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Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

• PB2035 6y ago
  vistage.com - like an advisory board when don't have an advisory board Also known as TEC.COM.AU The Executive Connection. Was invalubale on my journey
• ukd1 6y ago
  For me it has been paying for folks to help pair code with new languages I'm learning has been amazing at speeding up / getting some nuance quickly. Latest language was Rust. Second, books.
  • tbrock 6y ago
    How do you find those people?
    • kareemm 6y ago
      Not OP but I've done the same and had good success on Upwork.
    • gogopuppygogo 6y ago
      Fiverr and Upwork.
    • derwiki 6y ago
      Airpair, Codementor, Hack Hands
  • laverick 6y ago
    I've done this before and found it excellent.
• bsenftner 6y ago
  Harvard Business Review has a series of collected articles from their magazine composing the "Business Fundamentals Series". It is the most comprehensive, easy to read and condense guide you'll find for doing excellent yet difficult work of any kind anywhere.
  • hiyer 6y ago
    Are you referring to this - https://store.hbr.org/product/mastering-business-fundamentals-a-harvard-managementor-curated-collection/567804 https://store.hbr.org/product/mastering-business-fundamental...?
    • bsenftner 6y ago
      It looks like, due to the popularity of this series, Harvard Business Review has started using "Harvard Business Fundamentals" as a general term for a type of online class offering. The product I'm referring to is a set of 7 bound volumes, each a collection of the "best of" articles from Harvard Business Review, each volume focusing on one topic such as Finance, Economics, Marketing, (Start Up) Operations & New Division Formation, Lobbying and Governance, and International Business. When I first saw them they were leather bound and nice library quality, but the set I have is paperbound. I got my set 20 years ago, but saw a revised publication of the entire set about 10 years ago, also a hard and softbound shelf of books. And don't let the age of these impact your opinion, these are the timeless articles that you probably recognize their ideas because these "radical ideas" when fully mainstream. These are close, and getting any of these will prove to be a fantastic resource: https://store.hbr.org/product/hbr-classics-boxed-set-16-books/10141 https://store.hbr.org/product/hbr-classics-boxed-set-16-book... https://store.hbr.org/product/hbr-s-10-must-reads-ultimate-boxed-set-14-books/10142?fromSkuRelated=10141&ab=store_idp_relatedpanel_-_hbr_s_10_must_reads_ultimate_boxed_set_14_books_10142 https://store.hbr.org/product/hbr-s-10-must-reads-ultimate-b... https://store.hbr.org/product/harvard-business-review-guides-ultimate-boxed-set-16-books/10278?fromSkuRelated=10141&ab=store_idp_relatedpanel_-_harvard_business_review_guides_ultimate_boxed_set_16_books_10278 https://store.hbr.org/product/harvard-business-review-guides...
• nikivi 6y ago
  Interestingly most things of value I have learned came from free content (Twitter/Articles/RandomGitHubRepos) especially ones that are open source. I guess the fact that community can build up on the content is super valuable.
  • Silhouette 6y ago
    That was my instinctive reaction as well: money is more for hiring help or buying equipment now. Most of my "professional development" now starts with online sources, including tutorial/reference information about different technologies and discussions with other developers, and most of that is freely available. In my earlier years as a developer I also bought a lot of books and some of them were very useful, and from time to time I still find a good one. If I were at the same stage today, I'd probably also consider online training courses, as some of them do look well presented and for getting up to speed quickly in a new area that sort of guided material can be helpful. (The same applies to in-real-life small group training courses, when that sort of thing becomes more practical again.) I'm not a big fan of convention/lecture formats, though. They tend to charge a lot for admission, and IME they are rarely worth the time and money, particularly because these days you can often find much of the best material from any particularly good presenters available freely from other sources anyway.
• lsiunsuex 6y ago
  I'm a big fan of pluralsight.com (no association). It's only $29 / month USD. I always go back to it when I want to brush up on something or learn something completely new. Not all videos / instructors are created equally of course, but their content has been the most consistent IMO.
  • ysoft 6y ago
    I wish I had known about pluralsight years ago. It has quality content. It helped me move to senior roles easily. I watch/listen daily during commute to work.
  • qntty 6y ago
    I second this. I've been using a work account recently to introduce myself to some new things and I was surprised at how much I liked it. It seems like it has gotten better in the past couple years especially.
  • spaetzleesser 6y ago
    Agreed. I have made it a rule now that instead of struggling for weeks figuring out something new I will spend two days on a Pluralsight or Udemy course to get some fundamentals first.
  • PatentlyDC123 6y ago
    Any instructors you recommend?
    • whitepoplar 6y ago
      Paolo Perrotta's git courses are excellent
  • clavalle 6y ago
    Pluralsight is great. But the courses that stand out to me are the ones that have labs, specificially Quiklabs, embedded in them. I wish they'd highlight those somehow so I can find them Nothing like hands on keyboard to get something new to click!
  • 6y ago
• rc_hackernews 6y ago
  Udi Dahan's "Learn Advanced Distributed Systems Design" course. https://particular.net/adsd https://particular.net/adsd At one point, I was considering paying out of pocket to attend the course. Fortunately, the company I was working for at the time wanted to send people to it and I got selected. After taking the course, even if I did have to pay myself, I wouldn't have been upset. That course is outstanding.
  • huhtenberg 6y ago
    Congratulations on your first HN post.
    • rc_hackernews 6y ago
      Thanks! I've been reading/lurking on this site for YEARS. For some reason though, the idea of posting has been nerve-rattling even though everyone is technically anonymous.
  • miguendes 6y ago
    Very interesting, can you elaborate more on what was the impact on your professional life? I wish I had that money now or my company could pay for me.
    • rc_hackernews 6y ago
      Not a super big impact professionally. Creating and maintaining distributed systems is hard. And even harder when business requirements, stakeholders, etc. get involved. One major take away I got from the course is to limit the more RPC-driven services I typically saw up to that point (and still see in current microservices examples to this day). He also gave a lecture on the different types of coupling, which I had never even heard of prior to the course. He also has a few talks on YouTube as well as others that work at Particular Software. I'd highly recommend checking out all of them.
  • animesh 6y ago
    Around April/May, they ran this course for free for 60 days. I progressed to few lessons, but had to stop as I had to focus on some critical stuff at work. I can tell it was good as far I went. I wish I convince my company next year to put us through this course.
• te_chris 6y ago
  Going through dataquest.io has been super rewarding. Backfilled a lot of forgotten stats and probability knowledge, math, learned data science python, good sql practice and now going through different ML techniques. Totally worth it if you want to do data stuff.
• spzb 6y ago
  I've found project management qualifications to give the best ROI. I've done Prince 2 and Scrum. Although I've never had a job title of Project Manager or Scrum Master, they've helped me get senior/lead developer jobs just because recruiters like to see those words on a CV.
  • mikelward 6y ago
    PRINCE2 is the best-designed course I've ever taken. Very concise and practical.
• camnora 6y ago
  Destroy All Software screencasts by Gary Bernhardt has some great content. Besides the typical CS degree, I felt that these videos were most pivotal in me writing better code. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts
  • blparker 6y ago
    Are the videos generally applicable or mainly to Ruby developers?
    • camnora 6y ago
      He covers a wide range of topics. The videos largely use Ruby and Python, but the ideas taught can span across languages. The topics can be found at https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog
  • semicolonandson 6y ago
    I was so disappointed when Gary stopped filming these videos that I started making my own screencasts in that style (non-beginner concepts, fast-paced, language agnostic, and terminal-first). They are on my site here: https://www.semicolonandsons.com/ https://www.semicolonandsons.com/ I'm not Gary, so the focus is shifted towards areas I have special interests in — namely: the day-to-day of running a software product business as an indie hacker/solopreneur.
  • christoomey 6y ago
    Destroy All Software is absolutely fantastic and without question worth $29/month. Probably more than any other single resource, DAS provided some of the most foundational ideas that still drive how I think about software. You can also view a handful of the screencasts for free (no sign in needed). Some of my personal favorites. * https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/functional-core-imperative-shell https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/funct... * https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/a-compiler-from-scratch https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/a-com... * https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/boundaries https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/boundaries Also, if podcasts are more your thing, we just had Gary as a guest on the Bike Shed podcast this week: https://www.bikeshed.fm/269 https://www.bikeshed.fm/269.
• SirensOfTitan 6y ago
  SuperMemo 18, and some time and patience for figuring out incremental reading and self-driven learning (and the SM interface).
• bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
  A subscription to O'Reilly's digital library https://learning.oreilly.com https://learning.oreilly.com
  • SuoDuanDao 6y ago
    Not sure why you'd get flagged for that, you don't seem to have an association?
  • zorked 6y ago
    This is the thing that used to be called Safari, right? This is great, but a tad expensive at $50/month. I wish O'Reilly would just charge a bit less for that.
