode, you will learn about their coding journeys, the resources they used, and why they decided to be self-taught. They talk about motivation and keeping yourself going, how to create structure, and what to do if you feel guilty when you take a break. If you're curious about what makes a successful self-taught dev, this episode is for you!

    🔗 Connect with Matt and Eric

    👨‍💼 Matt's LinkedIn, Eric's LinkedIn📻 Podcast✏️ Matt's blog📹 Matt's YouTube, Eric's YouTube👨‍🚀 Matt's GitHub, Eric's GitHub

    🔗 Timestamps

    How Matt Ehrlich took up coding after being a park ranger for years (01:09)A coding career gives you the opportunity for unlimited growth (02:44)The Self-Taught Devs podcast tries to fill a gap in information (03:39)Eric just landed his first full-time software development role! (06:19)How Eric decided to learn to code (08:06)How does it feel to change careers after more than a decade (08:43)Eric's learning resources (10:10)Community break with Jan the Producer (10:58)Why Matt took the self-taught route (13:39)Matt's learning resources (14:54)Quitting your job to learn to code: pros and cons (16:11)How long did Matt take to learn to code (17:45)Can you learn discipline, and how can you stay motivated (19:12)What can you do if you get stuck (27:26)Should you be taking breaks from your job search? (29:55)Listen to this if you get discouraged after getting a rejection letter (30:54)What is productivity anxiety (33:03)How did Matt and Eric meet and what makes them work as podcast co-hosts (36:15)

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  • 🎙 About the episode

    Meet Anna Ha 🇵🇱 🇰🇷! Anna was born in Poland, where she majored in English and minored in Chinese. She then moved to South Korea and set off to learn Korean and coding at the same time! Today, she works at a startup that creates tools for learning Korean. Perfect match!

    In this episode, you'll discover if coding is a language. Anna also shares her learning strategy, how she discovered Scrimba, what amazing projects she worked on via Chingu, how she kept herself motivated, and how finding a community helped her stay on track. You'll also discover what's the key to both landing a job and looking forward to going to work every day!

    🔗 Connect with Anna

    👩‍💼 LinkedIn🌐 Website👩‍🚀 GitHub🐦 X🤖 annannanna on the Scrimba Discord

    🔗 Timestamps

    How Anna discovered coding when she had a blog as a teenager but ended up studying languages (01:14)Anna started learning to code after moving from Poland to South Korea! (03:00)Anna always wanted to live somewhere else at least for a year (05:16)How Anna learned to code (06:02)What to do if you think that coding just isn't for you (08:39)Community break (11:46)Focus on one step at a time (14:41)How Anna juggled different learning resources (15:28)How Chingu helped Anna get relevant coding experience (18:02)How Anna landed her first tech role (22:01)Anna's interview process and what was most important (24:19)Anna's current company: Learn Korean in Koren (25:19)Your background is important, and so is your attitude (26:58)Quick-fire questions! K-pop, Flutter, and Scrimba (30:41)How Anna found out she was getting an offer (31:45)The importance of community and support (34:53)Advice to younger Anna (35:33)

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  • 🎙 About the episode

    Ready for your first dev job? Today on the podcast, you'll learn how companies work and how teams stay efficient. How does a typical team operate? Who do you report to? How do you know if you're the right culture fit? Why should you know what you need from your team? And why do job postings sometimes... not make sense?

    We have compiled the best, most actionable advice to help you understand a corporate environment. You'll hear from engineering manager and career coach Tiffany Jachhja, founder of Technical Integrity Dave Mayer, opera singer turned developer and developer coach Ana McDougal, and engineering manager Jason C McDonald.

