5 ms·

How much software engineer should invest in career growth

37 points by wkoszek 10y ago

VLM 10y ago
The article assumes all learning is academic from authorities and never from doing. WRT doing at only $280/mon at a reasonable billing rate I could burn thru my learning budget on a saturday afternoon and barely keep up with the times much less get ahead. The other problem is it assumes all learning is of the mind, but if you get it in your head to get involved in physical aspects of the field, then some FPGA boards and oscilloscopes and next thing you know you've blown your budget until 2030 unless you're careful. Arguably even "mind only" developers who buy anything more than a raspberry pi should account for their annual $3000 mac laptop and $500 phone (and its $1200/yr of phone service) and pretty soon you have no budget left over just buying hardware alone.
- Namrog84 10y ago
  There is definitely a fuzzy line on multi-use items though. I buy my computer for many purposes, not just a singular objective. Otherwise my budgets would all be overblown. My PC is more than just learning, it is for personal use, work, gaming, tv, movies, education, entertainment, communication, and so many different things. If purchased for any individual one of those, it'd be quite costly.
- wkoszek 10y ago
  You're right, I was thinking about software engineers in software field when writing this. But I actually came from embedded field, and I did use embedded boards and some equipment before, and there are ways to get it cheaper. Development board is maybe $400-$500 and the scope, if you lease it or buy it via monthly payments, should fit in this 5%.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    Even when thinking of software you sometimes need special hardware or software, lots of recent machine learning tools need a GPU to run well, so that's another $500+
Namrog84 10y ago
While I definitely feel investing in one's self is worthwhile. I am not sure if this is the right approach to think about the issue. The author compares the % of what companies spend on R&D and correlates that with what an individual should spend on educational material per year. I'd be more inclined to say it should be a % of your time. Instead of 5% of your salary, perhaps 5% minimum of your time per year should be spent towards learning. Though probably more is better? It'd be an easy trap to get into of spending 5% on "education/R&D" and not actually fully leveraging or utilizing it. One could blow that easily on a VM or server and some books and just feel like they've accomplished something when in reality they have barely leveraged what they have. Though if you are pursuing free/low cost education material, that small costs here and there shouldn't be fretted over.
- bdcravens 10y ago
  I think the point of the article is to establish the point that we should be purposeful about allocating funds for growth. Time and resource utilization shouldn't be ignored, they're just outside the scope of the article.
- wkoszek 10y ago
  Time I haven't yet covered. This will be topic of some of my new articles. But on the budget, I think I showed exactly the opposite: I show how to allocate like a business. In a smart way, with a proper justification and without overspending.
codingdave 10y ago
Content aside, I'm not at all sure that self-posting your own blog post as a "Show HN" is appropriate.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  How is it not? You want to show HN something you did to get feedback on it. Seems within the spirit on "Show HN" IMO. For instance I've posted a library I wrote on HN which gave me some good feedback to act on. If I had waited until someone else posted it for feedback it likely would have never happened.
  - codingdave 10y ago
    Because I was under the impression Show HN was for projects you had worked on. Blog posts aren't projects.
  - detaro 10y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html > Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. > Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, so they can't be Show HNs.
    - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
      Oh. Hmm. Honestly blog posts can provide a ton of value to the community and some developers like to write. I feel like blog post is a different category than sign-up pages and fundraisers and should be okay. But that's just my opinion. Spamming blog posts will get pushed down anyway.
      - codingdave 10y ago
        Nobody is saying blog posts cannot be shared on HN - we are saying they do not fit the category of "Show HN". That is a particular category, with specific implications.
bastijn 10y ago
This made me think of an earlier study performed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Strategy&, a business unit within PriceWaterhouseCoopers, has been publishing an annual report of the top 1000 most innovative companies in the world for over 12 years. In that time, they have found that there is no statistically significant relationship between R&D spending and sustained financial performance[0]. This finding applies to total R&D spend, as well as R&D spending as a percent of revenues.[1] Spending on R&D is not related to growth in sales or profits, increases in market capitalization or shareholder returns.[2] In every annual report that Strategy& have published, the top 10 most innovative companies are often not the top 10 spenders on R&D. [0] AlisonSmith(2014 ). R &Dspendingunlinkedtofinancialperformance,studyshows. T heFinancialTimes. https://www.ft.com/content/cdfe1b2c-5abf-11e4-b449-00144feab7de#axzz3I5ez9PAL https://www.ft.com/content/cdfe1b2c-5abf-11e4-b449-00144feab... [1] BarryJaruzelski,JohnLoehr,andRichardHolman(2014). T heGlobalInnovation1000:ProvenPathstoInnovationSuccess. http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00295 http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00295 [2] BarryJaruzelski,JohnLoehr,andRichardHolman(2012). T heGlobalInnovation1000:MakingIdeasWork http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00140 http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00140
- wkoszek 10y ago
  This is correct and I could believe it, but I haven't covered impact on salary. In my analogy the career growth would probably translate to growth potential, but now actual money. Up to some point I think with career growth the salary will grow, and then the plateau stage will come. I suspect this is what companies are seeing.