    • Bishonen88 6y ago
      There are sales every now and then which get you pay less for whatever period you continue being subscribed. I pay 20 dollars a month since 2 years without any “student discount” shenanigans
    • unmole 6y ago
      Get an ACM Memebership instead, it's significantly less expensive. Among other things, it gives you access to O'Reilly Online.
      • zorked 6y ago
        Thanks!
    • dave84 6y ago
      I subscribed for a few months, cancelled and later in the year got an offer to resubscribe for around $200 per annum and they've locked that in for me ever since. Worth a try.
• paulgb 6y ago
  I've enjoyed having an O'Reilly Safari subscription for random access to books. In particular, the Pragmatic Programmer and Designing Data-Intensive Applications. I've also had good experiences with SCPD courses from Stanford, if your budget would cover those (they are at the other end of the price spectrum).
  • kranner 6y ago
    For anyone in India, the cheapest way to get a Safari Books subscription is via an ACM Professional or Student membership. It’s only INR 1500 per year.
    • animesh 6y ago
      Going through the student membership options, this seems to be only for current students. Was I missing something here?
      • kranner 6y ago
        I think that is as intended. People who are no longer students should select the Professional membership option, which is what I did.
  • phonebanshee 6y ago
    And check your local library. Here in Seattle you get to use Safari if you have a library card.
    • digianarchist 6y ago
      Toronto too albeit the old version.
  • orzig 6y ago
    I frequently muse about whether Safari, which is valuable, is worth the $399/y Pro: I like being able to sample the same topic from many prospectives (one chapter from each of 3-5 books) Cons: I wouldn't spend /that/ much on books in a year, the quality of the videos is widely variable, the search (including quality filtering) is _terrible_, and the inability to bookmark specific talks within a conference is infuriating. Part of the pain is how close it is to being really good! What's your pro/con list?
• gogopuppygogo 6y ago
  Hiring a tutor to mentor me in a technology I want to learn. Building MVP’s with them to master the tech.
  • kilroy123 6y ago
    How did you find such a mentor?
    • laverick 6y ago
      upwork, linkedin, codementor.io
• adambware 6y ago
  O’Reilly has a subscription that gives access to all of their books. Incredible amount of value over countless topics.
  • x87678r 6y ago
    $49/mo isn't cheap though, you can buy an awful lot of books for that money directly.
    • guiambros 6y ago
      $99/year via an ACM subscription [1]. And you get the printed copies of ACM magazines shipped to you every month. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22799753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22799753
      • miguendes 6y ago
        Is it still worth to get it from ACM? I remember that they have recently restricted a bunch of sfuff on the ACM subscription. Examples: live online trainings, katacoda, notebooks, sandboxes and certifications.
        • npsimons 6y ago
          > Examples: live online trainings, katacoda, notebooks, sandboxes and certifications. To some of us, we don't learn very well from those things. Books tend to have a higher knowledge value and other advantages. For a discount, I'd be willing to give those things up, assuming I wasn't already getting access to Safari through work and didn't already have a reading list of purchased books a mile long.
        • guiambros 6y ago
          Good question; I'm not sure. I only use books and rarely some video trainings. I just tried katacoda and, as expected, it doesn't work. That makes sense; ultimately there's a reason why Safari subscription costs $49/month.
    • 6y ago
• api 6y ago
  Starting a failed startup many years ago, if opportunity cost counts.
  • kilroy123 6y ago
    Right? I too failed at a self-funded startup. Most expensive 'mistake' of my life, but boy did I learn a lot.
    • kamaal 6y ago
      Making these kind of mistakes is something people avoid. But I'm a little happy I made this in my 20s. It can accelerate your learning by years to even decades. On a longish view of things a lot of things that are clear to me, are still murky to people in my age peer group. That kind of helps making lots of beneficial decisions especially financial and health before others can even see or realize them. You come out ahead in the bell curve. A start up failure might be painful, and even a little expensive. But it's like a college degree, or other high quality training program. It teaches you a lot and most of it is beneficial stuff if you are willing to apply the lessons elsewhere.
• jonathanstrange 6y ago
  The books I buy. I chose my literature very carefully and buy only the best classical and informative texts for personal use. I'm particularly happy about used copies or Indian versions of otherwise expensive handbooks.
• cik 6y ago
  I'll say books period. Every month I buy them, every month I read them, and I let the topics sort themselves out.
  • smt88 6y ago
    You can get them for free at the library. No need to spend professional development money on them.
    • rovr138 6y ago
      Assuming they're there.
      • Balgair 6y ago
        Many Librarians are more than happy to find what you are looking for on inter-library loan. If by some chance the book is still not there, you can request that they buy it with little to no fuss (at least in the US). The catalog that your local library has online is more of a starting bid. Additionally, if you have an alma mater, try looking with them. Most universities will give full library access to alumni if you are part of the alumni association, including journal articles, newpaper subscriptions, magazines, etc. Dues aren't too expensive and lifetime membership is reasonable, at least for me.
        • rovr138 6y ago
          This is true in some locations, sure. I'm currently living near Purdue University and that's definitely the situation here. But I'm from Puerto Rico, live in the city, graduated from the University of Puerto Rico and that's not the situation there. I can, probably, at best, get them to give me access to an old computer of theirs in the floor and access journals through there. It just depends on the area. But it does exist in some areas.
    • beagle3 6y ago
      Early in your career, yes. As you dig deeper they become available only in university libraries and then not even there. Most material is available for free on the internet, but like most open source material, you have to compile it yourself and that takes time. Good books save you the time by including important dependencies, normalizing notation, etc.
• WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  Get certified in the technologies your company (or projects use). AWS Certifications, Terraform Certifications. Buy the training material and study it; you don't have to take the test but understanding the technology is worth it.
• nolok 6y ago
  I found that (for me !) it was less useful to invest in learning to do new things, as opposed to investing in being more efficient and / or having my work time more pleasant. Make your work feel like pleasure and there is no limit to what you can achieve. So maybe don't only think "what can I be better at ?" but also "how can my life be better while I work ?". Software: A proper training session with a high level debugger for a language I wasn't used to, debuggers often have esoteric interface and "hidden" features, but learning to use them comfortably will make your life so much easier and pleasant. Buying a license for a good IDE (in my case, intellij). I use vs code 70% of my time but when I need to work on more complex pieces of code or debugging it just change your life. Hardware: Buying a proper "high quality" laptop, notably the screen (real matte screen because screw glares, and 2k/3k/4k resolution because you look at text all day so crystal clear font rendering matters a lot). A great chair with proper support because my back hurting at the end of every day is not ok. A switchable sitting / standing desk ( https://www.autonomous.ai/product/standing-desk https://www.autonomous.ai/product/standing-desk ). Quality noise cancelling headphones (Bose QC 35).
  • SuoDuanDao 6y ago
    This reminds me of a study I heard about some time back, comparing the highest performers in various trades to the average. Apparently one major predictor is that outlier performers spend more, even as a percentage of income, on their tools.
    • WanderPanda 6y ago
      But don’t let this be an excuse to fall for the toolbox fallacy!
      • anonymouse008 6y ago
        Try soldering without flux and tell me tools don't matter ;/
      • orzig 6y ago
        I assume you mean "a poor craftsman blames his tools". Is there actually any evidence that over-focusing on tools is a common problem? I understand it could be, and we've all probably wasted an hour here and there, but I don't fear drowning in a glass of water just because I've swallowed wrong a few times
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• symlinkk 6y ago
  Cmon, let’s be honest. A LeetCode subscription.
  • x87678r 6y ago
    Actually I learned a lot from doing leetcode problems then comparing my results with others, esp ones that were much quicker.
• Capira 6y ago
  Buying Bitcoin.
  • jkhdigital 6y ago
    Why, because it eventually provided some measure of financial independence?
• acomjean 6y ago
  If you aren’t great with your toolset spending time learning your editor/ide . I spent some time a decade ago learning better emacs skills (macros on the fly). Also getting better with jet brains IDEs. Made me more productive and my work more enjoyable. I also read some of the “Unix power tools” book from oreilly, to help my command line skills. Thirdly I had to learn symfony so I signed up for symfonycasts video tutorials and did the first lessons. It was a little cheeky but it really helped getting running. I liked the short lessons followed by actually doing.
  • npsimons 6y ago
    > I spent some time a decade ago learning better emacs skills (macros on the fly). This. I spent a week in 2000 focusing on learning Emacs. To this day, I'll use downtime to browse through packages, forums and documentation looking for new (to me) things to tweak Emacs with, or new (mostly CLI) tools. I just discovered the various rainbow modes last month, and life is so much better.
    • bluehatbrit 6y ago
      Do you have any advice of where to get started learning Emacs? I don't get on with vim and have the very basic editor / navigation commands down in emacs, but finding well written learning resources past that point seems really difficult. Should I learn a package manager before Emacs lisp? Or start learning some of the built in more advanced functionality past opening and editing files? I'm struggling to find resources as well as understanding what to learn next and it's proving quite a blocker.
