Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
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Back End Developer Roadmap
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![What happens when the model CANT fix it? Interview w/ software engineer Landon Gray [Podcast #213]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tZef2ZzbyuQ/mqdefault.jpg "What happens when the model CANT fix it? Interview w/ software engineer Landon Gray [Podcast #213]
Today Quincy Larson interviews Landon Gray. Hes a software engineer who worked at agencies for years. Then he taught himself AI assisted software development. And now hes helping other devs do the same.
Landons famous for proving that RAG pipelines can be written in Ruby and popularizing Ruby as a language for building machine learning projects.
He works as an AI Engineer at a enterprise software company and runs a popular newsletter.
We talk about:
- How Large Language Models are just the raw fuel, and harnesses are the real engine to get things done
- Why building your professional network is so helpful for finding clients and landing job interviews
- Why Landon helped port Python machine learning libraries to Ruby, and why he thinks that – now that AI is just an API call away – the Ruby ecosystem is better-positioned than ever.
Support for this podcast comes from the 10,113 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:
- Landons Substack newsletter: https://landongray.substack.com
Community news section:
1. freeCodeCamp just published a new YouTube course that will teach you beginner Front-end Development skills like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You can code along at home and build a variety of projects: your own interactive quiz game, a currency converter app, and even a Trello-style kanban board. Along the way youll learn how to use APIs and local storage to extend the functionality of these bite-sized apps. (12 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-19-web-dev-projects-using-html-css-javascript/
2. Learn how to properly test your software and ensure it doesnt break when you add new features. Prolific freeCodeCamp instructor Beau Carnes teaches this course. Hell introduce you to the Testing Pyramid and show you how to balance fast unit tests against complex end-to-end user journeys. Youll also learn how to automate some of this testing using an open source library called Playwright and an LLM testing tool. (1 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/software-testing-with-playwright/
3. More and more apps are relying on probabilistic LLM output alongside deterministic API calls. This makes life harder for devs who now need to ensure that hallucinations dont escape to end users. freeCodeCamp just published this advanced observability tutorial that will teach you emerging best practices and architectural patterns for dealing with this. (40 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/build-end-to-end-llm-observability-in-fastapi-with-opentelemetry/
4. Learn how to containerize your MLOps pipelines. This tutorial is the result of hard-won deployment wisdom. The author spent three weeks debugging a Python library error due to dependency conflicts. His eventual answer: containerize entire project with Docker. This tutorial will show you how to structure your containers with multi-stage builds. Youll also learn how to set up experiment tracking with MLflow, versioning with DVC, GPU passthrough, and other advanced techniques. (40 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/containerize-mlops-pipeline-from-training-to-serving/
6. Todays song of the week is 2006s Everybody by UK producers Basement Jaxx. If youre familiar with their work, you know youre in for a psychedelic yet silly romp. Between the spoons, bongos, and swooning chorus the song feels like its held together with duct tape but it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrMot81VE8g
00:00 Intro & New Courses: Front-End (HTML/CSS/JS), Testing (Playwright), and MLOps (Docker/LLMs).
02:15 Song of the Week and how to support Free Code Camp.
03:16 Landon Gray on AI-assisted dev and Harnessing LLMs for structured outputs.
08:12 Iterative cycles, defining AI vs. Data roles, and avoiding black box engineering.
16:41 Creative solutions for model latency and reliability.
19:20 AIs impact on code quality and the importance of cultivating Taste.
24:25 Inbound job searches, building in public, and the dangers of career isolation.
32:25 Specializing in your Top 10% and practicing servant leadership.
40:02 Consulting tips: Rapid learning, closing deals, and avoiding unmotivated buyers.
51:41 The rise of niche teams and selling strategy over raw code.
58:44 Protecting your reputation, researching culture fit, and preventing burnout.
1:11:32 Client trust and value-based pricing.
1:18:00 Why Ruby/Rails is a powerful alternative for rapid AI/SaaS development.
1:24:46 Networking at conferences and the power of community support.")
![The world still needs people who care - CodePen founder Chris Coyier interview [Podcast #212]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uJrh9GHrC38/mqdefault.jpg "The world still needs people who care - CodePen founder Chris Coyier interview [Podcast #212]
Today Quincy Larson interviews Chris Coyier. Hes a front-end developer and co-founder of CodePen and the CSS Tricks blog. He has also recorded more than 700 podcasts about software engineering.
