#40: Quincy Larson – Founder of Free Code Camp

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Engineering / Featured / Founders

#40: Quincy Larson – Founder of Free Code Camp

Written by Artur Meyster on April 11, 2017

#40: Quincy Larson – Founder of Free Code Camp

Coming from a nontraditional background as an educator living in China for years, Quincy combined his passion for education and technology to launch Free Code Camp, an open-source community that helps people learn how to code and practice their coding skills by building projects for nonprofits.

Quincy has indeed built a massive network of “campers” with close to a million developers learning how to code around the world. Free Code Camp has helped over 5,000 people find their first engineering jobs and 6,000 developers level up by getting better jobs.

Being a prolific writer that he is, Quincy is also the editor of freeCodeCamp, Medium’s largest technical publication read by 100,000 people every day.

Years in Tech	5
Lived In	Oklahoma/Bay Area
Current Job	Founder
Date Recorded	3/29/2017

Contact Info:

Quincy Larson

Free Code Camp

freeCodeCamp

Twitter: @ossia

Medium: https://medium.com/@quincylarson

Learning Resources

Free Code Camp

freeCodeCamp

How I made my first million dollars (in pro bono code)

Personal Projects/Partnerships:

Free Code Camp

freeCodeCamp

View their upcoming, more robust curriculum called the Beta Curriculum.

Articles:

A Cautionary Tale of Learning to Code. My Own.

What I Learned from Stack Overflow’s Massive Survey of 64,000 Developers

[02:30] Quincy narrates how he started to learn how to code as a School Director after seeing the potential of automating administrative stuff to free teachers up.

[06:22] Quincy explains why JavaScript is a great language to learn

[09:55] How Quincy formed his remote team of 3 people

[13:50] Free Code Camp allows campers to practice their coding skills while helping nonprofit organizations big time

[21:16] Their curriculum, six certifications, camper demographics, and the kind of startups campers join after

[26:55] Listen to Quincy’s thoughts on coding bootcamps and his explanation of the different Open Source licenses.

[29:50] Program or be programmed: Quincy discusses why everybody needs to learn how to code as a matter of need. He also provides some proof that truly anyone can code

[34:10] How the Medium publication provides a platform for people to share their stories

[37:30] A Congressional act that repeals privacy safeguards and what you can do to protect yourself using VPN’s

[44:57] Learn about Quincy’s struggles in learning how to code and the two key things to keep yourself motivated and moving forward. #100DaysOfCode

[48:40] Find out what forking is, some future projects Quincy’s is working on, and what his daily routine looks like