Wow. I thought I recognized that name - the author of this post interviewed me for a job several years ago when I was first learning how to code. It didn't work out as I was waaaaaaay too junior at the time but I'll always remember that interview fondly.

My background was more in math and my interests were in PL theory, so he quizzed me on the lambda calculus, and turned me onto Essentials of Programming Languages by Friedman & Wand (and off the bad compiler books I had been reading previously), and pointed me towards material for further study in programming languages and lambda calculus.

The interview was still fairly practically oriented despite those detours, and I learned a great deal that helped me to quickly find a solid technical role not long after. But more importantly, he and his colleagues who interviewed me were incredibly kind and respectful, and instilled this sense that both computer science and software engineering could be a lot of fun. :)