The freeCodeCamp Podcast

Jessica Rose, a developer and teacher who runs the Bad Website Club and has worked on open data at Mozilla. She talks about embracing difficulty to learn better. She explains why silly projects and low-pressure, cohort-based learning work. She discusses ethics around open datasets, the limits of AI for deep learning, and practical ways to minimize distractions and build craft.

Mark Mahoney, a longtime computer science professor and former developer who built the Playback Press learning platform. He discusses how to learn programming wisely during the AI hype. Short takes on using LLMs for prototyping, avoiding de-skilling, interactive teaching, the value of hands-on projects, and why CS fundamentals still matter now.

Chris Griffing, a software engineer and prolific Twitch live-coder who taught himself web development after a decade as a snowboard bum. He talks about streaming code in public, pragmatic use of LLMs versus manual coding, when tools like Next.js or SSR are overkill, being a polyglot developer, and practical tips for starting and monetizing a coding stream.

Landon Gray, a software and AI engineer who popularized RAG in Ruby and teaches AI-assisted development. He explains harnesses that shape LLM outputs and reduce hallucinations. He talks about why understanding models matters for debugging and latency. He shares advice on building reputation, consulting, client discovery, and why Ruby still works well for AI projects.

Chris Coyier, front-end developer and CodePen co-founder who created CSS-Tricks, talks about the near-complete front-end toolbox and exciting new CSS features. He explains why the web can be a first-class app platform. They cover CodePen’s origins, building a unified editor, and why craftsmanship and caring still matter in web development.

Luke Ciciliano, a freelance front-end developer who runs Modern Website Design and teaches freelance-focused courses, shares practical consulting tactics. He discusses why small and medium businesses are a growing market. He explains how AI and low-code tools create more client conversations. He highlights communication, discovery calls, pricing by outcomes, maintenance revenue, and when to choose WordPress or custom builds.

Justin Searls, software engineer and early-retired cofounder who now builds open-source tools and experiments with coding agents. He talks about how AI tooling and agents are changing who does the work. Verifiability and testing become central when agents contribute. Ambitious, product-minded developers can gain a big edge over order-takers.

Carl Brown, YouTuber behind Internet of Bugs and veteran engineer from Amazon, IBM, and Sun, discusses LLM limits and why they are a compressed approximation of the web. He talks about using LLMs as drafting tools, the tradeoff between speed and code quality, and why integration testing and forensic debugging remain essential. He also covers career strategy: favor smaller companies, build end-to-end projects, and prepare for ageism with consulting.

Shawn Wang, software engineer, founder of the AI Engineer Conference, and host of the Latent Space podcast. He explores three research frontiers: memory/world models, multimodality, and embodied AI. He contrasts improving model weights with surrounding harness systems and discusses how developers should rethink learning and career strategies in an AI-driven world.

Robby Russell, creator of Oh My Zsh and CEO of Planet Argon, riffs on long-term maintainability and developer workflows. He talks about why most dev time is maintenance and how thinking long-term changes priorities. He warns about rewrites and outsourcing, shows how to reduce single-developer risk, and shares pragmatic views on AI tools and faster feedback loops.