We talk about:
- How he thinks front-end development tools are 90% of the way to where they need to be
- How developing for the web is just as good as mobile, and you can reuse it everywhere.
- And why high skilled devs working on novel problems dont need to worry about AI disrupting their careers
Support for this podcast comes from the 10,113 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:
- Chriss personal site: https://chriscoyier.net/
- CodePen: https://codepen.io/chriscoyier
- ShopTalk Podcast: https://shoptalkshow.com/
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chriscoyier.net
- Mastodon: https://front-end.social/@chriscoyier
Community news section:
1. freeCodeCamp just published a comprehensive DevOps course that will teach you how to deploy your apps to production safely. Youll build your own CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery) pipeline. Along the way youll learn about branching strategies, Jenkins Freestyle Jobs, GitFlow, Maven, and more. This is a perfect way to build your skills over spring break. (17 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/ci-cd-in-production-with-jenkins/
2. Learn how to fine-tune an LLM to incorporate your own proprietary data. This is super useful if you need off-the-shelf LLMs to do novel tasks that they werent originally optimized for. This course will teach you all about Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning, and how to use techniques like LoRA and QLoRA to train models on consumer-grade hardware. No data center needed. (12 hour YouTube course): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-how-to-fine-tune-llms-in-12-hours/
3. Learn how to protect your sensitive data by running your LLMs locally. This quick tutorial will show you how to get up and running with Ollama, Python, LangChain, and LangGraph. It will also walk you through the various trade-offs you face when you avoid sharing your data with big tech companies. (15 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/protect-sensitive-data-with-local-llms/
4. Learn how agents are changing the field of software development. This in-depth tutorial will get you hands-on experience with building your own Flutter mobile app using Antigravity and Stitch. You dont even need to know Flutter. You just need to understand the core concepts and make the architectural decisions. Youll quickly see how sophisticated these tools have gotten over the past few months. (40 minute read): https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-how-ai-agents-are-changing-development-by-building-a-flutter-app/
5. Todays album of the week is 1982 jazz fusion classic Mint Jams by Casiopea. This is the perfect record to put on when you want to get a ton of work done, and feel great in the process. For every song, each of the performers gets a solo. That means every track youre going to hear a spicy bass solo, keyboard solo, drum solo, and guitar solo. Love it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEI3PpXEAo
Intro & Updates
- 00:00:00 Chris Coyier Intro
- 00:00:23 CI/CD Pipeline Course
- 00:00:56 Local LLM Fine-Tuning
- 00:02:04 AI Flutter Tutorial
- 00:02:40 Album: Mint Jams (1982)
- 00:03:06 Support Free Code Camp
Front-End & AI
- 00:03:38 Chris’s Podcast History
- 00:05:08 Is CSS still worth learning?
- 00:07:12 Full-stack convergence
- 00:08:17 Market disruption & God Tier skills
- 00:10:08 AI vs. Unique Design Art
- 00:13:51 New standards: Transitions & Anchors
- 00:16:30 Is the front-end toolbox finished?
- 00:19:56 The CSS :has selector
- 00:21:16 Web tech for native apps
CodePen’s Evolution
- 00:24:06 Simplicity & the 3 boxes
- 00:25:06 Origins: ZIP files to browser-editing
- 00:27:33 Power of CodePen Embeds
- 00:30:35 Tech debt & modern frameworks
- 00:33:41 CodePen 2.0 Architecture
- 00:35:12 Culture of Stability
Careers & Lifestyle
- 00:37:31 FCC v10 & demographics
- 00:39:58 Abridging curricula for AI
- 00:41:21 Logical Properties vs. Legacy CSS
- 00:43:58 Specializing on the job
- 00:45:15 Why humans are better than AI for responsibility
- 00:48:02 Living in Bend, Oregon
- 00:51:39 Wufoo to SurveyMonkey
- 00:54:25 Blogging: CSS-Tricks & IE6
- 00:56:41 SEO & Community Feedback
- 00:59:34 Ad revenue disruption
- 01:06:01 Blogging for clear thinking
- 01:09:10 Knowledge via articulation
- 01:15:13 CS enrollment trends
- 01:16:32 Closing: Why caring matters")