      • acomjean 6y ago
        It was a long time ago, but I got a book "Learning GNU Emacs, 3rd Edition". Its a shame that there isn't better documentation to get past the navigation stuff. There were some short video tutorials I used too (I can't find right now...) The story linked here has a bunch of resources. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3492804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3492804 (https://batsov.com/articles/2011/11/30/the-ultimate-collection-of-emacs-resources/ https://batsov.com/articles/2011/11/30/the-ultimate-collecti...) its old but emacs hasn't changed a ton. https://batsov.com/articles/2011/11/30/the-ultimate-collection-of-emacs-resources/ https://batsov.com/articles/2011/11/30/the-ultimate-collecti...
• sz4kerto 6y ago
  A course about management and organisational development that used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychodrama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychodrama methods. Self-awareness and people skills are invaluable in software development. Other than that: rocking-kneeling chair from Varier.
• _____s 6y ago
  I don't think there's been any better value for me than Gary Bernhardt's Destroy All Software. I randomly stumbled upon it way back in 2014 when I had just learned my first programming language and was dabbling in Ruby, watched everything, and it made me much better at my job. It was $29/m at the time. Apart from that, I think maybe one or two books every year. Most of them are pretty poor, but the value of that odd book that totally changes how you think about certain things is pretty high. A lot of technical books also have _really_ good, practical advice that can be applied to day-to-day work if you want to read them. It's pretty valuable to know the technologies you're working with in some depth.
  • SonOfLilit 6y ago
    Gary's free conference talk videos have been some of the most mind-expanding materials I've met. Go watch them now. (his paid episodes are irrelevant to me because they tend to be about things I have a lot of experience with, otherwise I'd buy without question)
    • _____s 6y ago
      Are they on the Destroy All Software membership or somewhere else?
• pradeeprajr93 6y ago
  Budget is secondary or not not even needed. In this age of internet, everything (LITERALLY EVERYTHING) is free out there. All it need is interest, dedication and TIME. Don't have enough time? Escape the trap of OTT platforms. You will find some.
• donkeyd 6y ago
  You could try and see if you are allowed to spend the money on hours to work on a side project. If there's something you really feel like doing, but never get time to do, you could maybe spend a week working on that. Because it's a passion project it'll probably bring you more than any class can do.
• tekstar 6y ago
  For some introductory topics that I don't want to invest a ton of money into but want to know more, I've gotten good mileage on lynda.com, free access via my library. Some videos are quite old so for topics that move quick like technology, be sure to watch the version of the course that is 1-2 years old
• blatchcorn 6y ago
  An internet connection
• znpy 6y ago
  for me it was linux academy (paid by my employer of the time) and getting red hat certified (rhcsa). in order to get rhcsa certified i had to study and learn all of those little details about linux that i had only skimmed previously, and learn some things that i didn't even knew existed (ex: filesystems acl). Getting Red Hat certified definitely made me a better sysadmin and a devops engineer with a stronger linux background. edit: since moving on from that employer i'm paying for linuxacademy myself, although nowadays it's not clear what's going to happen when ther merger with acloudguru will be fully done.
• _wldu 6y ago
  Spend $9,000 US dollars to get a MS in CS, Data Science or Cyber Security from Georgia Tech. It's a solid top 10 CS program. It will take a few years, but it is definitely a great investment. If you don't already have an undergrad degree and/or want a quicker program, look at some of the reputable code/security academies that partner with major state universities. They cost a bit more 15K to 20K but are shorter (typically a year or less). Finally, there are certificate programs (offered by professional training companies) in security, coding, project management, etc. that cost 5K to 10K and last from a week to a month.
  • d3nj4l 6y ago
    You make it seem like getting into the MSCS program at Georgia Tech is just a matter of money!
    • _wldu 6y ago
      I didn't mean to imply that. Sorry. If you can get accepted and if you can complete the work, then it's a good program for you. But, yes, it is very difficult (as it should be).
    • wittjeff 6y ago
      If you take some of their online courses or a MicroMasters program and do well in them, they'll probably admit you to the online Masters program. Note: I work at edX.
    • Icathian 6y ago
      While getting accepted is obviously not a given, the program's admission rate is very high. The founder, Zvi Galil, is on record speaking to the philosophy of democratizing CS education that motivated the program. Which is a flowery way of saying that getting into OMSCS is much more about affording it than any other similar program. Getting out with the degree, however, requires some serious commitment. -Disclosure: I am currently a student in the program.
      • kingkongjaffa 6y ago
• jkingsbery 6y ago
  As many others have said, books are the best things I've spent money on, but let me say more: Do books sometimes say things that are obvious? Yes. For example, when I first read Martin Fowler's book Refactoring, I had been renaming variables and moving methods from one class to another for years. But he gave a new framework for thinking about something that obvious. I've found the idea of separating out my coding flow between adding functionality and improving code really helpful. Can you get the material for free? Almost always, yes. But it takes time to find the right material, and our time is valuable. A typical industry book is $40-$50, and a typical text book is $100-$150. The authors of these books have spent time organizing the material in a helpful way that you would otherwise need to spend. For some topics though, it's not just a matter of time savings. I'm working on a topic now that doesn't really have many useful books, so I'm having to read technical specifications produced by industry groups, which lack context and are pretty opaque. I'm missing having a book that explains these ideas in a coherent fashion. I have tried a few MOOCs for professional development. I've found they can be helpful for a superficial understanding, but they don't encourage the deep understanding I get from reading through a book.
  • smurpy 6y ago
    Two thumbs up for Refactoring by Fowler. Exactly. Even if you already know know the 300 odd refactorings he documents... The fact that his names let you talk about them with your team or more easily treat them as abstractions is a powerful win. That book is one of the best investments you can make.
  • kamaal 6y ago
    >>Do books sometimes say things that are obvious? There's a difference between things being obvious when a concept is exposed, and being proactively aware of a concept and having it as a practice/hobby. Unfortunately the difference between these two things is huge. Books are the cheapest and yet a high quality way of learning things, getting clarity and in general being exposed to rich quality of concepts. You could sure spend wandering in the wilderness learning things by experience over years. Or you can get them learning a book. Books aren't even that expensive, given how much they give you on the longer run.
• gorbachev 6y ago
  A slightly different perspective than what I've seen in responses so far. Best money I've spent on professional development is spending time with people having completely different backgrounds and perspectives to mine. Some examples include traveling abroad, attending meetups, conferences or networking events, talking with people who have interesting things to say, seeking out resources or people that offer counter points to your current thinking on things.
• ThePhysicist 6y ago
  I once did a two-day workshop on negotiation techniques, which covered not only methods but also helped me to become more comfortable dealing with the psychological stress that's induced in many negotiation situations. So far I'd say the course (which was free as I won it as a prize in a business plan competition) is directly responsible for at least 50-100.000 € of additional revenue that I made in the last years, simply because I negotiated more effectively. I'd highly recommend honing this skill as it will also help you as an employee, as even small gains in salary can add up to quite a lot of money over the years. For freelancers and entrepreneurs negotiation is also important of course and will greatly help you.
  • snarkypixel 6y ago
    Adding to that, even if you don't like negotiating, it's helpful to understand the tactics used by the other person so you can counter them (or at least be aware of it). For instance, my favorite tactic when someone is pushing hard to sell me something or negotiate is the "Appeal to the authority" (i.e. "Let me first talk about it to my wife (or co-founder) about it." Another popular negotiation tactic is to get asked between option A or option B, where in fact you could simply respond with "option C is more what I'm looking for".
    • woahAcademia 6y ago
      Appeal to the Authority Is different than Appeal to Authority Wow that's crazy.
    • gadders 6y ago
      >>For instance, my favorite tactic when someone is pushing hard to sell me something or negotiate is the "Appeal to the authority" (i.e. "Let me first talk about it to my wife (or co-founder) about it." In the UK, some sleazy sellers of things like double glazing won't even start discussing the sale unless both husband and wife are present to prevent this tactic.
      • vorpalhex 6y ago
• qwerty1234599 6y ago
  Good chair, good microphone, good webcam
• chrisweekly 6y ago
  https://every-layout.dev https://every-layout.dev has fantastic free content, but the full $100 for all the materials (book, site, components) has had absurdly high ROI for me. I spent less than an hour's consulting wages, and it's been transformative - a gift that keeps giving. Highest possible recommendation. (Web dev since 1998)
• eliseumds 6y ago
  Learning new languages. Lots of doors opened, access to a new world of content. Specially for non-native English speakers.
• spaetzleesser 6y ago
  I think it’s a good idea to invest in courses about negotiation, project management or other interpersonal skills. Toastmasters is also great and cheap. For most software engineers the technical side is the easy part but if you want to survive in a big company you need some level of non technical skills. There are only a few places where you can do well on technical skills alone.
