Beau Carnes has run the freeCodeCamp community YouTube channel for the past 5 years, taking it from 75,000 subscribers all the way up to 9 million.

Beau started out working as a Special Education teacher at a Michigan high school. He taught himself how to code before working as a software engineer. He has since taught dozens of programming tutorials and helped curate more than 1,000 courses for the freeCodeCamp community YouTube channel.

During our conversation, Beau shares the challenges he faced during his career transition as a father of 3 kids. He talks about how he finished a second degree in software development in just 6 months. And he even talks about his love of stilt-walking.

For the first time ever, I’ve published this interview as a YouTube video podcast as well:

And of course, you can listen to the freeCodeCamp Podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. You can also listen to the podcast below, right in your browser:

Be sure to follow The freeCodeCamp podcast in your favorite podcast app. And share this podcast with a friend. Let’s inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.

Show notes:

Beau’s YouTube course style guide: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-create-a-great-technical-course/

How I got a second degree and earned 5 developer certifications in just one year, while working and raising two kids https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-i-got-a-second-degree-and-earned-5-developer-certifications-in-just-one-year-while-working-and-2b902ee291ab/

Beau’s personal website: http://carnes.cc/