Chris Lee
Co-Host of Launch School Podcast
Chris started his career in 2002 as a software engineer at IBM working on large enterprise software. He started working with Ruby in 2007 consulting and coding for several startups. Later, he founded his own startup, a video interviewing platform for recruiters and hiring managers. Chris has also been a senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting in its Salesforce practice as a SME (subject matter expert) for Ruby, Heroku and iOS development. Prior to Launch School, Chris was the engineering manager and technical lead in a VC backed startup in San Francisco.
In all, Chris has over 16 years of software engineering, consulting, and various leadership experience. His work experience has ranged from Fortune 100 companies to startups and small businesses. When he's not programming, he enjoys playing basketball and spending time with his wife and poodle.
Chris Lee has hosted 39 Episodes.
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S5E15: Daniel Nalesnik - Founder of HackChinese and Core Graduate
May 27th, 2024 | Season 5 | 1 hr 21 mins
career transition, coding, education, engineer, engineering, entrepreneur, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
In this episode, Chris interviews Daniel Nalesnik, the founder of Hack Chinese and core graduate. Daniel used the fundamentals learned in core to go on a build his own business.
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S5E12: Missy Lovegren - From Fine Arts to Software Engineering
April 15th, 2024 | Season 5 | 1 hr 20 mins
capstone, career transition, coding, education, engineer, engineering, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
In this episode, Chris interviews Missy Lovegren, a Capstone grad and software engineer at New Relic. Missy was a TA at Launch School and part of a 2022 Capstone cohort.
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S5E10: Felicia Bacon - A Lifelong Learner Thriving at Starbucks
March 18th, 2024 | Season 5 | 1 hr 26 mins
capstone, coding, education, engineer, engineering, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
In this episode, Chris has a conversation with Felicia Bacon, a Capstone grad and Software Engineer at Starbucks.
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S5E8: Alex Strick van Linschoten - Open Source Machine Learning, based in Europe
February 19th, 2024 | Season 5 | 55 mins 33 secs
capstone, coding, education, engineer, engineering, europe, launch school, machine learning, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
In this episode, Chris interviews Alex, a Capstone grad who became interested in machine learning and came to Launch School after over 15 years of history research in Afghanistan. He's now a machine learning engineer at ZenML.
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S5E7: Launch School Explained with Chris Lee
February 5th, 2024 | Season 5 | 1 hr 23 mins
capstone, coding, education, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
In this episode, Chris begins by telling the story of his journey into teaching software and how it led to Launch School in its current form. He then answers the most frequently asked questions from both current and potential students.
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S5E6: Julia Martin - The Journey from JS101 to Databricks
January 22nd, 2024 | Season 5 | 52 mins 24 secs
capstone, coding, data, databricks, education, engineer, engineering, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
Chris interviews Julia Martin, a Capstone graduate and software engineer working at Databricks. She shares her journey from quitting her job to study at Launch School full-time, to her day-to-day now at a large tech company.
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S5E4: Jon Kulton - From Software Engineering to SRE
December 25th, 2023 | Season 5 | 57 mins 59 secs
capstone, coding, data, education, engineer, engineering, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
Chris interviews Jon Kulton in this episode. Jon completed Capstone at the end of 2019 and landed his first role during the beginning of the COVID pandemic. He has since transitioned to working for Datadog, a public company that provides monitoring and security services for cloud applications.
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S5E3: Student Resources - The SPOT & GatherTown
December 11th, 2023 | Season 5 | 54 mins 30 secs
coding, community, education, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
Chris has a conversation with JD and Daniel about The SPOT community and GatherTown, two resources available to Launch School students.
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S5E1: Ginni Pinckert - Ancient Greek to AI
November 13th, 2023 | Season 5 | 1 hr 8 mins
ai, capstone, coding, education, engineer, engineering, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
Chris and Ginni chat about Ginni's experiences through Launch School and Capstone, as well as how her new job as a software engineer at Sudowrite is going.
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S4E8: Capstone Salary Reflections
December 19th, 2022 | Season 4 | 27 mins 51 secs
capstone, launch school, programming, salaries, software engineer
In this episode Chris and Karis discuss the latest Capstone Salaries page update. Chris shares important data to look out for on the new salaries page, and provides advice when comparing other career-launching programs out there on the market. This discussion is to be used as a companion guide to the salaries page, and is especially helpful for those looking to have more clarity on Capstone. The episode finishes with some announcements and upcoming events.
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S4E7 Bytes: Biggest Takeaways This Year
December 7th, 2022 | Season 4 | 30 mins 13 secs
coding, launch school, mastery, programming, software engineering, tech
In this bytes episode Karis asks Chris and the Launch School community "What was some of their biggest takeaways this year at Launch School?" After the students and staff share their takeways, Karis closes the episode with some Launch School announcements and upcoming events.
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S4E6: Programming Essentials Workshops Q&A and Catchup with UK Capstone Graduate Kelvin
September 28th, 2022 | Season 4 | 56 mins 25 secs
coding, launch school, learn to program, software engineering
In this episode Chris and Karis conduct a Q&A session about Launch School's new Programming Essentials Workshops, what they are why new programmers would want to attend. Karis then catches up with Launch School Alumnus Kelvin, who shares his experiences as a UK Capstone student and what it's like working as a software engineer based in the UK. The episode comes to a close with some Launch School announcements and upcoming events.
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S4E5: Transforming at Launch School
August 22nd, 2022 | Season 4 | 1 hr 19 mins
coding, isa, launch school, software engineering, transformation
In this episode Chris and Karis discuss a recent inspirational talk given by Core graduate student Jake. Chris answers some additional Launch School-related questions including how ISAs work. Karis interviews Capstone graduate and Launch School Alumna Catherine, who shares what life has been like as a software engineer a year and a half on from her studies at Launch School. The episode ends with a few announcements about the latest events.
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S4E4: Capstone Salaries, Recession & The Younger Students of Launch School
July 19th, 2022 | Season 4 | 1 hr 14 mins
In this episode Chris discusses the latest 2021 Capstone salaries, and provides some advice for students that have concerns about the recession. Karis catches up with younger students, Ethan and Tyler, and learns how their Launch School studies are already making an impact on their software engineering journey. Karis ends the episode with a few announcements about the latest events at Launch School.
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S4E3: The Story of Launch School
May 5th, 2022 | Season 4 | 2 hrs 3 mins
how to learn, launch school, programming
In this episode Launch School Student Felicia interviews Chris as he shares the origin story of how Launch School came to be. He also offers his unique perspective on how Launch School approaches learning, coding education and software engineering. The show includes several new announcements that students should be aware of.
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S4E2: Latest News, Interviews and Catch-up with Mandy
April 14th, 2022 | Season 4 | 1 hr 12 mins
how to learn, launch school, programming
This episode Karis and Chris discuss the all the latest Launch School interviews and presentations. Karis also catches up with the co-host from last season Mandy who now works at Mozilla. Finally they leave you with a number of new announcements that students should be aware of.