• gtf21 6y ago
  As a founder / CTO the best money I have spent is on a really good coach. My coach (my cofounder's too, and now some of our leadership team) doesn't have particular expertise in founding or leading companies, but works with many founders, and she's not technical, but the things I think I have found hardest to learn are mostly around people management and leadership, which I think are underrated skills that require serious development (actually, whether one is in a position of leadership or not). When I think of all the books I have bought or conferences to which I have been, in terms of impact on my effectiveness as a manager and leader, coaching is wayyyyyyyy out in front. EDIT: actually not just as a leader / manager, but in all areas of my life.
  • radihuq 6y ago
    How did you find your coach?
    • gtf21 6y ago
      Recommendation from an investor and mentor I really respected. She had worked with my coach for years.
  • miguendes 6y ago
    I'm considering hiring a coach to improve my soft skills. The problem is finding the right person. Do you have any tips on how to find such person? Edit: software -> soft I mean stuff like better communication, goal setting, learning strategies, negotiation skills...
    • dpritchett 6y ago
      What are you hoping to learn? Might be hard to get it all from a single coach.
    • radihuq 6y ago
      I'm not a coach, but I know one strategy that helped me IMMENSELY develop my social skills was moving to a new place where I didn't know anyone (and more importantly, no one knew me) and becoming the social person I wanted to be. At first I was pretty socially awkward, but over time (1-2 yrs) I became more confident in social environments and my conversation skills improved. I think the "fake it till you make it" worked great for me here. Obviously there are limitations to this - not sure most people can just move to a new city - but perhaps the principles can be applied ---> put yourself in an environment (like going to a meetup) where no one knows you and act like a socialite
• roel_v 6y ago
  Not technically "spent" because I didn't pay for it myself, but I took a sales course once (2 days in person) which cost whoever ended up paying for me e3000-ish, but I grew more from that course than any technical courses or conferences I ever went to. Still, if I had to do it again but I'd have to pay myself I'm not sure I'd do it, which is a bit of a contradiction I guess.
• deepstack 6y ago
  if you have PSD just use some services to convert it to HTML5. No point hiring a front end developer.
  • deepstack 6y ago
    What I mean is if you are making a SPA. Which is often NOT needed for regular web site unless you have a good reason to do so.
  • segmondy 6y ago
    which services?
• donquichotte 6y ago
  1) Tuition for university (600$/semester * 10 semesters) 2) Sublime Text (80$)
• neillyons 6y ago
  As a Python developer it has to be PyCharm Professional Edition. I am a more effective developer because of it.
  • majora2007 6y ago
    I just switched to PyCharm from VSCode and wow, you're right. It is amazing and makes dealing with venv easy versus when I used vs code I just installed everything globally because I cba.
  • tsjq 6y ago
    For a newbie Python developer & pycharm user (~15 months, at work) , pls share points on the benefits of pycharm professional edition over the free one
    • neillyons 6y ago
      Free version is good too. The differences are listed here https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/#chooseYourEdition https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/#chooseYourEdition
• polskibus 6y ago
  SIGMOD conference, only been once so far (2019). I am interested in database theory and related hard practical problems though, you may not be.
• amir734jj 6y ago
  Spend $0 for tuition and third year PhD student in compilers. The best decision I have made. Hated my masters thesis subject which was about lattice based cryptography.
• tootie 6y ago
  Aside from college, not much. I've read some books and done some courses and conferences but I didn't find any of them to be the least bit useful. One thing I did in college outside of CS education was a class on voice and diction which really helped my speaking. Absolutely everything I've learned to be good at, I've learned by doing. And that includes programming despite having a CS degree.
• robofanatic 6y ago
  If it wasn't 2020 I'd say - Travel
• KptMarchewa 6y ago
  Designing Data-Intensive Applications.
• ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Advanced iOS at Big Nerd Ranch, in 2012. It was still ObjC, back then, but it made a big difference. It was not cheap, but I still believe that it was worth it.
• sukh 6y ago
  Books, Udemy and independent authored content helped me get better at finance and programming. Fuji cameras are great for daily use and its hardware controls teach you how to take nicer stills. Manufacturing a real product helped me learn about distribution and inventory– something I'd never be exposed to in tech. Travel helps me reboot and think about whats really important.
• mikelward 6y ago
  In 2010 I won a ticket to YOW Melbourne. The speakers included Erik Meijer, Guy Steele, Dan Ingalls, and Dave Thomas. If I'd known how good it was going to be I would have paid for it. https://yowconference.com/ https://yowconference.com/
• rectang 6y ago
  I ran a lunch-time book club at work for groups between 3 and 10 people, covering technical topics like programming languages, version control, and so on. After a management change at the company, I couldn't get budget for books or lunches any more. So I bought the books and bought the lunches. The most effective way to learn something thoroughly is to teach it, and I was the facilitator for the book club, leading all the discussions and planning things out. The thousand dollars or so I spent per book, which won me sufficiently motivated study partners depending on me to lead, offered much more value than money spent on typical coursework or conventions. Never mind the value I was providing for the company (lost on the new management, but I felt good about it nonetheless), spending that money was justifiable solely in terms of creating a maximally stimulating learning environment for myself.
  • orzig 6y ago
    Having run something similar ~5y ago, an added benefit is that you end up with former 'students' at companies throughout the industry. Specifically, a pattern I saw 5-10 times is: 1. Someone shows up at the meetings, about 3mo after being hired 2. After 2-3 sessions (to see if their serious) I invite them to lunch 1-on-1. I find out that they are really interested in my topic, and do it as maybe 10% of their role, so their manager suggested they check out my group 3. After 6mo, they invite /me/ to lunch to tell me their applying to transfer to join the team I'm on, which does is focused on the topic. 4. After 1wk, my manager tells me that they were rejected. Understandably, the reasons have to stay in the room. 5. After 2mo, they join an equivalent team at another company 6. After 1-3y, in ~50% of cases, they are senior on that team and check to see if I'm interested in a job.
  • avbanks 6y ago
    Such a great idea, thanks for sharing!
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  If your budget is a few hundred, an IntelliJ Ultimate license. For me it's a force multiplier. Built-in highlights of things that can be improved (e.g. linting) is a bonus. In the end, things like VS Code are just text editors. I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think. Alternatively: Take time off. If you have enough money to live on for a month, take it. Make a list of things you'd like to dig into, or just spend a month doodling. Or take half days off for a month and participate in something like Advent of Code. You can challenge yourself in various ways, like use an unfamiliar language for the month, or a different language every day. Do some tutorials and make stuff in Pico-8, embrace the limitations and embarrassingly unreadable code, which is amazing at the same time because you wrote it and it all fits in your head. Just throwing it out there.
  • paulie_a 6y ago
    I've been using jetbrains products for years and just bought the personal ultimate license this weekend. Their products are great and their support his excellent!
    • danpalmer 6y ago
      I've only had one support interaction but it was fairly poor. Their keyboard layout support didn't correctly honour the keyboard layout in macOS that I used, and the response was "file a bug", pointing me to a public issue tracker where I found someone else had reported it 6 years previously. I think that bug has been open for 8 years now – I got an email when another poor customer found it and asked if there was any update. All the issue asks for is for their products to honour the keys the OS says are being pressed.
  • noir_lord 6y ago
    Second this. I pay for Intellij Ultimate out of pocket, work would buy it but frankly it's easier to just have my own license and I use it a lot outside of work. vscode is fantastic at what it does but one is a wheelbarrow, the other a dump truck.
  • 6y ago
• ajmurmann 6y ago
  I attended a weekend-long T-Group. It's a workshop in sick you get to practice interpersonal interactions dialed to 11 with super fast feedback. It's really hard to describe without it sounding ridiculous. In essence one person says something and then someone else will give them immediate feedback on it. It's hands down the best learning experience I've ever had. It's also very, very hard emotional work. There is a class at Stanford graduate School of business that follows this. I understand it's their most popular class. At Stanford it's stretched over several weeks. The workshop I attended we've from Friday evening to Sunday evening and was hosted by Jana who also is involved with the Stanford class. You can find the Stafford class and links to others who offer this type of experience here: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/learning/leadership/interpersonal-dynamics/facilitation-training-program/intro-tgroup https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/learning/leadership/...
  • penguinium 6y ago
    Are there online T-groups?
    • ajmurmann 6y ago
      I don't know. I attended mine in 2019.
• omginternets 6y ago
  I was lucky enough to get paid for this but I'll say it anyway: learning to speak is the only thing of lasting value I have gotten out of startup accelerators. I would have gladly drop a few grand to acquire that skill. In fact, I'm considering hiring a speaking coach to improve. I've historically been a strong written communicator, but it turns out that speaking is very different from writing. In fact, I had thought of myself as a pretty strong speaker due to my experience giving scholarly presentations ... how wrong I was. Academic talks are a different beast altogether. If you haven't seen Patrick Winston's How to Speak lecture [0], drop what you're doing and watch it now. I'll leave you with a (paraphrased) quote from his lecture: your ideas are like your children and you don't want to send them off into the world dressed in rags. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
  • SZJX 6y ago
    I watched this talk as it was posted on HN a while ago, though I have to say, surprisingly I wasn't very impressed with it for whatever reason. Maybe I have to revisit it to see if I can get more out of it.
