Spotify Developer Emma Bostian Talks Coding, Hiring Devs, and European Work Culture

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Emma Bostian. She's a software engineer turned manager at Spotify and Prolific coding teacher.

We talk about:

• How at her first developer job at IBM, Emma's boss told her: "You need to get your stuff together or you won't make it in this industry." And the transformation that followed.

• Emma's thoughts on Computer Science degrees. "Going to college gives you credibility and a network. You can get opportunities that way."

• How Emma hires software engineers. (Hint: she tries to disregard degrees completely.)

• How Emma intentionally procrastinates some big tasks to give her mind time to figure out the puzzle pieces

Can you guess what song I'm playing on my bass during the intro? It's from a 1979 punk song.

Also, I want to thank the 10,776 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

You can watch the interview on YouTube:

Or you can listen to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow the freeCodeCamp Podcast there so you'll get new episodes each Friday.

Links we talk about during our conversation:

• Emma on Twitter: https://x.com/emmabostian

• The Ladybug Podcast about women in tech that Emma helped host for several years: https://www.ladybug.dev/