The integration of coding in K-12 mathematics education is occurring throughout jurisdictions around the world. Best practices for applying coding practices in teaching mathematics are gaining research attention, and teacher education programmes are increasingly offering professional development to support this initiative. This paper discusses strategies and lessons learned over a 5-year period of developing and offering mandatory coding education as part of mathematics teacher preparation. We identify some of the requisite knowledge and experiences needed in order to overcome coding anxiety and begin to adopt coding as part of mathematics teaching practice. In particular, we discuss a distinction between learning coding through mathematics and learning mathematics through coding.