  • biztos 6y ago
    Have you heard of Toastmasters?[0] I haven't done this myself but I plan to, as I've heard good things about it, and if you live in a big city or metro area there is probably at least one group you could join. Also in many cities outside the US, for example I think Bangkok has several different ones, I know Budapest has at least two. And it's really cheap, AFAICT, in case that's a factor. It's got a bit of a self-help sheen to it but I knew a couple guys in SF who were involved and they said it was just about public speaking. At which they were much better than I am. [0]: https://www.toastmasters.org https://www.toastmasters.org
    • wenc 6y ago
      I was part of Toastmasters for a while. My observation was that the pedagogy is indirect: the premise is that you are thrown into the deep end and start to speak from day 1 and get feedback from others. The problem is, depending on your cohort, you might or might not get useful feedback. Not everyone knows how to help you improve -- they can only supply perceptions. You might get an experienced Toastmaster in the chapter who is also a good teacher, but you also might not. I found direct pedagogy to be much more useful for me personally. I took an in-person storytelling class and received feedback from an instructor who was also a practitioner. It's much more expensive, but it's still learn-by-doing (had to tell a new story every week for 8 weeks, and classes were 3 hours long each week, and like a workshop, I got real critique (positive and negative) -- so stressful) but I actually learned real technique (stuff like aspects of physical presence, using hooks, different forms of narrative arcs for different genres, etc.) The difference for me was professional feedback, and that difference was appreciable.
• npsimons 6y ago
  Books, but then I've always learned best from books - you set your own pace, they are easily cross-referenced and indexable, and to top it all off books are more often than not structured and well-organized. Re-reading is also an option. I point out all these things to contrast books to lectures or coaching, or even videos; they're just not the same or as good as a good book. As for specifics, if you haven't read it already, "The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master" is excellent and a great place to start, and one of their biggest tips? Read books, at least one per quarter.
• melenaboija 6y ago
  - 15k with an MSc in Data Science after 10 years of professional experience. Key aspects that made this useful for me: I commited to it 100% and went for a 4 gpa as that was the only way to take it seriously, I could do it because of my personal situation and tine availability. I learned A LOT, among other things that I am not that stupid as I thought while taking CS, it was just a matter of interest to me. This gave me my currennt job with a significant turn to my career. - Spending 2k with a work station and changing my environment from expensive Macbooks to an expensive workstation and cheap laptops as a front end
  • vb6sp6 6y ago
    > expensive workstation and cheap laptops as a front end This has worked really well for me too. Desktop is xeon with 64gb ram and I can take advantage of that power from anywhere.
    • melenaboija 6y ago
      Same here, AMD Ryzen 9 3900X with 64gb. I just realized I don't need that when I am seating in front of tv or while traveling, and as long as I can connect two external monitors to my laptop is enough. Something "similar" to this in MacBook world is 4k, and you end up with a portable device with worst battery performance and always suffering that you are about to loose your life. VS Code was definitely something that helped to decide for this configuration.
      • CydeWeys 6y ago
        > Same here, AMD Ryzen 9 3900X with 64gb Same here, those two plus a 2 TB NVMe SSD.
      • x87678r 6y ago
        I've always wanted to do this but do you run IDE on laptop or XWindows/VNC/RDP? Also big screen laptops now are more expensive than smaller ones which is the opposite of 10 years ago.
• baggachipz 6y ago
  Improv lessons. Seriously. Being confident speaking in front of others and the life lessons it provides ("yes, and") are absolutely indispensable. It brought me out of my shell and advanced me in my career significantly, all while having fun and making friends.
  • omar12 6y ago
    Definitely! For me, the skills of listening before responding and processing a response in a timely manner were invaluable lessons learned taking improv classes.
  • joshlk 6y ago
    Good idea. What do you mean exactly by improv lessons?
    • baggachipz 6y ago
      Improv Comedy classes. In any decent-sized city, there is probably at least one comedy theater, and one or many improv groups at each. Some of them offer classes to get into improv comedy. I can recommend a couple in my city (Charlotte) but if you poke around a bit you should be able to find something near you.
  • dbancajas 6y ago
    would you recommend it for someone who's generally not witty and takes at least 5 seconds to answer someone they don't know? basically i'm slow as hell in interactions, especially to new acquaintances.
    • baggachipz 6y ago
      Absolutely. Once you get over yourself, you may be surprised how witty you can be.
• perfmode 6y ago
  49 day solitary meditation retreat $1400
• jensneuse 6y ago
  I left a good paying job to start my first startup where I earned 1/3. The startup failed but I learned so much so that I tripled my initial salary in 2 years after the failing startup. Lesson learned? Take as much risk as you can.
• cjfd 6y ago
  Reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. Reading and practicing Test Driven Development by Kent Beck.
• adenadel 6y ago
  My master's degree. I did a relatively unique (and affordable) program at the University of Oregon that focuses on professional development for scientists and includes a 9 month internship. The program and my internship have completely shaped my professional interests and I think that the program does a really good job of preparing STEM undergrads for careers in industry.
• michjedi 6y ago
  Books. I read about 30-100 work-related books a year and have seen salary double every few years. I try to alternate books between different areas, more or less from these sections: Technical(on currently used technology) Technical(unused tech vaguely related and may be useful) Management Domain(scientific textbooks, best to search from related university course reading lists) Biographies/accounts/events of typical and super users
  • lelele 6y ago
    > I read about 30-100 work-related books a year and have seen salary double every few years. Your salary didn't double because of books. I read a lot of work-related books, too, but my salary has been stagnant for years.
• JRainey 6y ago
  Reforge courses are fantastic.
• JRainey 6y ago
  Reforge courses are fantastic
• maCDzP 6y ago
  Therapy. I've found it extremely helpful in my role as a manager.
• draw_down 6y ago
  Sublime Text, $70. There are things I enjoy about conferences but they have to be the lowest in terms of ROI. Hundreds, maybe even $1k+ to watch some goofball get on stage and talk about the lambda calculus for the umpteenth time. “Look, all of computation can be derived from this primitive!” Yep, thanks.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• enz 6y ago
  Obviously, books! When I was younger (before my first job), I was spending $5/month for a cheap VPS. I have learnt Linux administration basic with that VPS and I get a job a few month later. So, money very well spent, I guess.
• jrvarela56 6y ago
  Onsite Workshops in TN, USA. This is not your typical trainning or practical skills-focused workshop. 6 days of group therapy without access to phone/computer. ~5-6k for the course + room and board. Price has been rising but it's worth every penny. You explore personal issues through guided group dynamics. You share and listen to others. By the end of the course, you know more about your group partners' lives than anyone you've known in 'real life'. I learned so much about myself, how to deal with my feelings and the impact my experiences/impressions have on my performance as a professional, family member and partner.
• bvm 6y ago
  A decent desktop computer.
• clintonb 6y ago
  The book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith helped me become a better, more empathetic, teammate. It’s less than $20, but worth far more.
• macjohnmcc 6y ago
  As a Visual Studio user I find the plugin FastFind to be invaluable. Insanely fast search tool.
• unoti 6y ago
  1. Book: Nonviolent Communication, by Marhsall Rosenberg PhD. Great things are built by teams. The more senior I become, the greatest challenges involve teamwork, and the programming is the easy part. I've read countless leadership and self help books, but the simple concepts in just the first few chapters were absolutely transformative to me. 2. The Fast AI for coders course and associated book. (Maybe this shouldn't be on this list, because it's free, but it's still the absolute best place to learn machine learning from scratch.) This is a book and a set of videos that go over the same material. I work on a team of data scientists, and using information from the first few chapters of this book I've done things that are far beyond the capabilities of my teammates. Unlike most courses, this starts with practical knowledge you can use to do useful work on day 1. Then later it moves into the theory of how it works. You don't need more than high school math to get going. 3. The Coursera Deep Learning Specialization, a set of 5 AI courses. Has a certification you can use on your resume and LinkedIn.
  • elchief 6y ago
    I second NVC by Rosenberg. The only problem with reading it is you then realize how violently everyone communicates
  • animesh 6y ago
    > The Fast AI for coders course and associated book Is it this course? https://course.fast.ai/ https://course.fast.ai/
    • unoti 6y ago
      Yep! That's the one. Start today!
  • ogjunkyard 6y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation on the FastAI for Coders course/book. I immediately bought it based on the Amazon page and have spent the last hour reading it. I FINALLY feel like a book about AI/ML/Deep Learning gets where I'm coming from, and that's enough to get started and keep me going (at least for now).