37 points by wkoszek 10y ago

VLM 10y ago

The article assumes all learning is academic from authorities and never from doing. WRT doing at only $280/mon at a reasonable billing rate I could burn thru my learning budget on a saturday afternoon and barely keep up with the times much less get ahead. The other problem is it assumes all learning is of the mind, but if you get it in your head to get involved in physical aspects of the field, then some FPGA boards and oscilloscopes and next thing you know you've blown your budget until 2030 unless you're careful. Arguably even "mind only" developers who buy anything more than a raspberry pi should account for their annual $3000 mac laptop and $500 phone (and its $1200/yr of phone service) and pretty soon you have no budget left over just buying hardware alone.

Namrog84 10y ago
There is definitely a fuzzy line on multi-use items though. I buy my computer for many purposes, not just a singular objective. Otherwise my budgets would all be overblown. My PC is more than just learning, it is for personal use, work, gaming, tv, movies, education, entertainment, communication, and so many different things. If purchased for any individual one of those, it'd be quite costly.
wkoszek 10y ago
You're right, I was thinking about software engineers in software field when writing this. But I actually came from embedded field, and I did use embedded boards and some equipment before, and there are ways to get it cheaper. Development board is maybe $400-$500 and the scope, if you lease it or buy it via monthly payments, should fit in this 5%.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  Even when thinking of software you sometimes need special hardware or software, lots of recent machine learning tools need a GPU to run well, so that's another $500+

Namrog84 10y ago

While I definitely feel investing in one's self is worthwhile. I am not sure if this is the right approach to think about the issue. The author compares the % of what companies spend on R&D and correlates that with what an individual should spend on educational material per year. I'd be more inclined to say it should be a % of your time. Instead of 5% of your salary, perhaps 5% minimum of your time per year should be spent towards learning. Though probably more is better? It'd be an easy trap to get into of spending 5% on "education/R&D" and not actually fully leveraging or utilizing it. One could blow that easily on a VM or server and some books and just feel like they've accomplished something when in reality they have barely leveraged what they have. Though if you are pursuing free/low cost education material, that small costs here and there shouldn't be fretted over.

bdcravens 10y ago
I think the point of the article is to establish the point that we should be purposeful about allocating funds for growth. Time and resource utilization shouldn't be ignored, they're just outside the scope of the article.
wkoszek 10y ago
Time I haven't yet covered. This will be topic of some of my new articles. But on the budget, I think I showed exactly the opposite: I show how to allocate like a business. In a smart way, with a proper justification and without overspending.

codingdave 10y ago

Content aside, I'm not at all sure that self-posting your own blog post as a "Show HN" is appropriate.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
How is it not? You want to show HN something you did to get feedback on it. Seems within the spirit on "Show HN" IMO. For instance I've posted a library I wrote on HN which gave me some good feedback to act on. If I had waited until someone else posted it for feedback it likely would have never happened.
- codingdave 10y ago
  Because I was under the impression Show HN was for projects you had worked on. Blog posts aren't projects.
- detaro 10y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html > Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. > Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, so they can't be Show HNs.
  - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
    Oh. Hmm. Honestly blog posts can provide a ton of value to the community and some developers like to write. I feel like blog post is a different category than sign-up pages and fundraisers and should be okay. But that's just my opinion. Spamming blog posts will get pushed down anyway.
    - codingdave 10y ago
      Nobody is saying blog posts cannot be shared on HN - we are saying they do not fit the category of "Show HN". That is a particular category, with specific implications.

bastijn 10y ago

This made me think of an earlier study performed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Strategy&, a business unit within PriceWaterhouseCoopers, has been publishing an annual report of the top 1000 most innovative companies in the world for over 12 years. In that time, they have found that there is no statistically significant relationship between R&D spending and sustained financial performance[0]. This finding applies to total R&D spend, as well as R&D spending as a percent of revenues.[1] Spending on R&D is not related to growth in sales or profits, increases in market capitalization or shareholder returns.[2] In every annual report that Strategy& have published, the top 10 most innovative companies are often not the top 10 spenders on R&D. [0] AlisonSmith(2014 ). R &Dspendingunlinkedtofinancialperformance,studyshows. T heFinancialTimes. https://www.ft.com/content/cdfe1b2c-5abf-11e4-b449-00144feab7de#axzz3I5ez9PAL https://www.ft.com/content/cdfe1b2c-5abf-11e4-b449-00144feab... [1] BarryJaruzelski,JohnLoehr,andRichardHolman(2014). T heGlobalInnovation1000:ProvenPathstoInnovationSuccess. http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00295 http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00295 [2] BarryJaruzelski,JohnLoehr,andRichardHolman(2012). T heGlobalInnovation1000:MakingIdeasWork http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00140 http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00140

wkoszek 10y ago
This is correct and I could believe it, but I haven't covered impact on salary. In my analogy the career growth would probably translate to growth potential, but now actual money. Up to some point I think with career growth the salary will grow, and then the plateau stage will come. I suspect this is what companies are seeing.