    📻 Listen to the full interviews

    Understanding Corporate Hierarchy (and Perfecting Your Resume), With Tiffany JachjaAdvice from a Junior Developer Career Coach, with Anna McDougalWhat Are Company Values… and Why You Should Know Your Own, with Dave MayerLessons Learned Recruiting and Managing Junior Developers for 10 Years, with Jason C. McDonald

    🔗 Connect with everybody

    Tiffany: 👩🏻‍💼 Linkedin, 📹 Twitch, 🐦 Twitter, 🌐 WebsiteAnna: 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn, 🌐 Website, 👩‍🚀 GitHub, 🐦 Twitter, 📹 YouTubeDave: 🐦 Twitter, 🌐 Website, 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedInJason: 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn, 🌐 Website, 👩‍🚀 GitHub, 🐦 Twitter, 📖 Dead Simple Python - Idiomatic Python for the Impatient Programmer

    ⏰ Timestamps

    Understanding corporate structure (02:14)Differences between smaller and bigger teams, and project management vs. people management (04:54)What should a junior developer look for from their engineering manager? (07:57)Nine Belbin Team Roles (09:49)How to find a mentor online, and why you should know how to code in a team (11:08)A job interview is just looking for compatibility (13:31)Community break (16:20)What does it mean to be a culture fit? What is a culture add? (19:12)Company culture vs. company values (21:55)How to understand your own values (23:16)Why you shouldn't get discouraged if you don't meet all the requirements on a job ad (29:22)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Learning in public!How to Avoid Burnout, Improve Your Confidence and Keep Coding Fun, with Scrimba Student Sylvia

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  • 🎙 About the episode


    This is a rebroadcast of one of our most popular interviews. Meet Nadia Zhuk 🇧🇾! Nadia made a switch to coding from journalism at the age of 25. That decision has got her moving countries not once but twice! Nowadays, she lives in London, works at Intercom, and helps aspiring developers. She's also written a book, Crossing the Rubycon, filled with practical advice and insider tips on learning to code and building a programming career.

    In this episode, Nadia shares her story and many things she's learned along the way! You'll get to know what's it like to learn to code without a technical background, how to manage your mindset and mental health during the process, and what's Nadia's take on choosing your first programming language. Nadia and Alex also discuss common stereotypes about programming, gatekeeping within the industry, and what are the critical but often overlooked factors in choosing what to learn.


    🔗 Connect with Nadia

    👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn🌐 Dev.to🐦 Twitter📹 YouTube

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
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  • 🎙 About the episode

    Meet Johnny Proano 🇺🇸! Johnny had a long and happy career in sales, spanning almost two decades. But, something was missing, so he decided to explore coding. He thought he had to have a degree, but when it turned out he couldn't afford it, he enrolled into a bootcamp and signed up for Scrimba.

    This is a fun and exciting story about career change and looking for your purpose. It is also a story of networking at your daughter's school events, as well as learning Angular and TypeScript (and creating a project using them) in only three days! You'll hear how Johnny approached learning and what kept him going, how to introduce software engineering to toddlers, and how can you turn your failed job interviews in learning experiences once and for all.

    🔗 Connect with Johnny

    👨‍💼 LinkedIn🌐 Website

    ⏰ Timestamps

    How Johnny discovered coding because he needed a website (01:35)Why Johnny wanted to switch from a successful and long-lasting career in sales (04:38)How did Johnny learn to code, and why did he have to drop out of school (08:07)Community break with Jan the Producer (13:36)Johnny's bootcamp experience... and how he found Scrimba (16:02)How Johnny started applying for jobs, and how he dealt with imposter syndrome (18:27)Johnny's approach to job applications and LinkedIn (20:33)Quick-fire questions: DJing, learning resources, and Vue (24:09)How Johnny turned failed interviews into learning opportunities (26:23)Johnny got a job via networking at his daughter's school event! (26:56)How Johnny had only three days to learn a new technology and get ready for an interview (29:30)"I need to do something that's going to make an impact" (31:52)Interview tip: ask questions (36:11)Johnny got a job offer within 24 hours! (36:37)Do you need a degree to be a developer? (38:59)Coding for toddlers (39:39)

    🧰 Resources mentioned

    Johnny's bootcampScrimba's Frontend Career Path

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    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
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  • 🎙 About the episode

    Meet Shona Chan 🇸🇬🇬🇧! Shona was an anesthesiologist. Now, she's a developer. It all started when she wanted to write an app to solve a problem she had at work as a doctor. One thing led to another, and eventually, she took the plunge into coding, realizing that a career switch might not be such a bad idea.

