On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Kamran Ahmed. He's a software engineer and founder of Roadmap.sh, which has skill tree roadmaps for lots of developer fields, such as DevOps. As a teacher, he's also a Google Developer Expert and a GitHub Star.
We talk about:
- Kamran's tips for finding the right open source projects to contribute to
- The story behind Roadmap.sh, his popular developer website
- Other specialized open source Kamran has built over the years
- How Kamran became a Google Developer Expert and GitHub Star
Can you guess what song I'm playing during the intro?
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Links we talk about during our conversation:
- Kamran's website, Roadmap.sh: https://roadmap.sh/
- Kamran's "Design Patterns for Humans" GitHub book: https://github.com/kamranahmedse/design-patterns-for-humans
- freeCodeCamp's "How to Contribute to Open Source guide" Quincy mentions: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-contribute-to-open-source-projects-beginners-guide/
- Kamran on Twitter: https://x.com/kamrify
Chapters
0:00:00 Introduction to Kamran Ahmed and Roadmap.sh
0:09:19 The Power of Open Source Projects
0:16:53 Navigating Career Progression in Software Engineering
0:22:42 Lessons Learned from Working in Different Companies
0:27:22 The Value of Putting Yourself Out There
0:38:47 From Small Company to Startup: Seizing Opportunities
0:51:03 Growth Through Trust and Leadership
0:54:09 Learning and Expanding Skills Through Diverse Projects
0:56:06 From Dubai to Germany: A Journey of Growth and Exploration
0:58:21 Launching a Platform and Learning from Mistakes
1:01:31 Balancing Individual Contribution and Management
1:10:02 Roadmap.sh: Growth and Success
1:13:41 Moving to the UK and Settling Down
1:18:58 Contributing to Open-Source and Establishing Projects
1:21:31 Finding Project Ideas by Looking at Other Languages and Solving Problems
1:26:10 Promoting Projects and Embracing Negative Feedback
1:38:28 Roadmap.sh: A Resource for Developers at All Levels