• mbloom1915 6y ago
  Venture University - just an awesome way to immerse yourself into how venture capital works and what it takes for both the startup and investor to achieve their goals. So much of our future falls in the hands of companies and investors funding them, so knowing how all of this works is crucial to understanding why and when company's make huge decisions that impact us. https://www.venture.university/ https://www.venture.university/
• rticesterp 6y ago
  Two day presentation skills class. The class went over how to present for a large group and how to make slides that are easy to understand. Other topics focused on engaging the audience with stories that are easy to understand. The course concluded with everyone giving a five minute presentation. Feedback on limiting filler words and hand gestures was invaluable
• therealplato 6y ago
  "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" is the best reference I've found explaining the many pitfalls of data storage and transmission. It's especially helpful if your code has ownership of any data (i.e. if you create or modify it), and an order of magnitude more useful if your organization has multiple processes touching a given piece of data. https://dataintensive.net/ https://dataintensive.net/
• zerop 6y ago
  Please don't fund money on any training/book/online. This doesn't work in most cases and might influence incorrectly. Look for ways where you would get more interaction/engagement with skilled and diverse set of people. The lessons should touch your mind and must be hard earned. That's when they will stay with you. Rest of trainings/book take aways are someone else's experiences and effects are very ephemeral and might be incorrect sometimes. The key is to look for deeper experiences.
• corytheboyd 6y ago
  Kind of off topic, as it’s instead a tool, but buying a Jetbrains license was a big win for me. If you put in the time to learn it, it really does give you superpowers. You won’t 10x your productivity, think more like 1.5x, but IMO that is huge for something you spend so much time with as a software engineer.
• motohagiography 6y ago
  Not money spent, but time wise, doing YC's startup school a couple years ago. https://www.startupschool.org/library https://www.startupschool.org/library
• BenGosub 6y ago
  Two things I've focused on improving lately are: - Improving my typing speed and technique (there are many free web sites to do this) and - Improving my algorithm skills by doing exercises on HackerRank and Exercism.
• iancmceachern 6y ago
  Conferences, for the folks you meet and connections you make, not the Conferenc talks themselves.
• austincheney 6y ago
  ISC2 CISSP Course book - https://www.amazon.com/Official-ISC-Guide-CISSP-CBK/dp/1119423341 https://www.amazon.com/Official-ISC-Guide-CISSP-CBK/dp/11194... Now it's the 5th edition. I read this a decade ago when it was the second edition. I just the book and was able to then pass the test. This is a great book to learn about security even if you don't care to certify. Judging from many comments I have seen on Hacker News most software developers really have absolutely no idea what security really is. CISSP remains the industry gold standard for security. WCAG 2.0 - https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ WCAG is the gold standard for accessibility. Most governments including the US government conforms to WCAG for accessibility guidance and criteria.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• factorialboy 6y ago
  IntellijIDEA
• locochef 6y ago
  The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affects not only your home life, but your work life. Taking the time to talk to a professional and become introspective and conscious of my own mental health has provided me with more value than all the books and conferences and talks I've consumed put together.
  • ilyas121 6y ago
    This for me as well! I used to think that if I was inward-looking enough I could handle all of this myself. But outsourcing this kind of work to a professional has saved me so much time and trial&error with how to take care of my mental health.
    • mac01021 6y ago
      Is it possible for you, without sharing personal details that you would rather not share, to give a more concrete and detailed account of the value that your therapist has provided to you? I've also always regarded myself as introspective enough not to be able to benefit from therapy. And, while I'm open minded to the idea that I am wrong about that, I just have trouble imagining or envisioning what I might be missing.
      • geewee 6y ago
        Not the OP but I have similar experiences and am also very introspective. For me, my introspection dealt a lot with what my thoughts were and how I behaved, but I had a lot of feelings that I had suppressed so deeply they never really came into consciousness. Therapy helped a lot with that.
      • trwhite 6y ago
        The kind of advice you'll most likely receive won't be like anything you'd hear from a friend or family member. A therapist thinks critically and draws your attention to the language you use, ideas you'd not previously considered etc. I'm a very reflective person and therapy's helped me make sense of it all.
• gwlperl 6y ago
  Computer science degree at the University of Florida, which cost me about $5,000 in 1985.
• rsync 6y ago
  A few computers, some digiboards, a bocaboard, 12 modems and a T1 to my first apartment in Boulder. Of course the BBS only lasted 18 months and never made any money but it provided an early (1995) and very in-depth window into what running an ISP would be like and eventually a PaaS/IaaS (or whatever rsync.net is). In second place for "best money you have spent on professional development?" would be hotel/flight costs for Defcon 6-10.
• analog31 6y ago
  Something you're interested in, but don't have the self discipline or resources to learn on your own. For instance I loved math and science but would not have been disciplined enough to organize and follow through with my own course of study. Those became my college majors. On the other hand, I found it trivially easy and effortless to learn things like computer programming and electronics (after the basic intro courses got me started), and have not received any further training in those things, though I use them every day. So, without identifying a particular subject, match something you're interested in, with a way of teaching/learning, that you're unlikely to be able to provide for yourself. Also, some of those things such as courses at your nearby college, or a conference, have the added benefit of removing you from the daily hurly-burly with your supervisor's blessing.
• Separo 6y ago
  $0 for HardvardX CS50
• tekno45 6y ago
  Pluralsight got me a job because I better understood how i could automate smaller tasks. Powershell and python got me off the helpdesk, pluralsight helped me glue it together into SRE skills.
• miffe 6y ago
  Not exactly what your asking for, but I found that a good roller mouse helped immensely for reducing the strain i my arm due to the mouse.
• 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  Textbooks in general (like academic textbooks, not orielly style books). Work through a textbook or three each year, and once you’re a decade into your career it’s like you have another degree under your belt. Find something you want to dive deep on and instead of reading a dozen blogs, buy the textbook and do some of the exercises as you go. It keeps you spending time in foundational stuff rather than specific frameworks, and it pays incredible dividends. It’s slow as hell, and only really pays off on many year timescales, but don’t discount it for that.
  • nwhitehead 6y ago
    This is a good one. It is all too easy to spend years casually "interested" in a topic without developing a true foundation of the important ideas in the field. In my case I spent two decades casually reading about economics. But then one day I ordered an economics textbook to work through the problems, and found out that I basically knew nothing and couldn't do any of the problems. A few months of slowly working through the textbook gave me a much deeper level of understanding. I could do the problems now.
  • mannymanman 6y ago
    Examples of textbooks you have used?
    • 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
      I just looked through my bookshelves and here’s what I’ve been through since college (in no particular order other than top to bottom on my shelves): 7 books on general ML (highlights: Murphy’s Machine Learning, Hastie et al’s ESL, Koller&Friedman’s PGMs) 5 on more specialized ML (highlights: Agarwal&Chen’s statistical recommender systems book, Manning&Schutze’s statistical NLP, Settles’ active learning) 13 on stats (highlights: Wooldridge’s econometrics of x-section/panel data, Angrist&Pischke’s econometrics) 4 on numerical methods (highlight: Absil et al’s optimization on matrix manifolds) 4 on CS (highlight: CLRS’s intro to algorithms) 10 on calculus/geometry/topology/algebra (highlights: Bachman’s geometric approach to differential forms, Hestenes&Sobzyk's Clifford algebra to geometric calculus) 8 on fiction writing (highlight: Bickham’s Scene & Structure) And Rosenberg‘s Nonviolent Communication (not a textbook, but still a highlight worth mentioning). It amounts to between 3 and 4 per year. Looking back and counting them up, my reaction is holy crap that’s a lot, but that’s kinda the point. Each year it is a reasonable amount of self study. Not nothing, but not anything crazy. Over the course of many years, it adds up to a hell of a lever.
• cashewchoo 6y ago
  A $5 DigitalOcean droplet/VPS. There's so much packed in there. A public, static IP and just enough RAM and disk to do anything you could possibly want to. And the relatively low RAM and disk limits does make you think about memory and disk consumption in a way that you're seldom otherwise incentivized to think about it while you're in undergrad. It's also a gateway to developing working proficiency with linux, which is absolutely a huge multiplier for any software engineer. Just knowing how to grep, sed and 'awk {print $1}' gets you so amazingly far. And on a higher level, knowing how to throw together an nginx proxy or simple postgres db etc is also huge.
  • MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    My habit, when I'm playing with a new language, or other command-line-friendly gadget, is to spin up a new GNU/Linux VM on a cloud somewhere, dabble on there, then delete the VM once I'm done. If I've got any files worth keeping I put them on GitHub. Don't have to worry about filling my own machine with rubbish, I can load the VM without it impacting my own machine, and I can generally be fearless (and incautious) in the knowledge the machine is of no real consequence. It's also a good way to try out an unfamiliar distro, or an unfamiliar Unix. > It's also a gateway to developing working proficiency with linux And also with cloud computing. It's a good excuse to play about with EC2 firewalls, for instance.
  • andrewmcwatters 6y ago
    LowEndBox, and you can get $15/year VPSs out there.
    • jldugger 6y ago
      free-for-dev lists a couple of free forever hosts -- OCI and GCP.
      • andrewmcwatters 6y ago
        Thanks for sharing! I've never heard of free-for.dev.
  • 6y ago
• stevehiehn 6y ago
  This was the greatest $20 I ever spent on my career: https://www.udemy.com/course/master-the-coding-interview-data-structures-algorithms/ https://www.udemy.com/course/master-the-coding-interview-dat...
