Tips from a 20-year developer veteran turned consultancy founder – Tapas Adhikary [Podcast #206]

Today Quincy Larson interviews Tapas Adhikari. He's a software engineer who runs a firm of 20 developers who build projects for companies around the world. He's also a prolific teacher, having written 300 programming tutorials - including 47 for freeCodeCamp – and runs a popular English and Bangla-language YouTube channels. We talk about: - The changing nature of software engineering - Tips for building your own fully-remote software development firm and landing clients abroad - Lessons from mentoring more than 500 developers over the years Support for this podcast comes from the 10,104 kind folks who donate to our charity each month. Join them and support our mission at https://donate.freecodecamp.org Get a freeCodeCamp tshirt for $20 with free shipping anywhere in the US: https://shop.freecodecamp.org Links from our discussion: - Tapas's handbook on how to get started contributing to open source projects (required reading IMHO): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/a-practical-guide-to-start-opensource-contributions/ - Tapas's many tutorials and handbooks on freeCodeCamp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/atapas/ - The developer firm Tapas co-founded and nows runs with more than a dozen developers: https://www.creowis.com/ - Tapas's personal website: https://www.tapasadhikary.com/ - Tapas's English-langauge programming tutorial YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@tapasadhikary Community news section: 1. freeCodeCamp just published a new Python Data Structures & Algorithms course that will help you understand key Dynamic Programming patterns. These approaches come up all the time in technical interviews. You'll learn Constant Transition, the Grid Pattern, Two Sequences, Interval DP, Non-Constant Transition, Knapsack-like problems, and more. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-dynamic-programming-through-dynamic-visuals/ 2. If you're interested in building projects on top of Large Language Models, freeCodeCamp just published a Python course on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). You'll learn how to turn documents into embeddings then store them in vector databases. The course will also walk you through building your own Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. (2 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-rag-and-mcp-fundamentals/ 3. Learn How Execution Context Works in JavaScript. If you're a JS dev, this is essential reading. You'll learn about interpretation vs compilation. Then you'll see how Node.js and the V8 engine load and execute code. (full length handbook): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-execution-context-works-in-javascript-handbook/ 4. Finally, this weekend you can build your own fully-playable horror game based on the legendary “The Backrooms” liminal space. For some reason my kids are terrified of this weirdly normal-looking office setting. You'll build your own environment using Unreal Engine 5 and the Blueprints visual scripting tool that abstracts away all the C++ code for you. Throw in a body-cam style camera perspective and some creepy monsters and you'll have the perfect way to scare friends and family alike. (3 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-a-the-backrooms-game-in-unreal-engine-5/ 5. Today's song of the week is And the Cradle Will Rock off Van Halen's 1980 album Women and Children first. The song starts out with a groove on a heavily distorted Wurlitzer elctromechanical piano. I love Michael Anthony's 8th note bassline and the loose high hats under Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo. This is a great lunch break song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11mBDT5mpdw