From doing data entry to becoming a developer with Jessica Chan AKA Coder Coder [Podcast #132]

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jessica Chan AKA Coder Coder. She's a software engineer has worked in the field for more than a decade. Interestingly, she studied photography in school and never took a programming class. We talk about: - How she and her sister ran a dial-in Bulletin Board System (BBS) back in the pre-web days - How her first year as a dev she "was just living in abject fear of losing my job." - How she stayed at her first developer agency job for 7 years, and went from imposter syndrome afflicted newbie to getting promoted - Her philosophy on creating programming tutorials: "You don't have to be on the cutting edge. I don't operate on the cutting edge." Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1993 rock song. Also, I want to thank the 9,779 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: Jessica's 7-hour "How to Build a Website" freeCodeCamp course: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/create-a-simple-website-with-html-css-javascript/ Jessica's coding journey animated video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA14r2ujQ7s Kevin Powell, the "King of CSS", who has also shared courses on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/kevin-powell/ Jessica on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecodercoder Chapters 0:00:00 Introduction and Background 0:07:53 Early Days of BBSs 0:15:36 Transitioning from Photography to Web Development 0:34:15 The Changing Landscape of the Photography Industry 0:46:08 Progressing in Career and Taking on Bigger Projects 0:55:43 Blogging and Building a Developer Community 0:59:08 Transitioning from Freelancing to Content Creation 1:04:37 The Role of a Supportive Partner in Freelancing 1:08:42 Navigating the Challenges of Freelancing 1:10:34 Staying Motivated and Learning New Skills 1:13:19 The Importance of Authenticity in Content Creation 1:15:19 Ethical Considerations in Web Development 1:20:09 Research and Preparation for High-Quality Tutorials ❤️ Support for this channel comes from our friends at Scrimba – the coding platform that's reinvented interactive learning: https://scrimba.com/freecodecamp