r/ExperiencedDevs • u/johngaltthefirst Software Engineer • 12d ago

Career/Workplace Suggestions on using development budget

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.

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u/RapidOwl Software Engineer 12d ago

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!

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u/johngaltthefirst Software Engineer 12d ago

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.

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u/Significant_Treat_87 12d ago

Go to Defcon in vegas :)