• sanguy 6y ago
  The therapist is a good one already suggested. Also instead of other PD I would suggest to save (invest) as much as possible as early as possible. A career in tech is very seldom healthy as a forever job so having an escape path is important. I used this technique to get enough invested by 45 that I could comfortably live on the dividends/capital gains/passive income it generates without ever touching the investment principle. This is a very nice feeling as it allowed me to "escape the grinder." Telling Eric Schmidt (while at Google) to "go fuck yourself" and walk out the door to never return was the most empowering thing I have ever done. My career has been much more rewarding since.
  • sharadov 6y ago
    Most people here are saying therapists, but the crux of the problem is the "tech" job. The sooner you can get out the better. Everything else is a band aid.
  • webmaven 6y ago
    > Telling Eric Schmidt (while at Google) to "go fuck yourself" and walk out the door to never return was the most empowering thing I have ever done. > My career has been much more rewarding since. That sounds like an interesting story. Any more details?
    • tsjq 6y ago
      I'm guessing he/she had a good amount of "fuck you money" ! ;)
      • webmaven 6y ago
        I am sure that explains the ability to do so, but not the motivation or proximate cause.
  • Dragonai 6y ago
    > Telling Eric Schmidt (while at Google) to "go fuck yourself" and walk out the door to never return was the most empowering thing I have ever done. You can't mention this and not tell the full story. You know what you were doing here :)
• simmons 6y ago
  This may not be a useful answer for you depending on your situation, but the best money I've spent on professional development has been funding sabbaticals between gigs where I engage in deep study on topics that are harder to learn in small doses.
  • wimagguc 6y ago
    This is a useful answer, especially because I don't think most people consider or make this decision mindfully. Sabbaticals can be an important option not only to advance your professional development but also to avoid burnout. And I always hear people who consider it, but nine times out of ten (or probably more), they drop the idea for a copout reason (I met someone / need to save money for X / this job is too great to leave)
  • markus_zhang 6y ago
    John Carmack did a lot of programming retreats for his research too. Guess it was really useful.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• kirillcool 6y ago
  A good chair. If you're going to spend the next 30 years sitting 8-10 hours a day, do your body a favor and invest into a good chair.
• anon776 6y ago
  Uncle Bobs Clean Code class. In person class over 2 days, shredded a lot of bad habits I had.
• hinkley 6y ago
  On this general topic, someone pointed out to me years ago that whenever interest rates are lower than inflation, 'investing in your future' may be the best use for the money. That could be increasing your salary, making yourself more employable, building your social network, or even finding a pastime that makes you happier than what you usually do with your free time.
• mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  I’ll give an example of a horrible waste of money on manager training: Plucky https://www.beplucky.com/ https://www.beplucky.com/ The whole thing has this arrogant faux-subversive “not your grandma’s manager training” attitude that seeps into every aspect, and it makes a lot of pretense about being candid but in reality it has zero useful or new advice to offer, just rehashing well-known management considerations but trying to retrofit some notion of being more candid and edgy onto it. Most of the advice is even harmful because forcing more confrontational notions of candid behavior into management will not work at all in most large corporate cultures. Plucky is essentially a way to get your company to pay for you to travel to another city, and mingle with other “edgy” tech leaders, which is insufferable and boring. 1000% do not recommend.
• 1-6 6y ago
  Dave Ramsey on YouTube
• evo_9 6y ago
  Online learning resources such as PluralSight, Udemy, Coursera. I use to buy courses that were long/complete but rarely finished them; too much basic stuff was covered and/or gone into detail that was a waste of time. I now buy courses that are 4-5 hours tops and really dig into a topic I want to learn about. I used this technique to retool my skillset after having a few setbacks in row job-wise; it's incredible the effect of this change in approach has had for me.
• cl42 6y ago
  Professional CEO coach. I spent 3 years working with him and it was the best personal development I could have committed to. I learned that leadership is a trainable skillset, and that interpersonal dynamics are also something you can practice and improve upon.
• vishnugupta 6y ago
  Not exactly “development” category, buying high quality tools that I use on a daily basis has been hugely beneficial. JetBrains developer pack in particular, I don’t know the exact name but you get their whole suite of developer tools. I can’t live without two of them at the moment, DataGrip and WebStorm.
• an_d_rew 6y ago
  Assertiveness training. The difference between being assertive and being aggressive can be more subtle than you think, but the rewards for you and your team (and your friendships and your relationships) can be boundless.
• timwaagh 6y ago
  I really don't know. College is the biggest investment I did. But whether it was worth it depends on whether I could have gotten a programming job without it and I'm just not sure about the answer. As for the rest of it, I do have an Oracle certification which is generally recommended for Java developers. But I never spent a dime for that, although perhaps i should have done it earlier.
• pinewurst 6y ago
  Buying "The C Programming Language" by K&R back in 1983. :)
• david_shaw 6y ago
  The best money I've spent on professional development is paying to travel to industry conferences at which I was accepted to speak. Like many people, I was nervous about public speaking earlier in my career. Out of a desire to improve myself and to "give back" to the community, I applied to speak at some industry conferences. Many people think about conferences as TED-talk style luxury events, at which speakers are compensated for their time and expertise. In reality, the only thing most conferences give speakers are a few free tickets to the conference and access to speaker-only events. Travel (and often lodging) need to be bought out-of-pocket. By putting myself out of my comfort zone and speaking at these conferences, I developed valuable skills that significantly helped my career as it continued to develop. Being able to speak confidently in stressful situations -- to a wide variety of audiences -- is a very valuable skill to have. In addition to the confidence boost of getting some talks under my belt -- and the actual skill of public speaking -- the networking opportunities afforded to conference speakers are often unmatched. I was able to have intimate conversations with leaders in my field (information security), and learn first-hand how luminaries think about contemporary challenges. I realize this answer probably doesn't conform to the type of response that OP was seeking, but it's the truth of my experience. Good luck!
  • swyx 6y ago
    this is a surprising answer. in my world (react/frontend) most conferences pay for travel or at least help defer a significant amount of the cost up to a limit. your employer should also have a budget for conf travel. but agreed on the reward of speaking at confs. just that people shouldnt find it a norm to pay to speak.
    • david_shaw 6y ago
      > your employer should also have a budget for conf travel. In my case, my employer paid my travel/lodging fees and I did not have to pay anything out-of-pocket (or take PTO or anything). However, if I were (for example) between jobs -- or if my employer refused to pay for travel/lodging to conferences -- I'd still strongly recommend the buy. In my experience, larger or more corporate conferences tend to pay more (including travel, lodging, and sometimes cash compensation), but the smaller, more "community-oriented" conferences do not.
• gpspake 6y ago
  Somebody told me to go watch a specific course on Frontend Masters and I ended up watching over a hundred hours of courses. In addition to all the valuable practical things I learned, I was amazed at the content and it raised the bar for the level of quality I demand from learning resources. There are a lot of trash courses and books out there that aren't worth the time. Now I vet things more before diving in. That and my Jetbrains all products license :)
• stopachka 6y ago
  The habit I’ve stuck with the longest, which continues to bear fruit: 1. If a book comes to mind, just buy it. No wishlists, no libraries. Feel free to get _both_ kindle and paperback, even the audible. The returns on this habit are incalculable. I do this at an extreme level, which amounts to about 5k / year. That’s similar to a great gym membership or owning a small car. Expensive but doable.
  • LaundroMat 6y ago
    I buy most books second hand. I'm not interested in the newest and latest (hearing about a book years after it was published is a signal of quality) so that saves me a lot of money. Also, I'm not attached to those books as much as I would be if I had bought them new, which means I have less of an issue clearing them out to save space.
  • nikisweeting 6y ago
    This only works if you actually read them.
  • jtsiskin 6y ago
    I do something similarish - if a book comes to mind, find it on “the internet” right away. Buy the physical book if I like the first chapter or two.
• ethbr0 6y ago
  > What would you do if you had a million dollars? > I'll tell you what I'd do, man, two monitors at the same time. Maybe I have less mental swap space than the average person, but nothing has increased my productivity like monitor space. Plunking down for an ultawidescreen was the best development decision I've made. Being able to have specs/docs + IDE + search + chat/email open at the same time, accessible with a physical turn of my head, greatly boosted my productivity.
  • ralfhn 6y ago
    To each their own but I found the opposite to be true. Coding or trying to focus on one one task while chat/email notifications are popping up left and right is very disruptive. I went down from two monitors to one and I'm very happy with the decision.
    • mynameisvlad 6y ago
      One benefit I've had from an ultrawide monitor is that notifications will generally go unnoticed. I just bought a 49" ultrawide (essentially two 27" monitors side by side) and the notification area is so far into my peripheral vision I regularly miss messages.
      • ethbr0 6y ago
        I guess this is my experience as well. Previously, I felt like I had two choices: (1) mute+hide all notifications, or (2) leave them visible/alerting. Now, there's (3) leave them visible, but outside my focus. Physically turning my focus to bring them into view, whenever I have a break, seems to work better than either of the other two.
