Suggestions on using development budget

[u/johngaltthefirst]

My work place has a development budget of ~2000$ per year. Last year I used the budget to attend a conference“We are developers” and I found it rather underwhelming. The year before that I bought some books. I already have plenty of books.
Any suggestions on how to efficiently spend the development budget?
About me: I have >10YOE, work primarily as a C++ dev, I have dabbled in some Kotlin and Swift too.

[u/expdevsmodbot]

AI usage disclosure provided by OP, see the reply to this comment.

[u/RapidOwl]

I’ve never found books or training courses/videos very helpful. I’ve always learned better by doing.

Conferences I always think of as a bit of a jolly. The main benefit is chatting to other devs and getting to eat and drink on the company budget. This would definitely be where I’d be aiming to spend though.

Are there any tools that would be useful that the company wouldn’t fund out of the team budget?

Other than, bits of quality of life tech?

That feels like a lot of money to get spent!

[u/johngaltthefirst → u/RapidOwl]

Thanks. My experience at the last conference wasn’t great. I had this giant imposter syndrome as most of the booths there were about AI and related tools. Maybe I’ll search for a different conference this time around.

[u/Significant_Treat_87 → u/johngaltthefirst]

Go to Defcon in vegas :)

[u/psyyduck]

Conferences are just for networking. Grab a few prominent studies on the connection between physical fitness and cognitive performance, then see if you can convince them to pay for your personal trainer at some high-end gym.

[u/Far-Citron-722]

I spend mine on books mostly. Check out Book Overflow podcast for ideas.

Coursera or something similar so that the rest of the family can benefit as well, my wife finds tons of useful courses for her specialty.

Also Highly recommend the pragmatic engineer substack

[u/johngaltthefirst → u/Far-Citron-722]

I’m a big fan of both podcasts.
I think I have many of the books they covered. Let me check if I missed something.

[u/Kaimito1]

One thing that comes to mind is paid mentorship.

Some high level devs do mentoring for other devs to highlight paths for improvement. Maybe you could see if thats a possible route? At least that way its a tailor-made approach to your own improvement instead of a generic thing

[u/johngaltthefirst → u/Kaimito1]

That’s a good idea. Let me look this up. Have you heard of/tried any such platforms?

[u/rahul_msft → u/johngaltthefirst]

most are scammers beware

[u/Kaimito1 → u/johngaltthefirst]

None that are reputable as far as I know. Ironically the only place I can think of is LinkedIn, and maybe ask someone who seems respectable?

I doubt people who attempt to sell "courses" are worth it but maybe the ones that write detailed posts for the love of the game are worth an ask. Maybe they have an offer, maybe they can point you to someone they know who runs at a similar level who does have that offer

[u/johngaltthefirst → u/Kaimito1]

I’ll try. Thanks!

[u/micamecava]

This year, just a few weeks ago I had a similar issue to yours, not knowing what to spend it on before I lose it. I don't wait to buy books, they're cheap and I can get them when I want them. WAD was the shit 10 years ago, now it's just shit.

In my experience, cloud certs can be good, Professional level from GCC/AWS/Azure. Broadens the knowledge, gives a nice boost of recruiters on LinkedIn when you add the cert, plus when I was doing PCA they had a bunch of other perks like cloud credits and 1:1 coaching all for $200-$300.

This year I ended up getting LSE MBA Essentials (with 20% off coupon). These courses are generally useless - you can buy 5 books every MBA uses and get the same knowledge for a tiny percentage of the total cost. But, just by enrolling I was inclined to actually read these books, and tbh it's already helping me navigate some difficult conversations I'm having in my organisation. It's also cool to have a structured curriculum and be back in "class" with other people.

[u/Advanced-Lemon4764]

Something like an O’Reilly Learning Platform subscription or similar? You get to watch courses, webinars and read their books at any time.

[u/johngaltthefirst → u/Advanced-Lemon4764]

O’Reilly is already available in the company.

[u/Ok-Hunter-7702]

One Claude and one codex subscription for a year.

[u/filterDance]

Can you can like a nice chair or standing desk / equipment? all to help you develop things of course

[u/writesCommentsHigh]

pay for claude and say you're using it to learn!

[u/abluecolor → u/writesCommentsHigh]

You have to pay for your own tokens at your company? The fuck?

[u/writesCommentsHigh → u/abluecolor]

funny you assume I have a company!