Ditching a Microsoft Job to Enter Startup Purgatory with Lonewolf Engineer Sam Crombie [Podcast #171]


On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Sam Crombie. He's a software engineer and prolific open source contributor to freeCodeCamp. He left his job at Microsoft, got into Y Combinator, and is currently in startup pivot hell trying to decide how to use the half million he raised.
We talk about:
How useful are AI coding tools, really?
Tips for getting new users to care about your projects
What's its really like running a Y-Combinator-funded tech startup
Tips for getting into an Ivy League computer science degree program
Support for freeCodeCamp comes from the 11,384 kind folks who support our charity through a monthly donation. You can join these chill human beings and aid us in our mission by going to donate.freecodecamp.org
Links we talk about during our conversation:
Sam's course on how to audit university courses: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-audit-a-class-university-course/
College Compendium, a univeristy course auditing tool Sam built with fellow freeCodeCamp podcast alum Seth Goldin: https://collegecompendium.org/
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.
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Written by

Beau Carnes
Beau Carnes
I'm a teacher and developer with freeCodeCamp.org. I run the freeCodeCamp.org YouTube channel.