• k__ 6y ago
  A therapist, haha. But this was already stated here. Otherwise? Hard to say. I think nothing that cost me money has helped me at least as much as the things I got money for. I got a bunch of certs, but I think they alone aren't any good. Certs, jobs, projects, customers, awards, all together form a picture that you know what you're doing. The more you show, the less people ask questions that are potentially not it your favor.
• sys_64738 6y ago
  Got an MBA.
• landemva 6y ago
  Disconnect for a couple weeks. Backpack or sail. Pause and reflect.
• 1970-01-01 6y ago
  SANS training is worth the $$$$ prices.
• issa 6y ago
  I would suggest spending any extra time and money you have on doing something fun and helpful. For example, learning to play poker, or chess. Both of those things will tangentially help you in your professional life, but are also enjoyable hobbies. I don't mean to limit it to strategy games. Almost anything that involves some learning will end up being beneficial at some level even if it is not technically professional development.
  • kruuuder 6y ago
    OP isn't looking for general advice but for actual, personal stories.
• rootsudo 6y ago
  Stylist, proper clothing and health/gym. It seems silly, the more you feel like you belong, or general how people think you belong works better. If you can do the work/job, even better.
• 12daysuicide 6y ago
  One day down, another day closer to suicide. 12 days till I kill myself. I decided to do this every day until then. This is to see if there is actually genuine human beings in this world that will answer my question. Yesterday, commenters created a throwaway account just to provide the most mediocre advice in the world. So I ask once again: how do you get a job?
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• p0nce 6y ago
  Singing lessons were immensely valuable to me for an unexpected reasons: to really make progress in singing you need to forego a lot of older habits and rearrange your neurons, a process that was apparently well understood by the teacher, and that tilted all my subsequent learning endeavours into "finding eigenvalues".
  • alok-g 6y ago
    Can you expand more on the connection to eigenvalues? :-) Thanks.
    • p0nce 6y ago
      As an example. Suppose you get an interest in your bodily functions, and try experimenting with foods and stuff. You want to understand this stuff. At first your mental model will be very confused. You may think that you can sense your (say) sodium levels while ignoring much larger effects you can't name yet, and confuse them with those you have named. As you "diagonalize" your experiments and results, you find that the one thing that dominate health is the "quantity of inflammation". inflammated vs non-inflammated can then be seen as an "eigenvalue" of bodily function space. Having this first, dominant eigenvector that you can feel will help you identify the second, then the third... until you get into irrelevancy territory. This is all assuming linearity of things, so of course it has limitations, but your "System 1" neural processes could also be roughly modelled with dot products, from higher dimensional spaces to a single value (ref: Thinking Fast and Slow). What I wanted to say is that singing leassons taught me to decipher the non-eigen vectors from those uncorrelated (important factors in an outcome). What happens, at least in singing, is that this diagonalized learning strongly outperforms whatever I had before. For other domains I may very well trick myself :) The analogy is a metaphor with linear algebra, in linear algebra / PCA you find eigenvectors to decorrelate things.
      • alok-g 6y ago
        Got you. Basically what you are saying is that as one learns anything, because of the correlations, important directions may be different than what was apparent earlier. E.g., considering how beautiful a face looks is determined by many features together, but some are more imoortant than others. There come the eigenvectors... :-) So to maximize potential, it becomes important to find the eigenvector with the largest eigenvalue. If I understood your message correctly, then extension to non-linear world is trivial (though linear approximations would often be good enough). Thanks.
• vermooten 6y ago
  MSc in CS at Manchester University. Life-changing.
• xwvvvvwx 6y ago
  Cutting my working hours, which gave me more peace of mind and time to study.
• mmhsieh 6y ago
  $10 or so spent on the dynamics of software development by jim mccarthy.
• lmilcin 6y ago
  Nice pen, paper and ink. I have found I am getting much better results and much less stuff falls through the cracks when I make notes on paper. Nice pen, paper and ink aren't essential, but they make it more enjoyable. Audible. I used to fill my long commute times with Harvard Business Review and other similar content. As I already have a bit of experience, these allowed me to connect a lot of dots together. * In general most of good advice is not given out freely and learning on your own mistakes costs a lot of time (and reputation). Be prepared to pay for it. I pay regularly for access to materials that let me save time and grow faster and for tools that let me do that with less effort. Not all of them give me immediate results but the ones that do make it all up.
• nunorbatista 6y ago
  I consider the investment on my Masters was worth it. It changed the way I see the world and improved dramatically my writing skills.
• miguelrochefort 6y ago
  $3200 for a Bachelor of CS degree at Western Governors University. It graduated in just 2 months due to my 10+ years of experience in tech. I recommend it to every experienced programmer considering getting a degree.
• openfuture 6y ago
  Laptops and different form factor computers. Linux is huge and tinkering is how you learn it, I have at least one laptop in an inoperable state at any time... Other than that travel to events and being able to buy time to study.
• tpineiro 6y ago
  I'm consulting for a company that is hosting super inexpensive workshop on change management for Managers and ICs on 12/9. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/plumeria-workshops-managing-thriving-in-change-tickets-127506189445 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/plumeria-workshops-managing-thr... It's geared towards identifying when and how to guide yourself and others through company changes. So, while not specifically tailored for software dev it can definitely help with communication as a whole.
• aaron695 6y ago
  Overseas junkets. If you are paying for all of it, put the money into the trip over the conference. Find something community driven so the conference bit was cheaper and it's a good group of people. Infosec conferences used to be value for money and looked good in interviews. Mix of 3 letter to government to professional to amateur to blackhat people to hang with.
• breckenedge 6y ago
  Not exactly spent, but I gave up $40k/year in salary to go work at a company that I respect, with people that I respect, with a lot of nice benefits and proper work/life balance. I’m much happier with my career now.
• nkkav 6y ago
  On the cheap side, books, but not all of them. My buys are "hit or miss", lately mostly hits. I would recommend: - The Elements of Style, aka, "the Little book". Made me a credible editor (and documentation writer at the time) almost at zero time. - Zero to One: in-depth, honest, and non-conformist view of the tech startup landscape. "How Google Works" is a close second. - The Embedded Systems Dictionary. Not in print but the second-hand paperback is worth it. Great refresher, written with a wit. Another book I use is "The Developer's Guide to Debugging". In general I like zero-bullshit or more politely, zero fat books. "The Elements of Style" is one. "The Developer's Guide to Debugging" is also very low in fat, war stories and other nonsense. There are other books that I like that are less influential. Aphorism: I don't believe in software books. Exceptions are well-researched reference volumes, e.g., "C: A Reference Manual, 5th edition". I believe in undisputed truths, not in one person's preference or experience over another's. These days I mostly consult manuals and standard documents. Technical books will only give you that much; see them as a vehicle to learn how to learn. Exceptions are again reference handbooks, that will have to be exhaustive. I don't believe in trainings, fast, slow or anything. Self-learner here, learned reading by myself around the age of 3 (shocking revelation: have you realized that you can only recall detailed memories only after you have learnt how to read?) Actually it was exactly the winter of 1980 (born 1977). I was a serviceable reader by the coming of sprint 1980 and could read subtitles as fast as the adult is assumed to by early 1981. Educated physicist but self-educated programmer.
• marviio 6y ago
  Membership fee to the University Student Computer Association. I got exposed to UNIX (BSD 4.3 Reno) and the Internet as the first HTTP servers went up (the good stuff was still only on Gopher and FTP). I wasn't studying Computer Science or anything close, but I learned so much that I can look back on almost 25 years in IT.
• g3ph4z 6y ago
  I bought a new monitor (it wasn't expensive), a headphone, comfy chair. I spend half of day at my desk, so I think it was necessary. Also I bought a lot books.
• Trailing2Dots 6y ago
  While my professional life was going well, my personal life sucked. I considered my self a self-development junkie - trying one method after another. I lucked onto a seminar called "The Secret of Creating Your Future". One of its tenets is goal setting. This seminar was an introduction to NLP - a worthy goal. My original goal was to better my professional development, but I discovered that my personal development was improving enormously as well. Eventually I was enrolled in courses aimed primarily at professional therapists. They certainly welcomed me as they need people to practice with as they themselves are learning new techniques. This series has enormously transformed both my professional and personal life. Highly recommended.
• tobiasbischoff 6y ago
  I was always working on laptops ever. But given that travel moved to zero and will stay that way for some time I invested in a maxed out desktop PC that triple boots into linux, win10 and MacOS - a real dream and productivity workhorse.
• ckib16 6y ago
  Learning about financial independence. The peace of mind that comes from knowing you have your financial world in order is enormous and opens up many possibilities. You are in control once you have 'F--- You" money.
• caviv 6y ago
  I know it sounds like cliché, but actually my B.A. in Psychology and Business Management. Cost met around $12K the whole university studying but gave me much more than I expected regarding understanding myself.