    This is a story of intrinsic motivation, amazing portfolio projects, and landing a job without even having to go through a tech interview. You'll discover how to identify your purpose, find out how to muster enough motivation to tackle difficult decisions, and learn why Shona saw her career change as a lateral move instead of a fresh start. Shona reveals what ten years in medicine taught her and how that relates to her new career If you listen to the end, you will get some fantastic ideas to integrate into your study plan or job-hunting strategy. Plus, you'll find out the ideal music for a cesarean section.

    🔗 Connect with Shona

    👩‍💼 LinkedIn🌐 Website👩‍🚀 Github🐦 Twitter

    ⏰ Timestamps

    Shona never thought she would code for a living, although she did play Neopets (02:13)How Shona started coding because she wanted to solve a real-world work problem she had as a doctor (02:58)Shona's career in medicine (05:48)Community Break with Jan the Producer (09:55)Why Shona eventually wanted to switch careers, and did it feel weird after dedicating so many years to medicine? (11:47)What skills Shona learned as a doctor helped her become a developer? (14:01)Doctors on TV vs. programmers on TV (14:55)Learning to code on YouTube, and when does it become not enough? (15:46)How Shona enrolled into a bootcamp (18:26)Why did Shona feel like she needed to give coding a go? (21:35)Quick-fire questions: Lo-fi Disney and the perfect music for a C-section (23:02)Shona's new role in a health tech startup (26:03)When did Shona feel ready to apply for jobs? (Also, her portfolio projects are amazing. )(27:26)Shona's cold email that brought her a job (31:05)Shona got hired without a tech interview (32:55)Why unique projects are never a waste of time (33:55)Start networking earlier than you think! (35:28)How Scrimba podcast helped Shona with her career change (36:12)How to deal with sunk cost fallacy (38:53)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Kevin PowellKevin Powell on the Scrimba podcastStephanie Chiu on the Scrimba podcastSoundState

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    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
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  • 🎙 About the episode

    Meet Zuza Grońska 🇵🇱🇳🇱! Zuza is a recently hired new developer with a previous career in social media marketing in the music industry. She's also a Polish transplant who moved to the Netherlands during the pandemic. She craved a career change, and when it turned out that all of her work friends were from the software development team, she put two and two together and decided to learn to code. She landed her first dev job after only four months of intense studying!

    Zuza has ADHD, which can be a hindrance and a superpower. In this episode, she talks about the importance of spreading awareness of ADHD and neurodiversity in general. You'll also learn how she approached her portfolio projects, why you should think like a marketer, and how you can stand out in a world where every new developer has a unit converter in their portfolio. Zuza shares how she approached learning to code, what kept her going when she felt unmotivated, why she wanted to leave Poland, and why a career in social media marketing can be draining even though it sounds glamorous.

    🔗 Connect with Zuza

    👩‍💼 LinkedIn🌐 Website👩‍🚀 Github

    🔗 Timestamps

    How Zuza started coding in the early 2000s, but never pursued coding (02:26)How misogyny plaid a part in Zuza's career choices (04:21)Zuza worked in social media marketing, until she realized it was time for a change (05:46)How Zuza approached learning to code (spoiler alert: hyperfocus!) (07:30)Community Break with Jan the Producer (08:54)Following schedules, and good and bad sides of ADHD (11:35)How Zuza kept herself motivated (14:25)How Zuza approached her porfolio and went beyond the stretch goals with her porftolio projects (18:45)How to think about your projects like a marketer (19:56)How Zuza applied for a job, even though the job ad was in Dutch and she didn't speak it (24:39)Why Zuza wanted to leave Poland (and eventually moved to the Netherlands) (29:24)Zuza's new job (31:22)Zuza's interview process (32:34)Quick-fire questions! (33:26)Zuza's tech interview (36:39)Zuza became a CSS expert! (37:45)Working with ADHD (40:17)Zuza only got diagnosed with ADHD two years ago (44:10)Why spreading ADHD awareness is important (45:12)

    🧰 Resources Mentioned

    Frontend Developer Career PathScrimba BootcampKevin PowellMDN Web DocsSassKink.nl radio

    ⭐️ Leave a Review


    If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review here and tell us who you want to see on the next podcast.
    You can also Tweet Alex from Scrimba at @bookercodes and tell them what lessons you learned from the episode so that he can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏 Or tell Jan he's butchered your name here.